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Enmerkar and The Lord of Aratta
The full text of a legendary Sumerian account. Details the diplomatic exchange between King Enmerkar of Uruk, and an unnamed Lord of Aratta, circa 2100 BC.
Enmerkar requests precious stones for a new temple, but Aratta needs barley as his people are in famine. Though Enmerkar begins negotiations belligerently, Aratta does not fear Uruk's military might. Thus begins the conflict between the two cities.
The text is reportedly a very early version of the Bible's Tower of Babel ("Confusion of Tongues") narrative. Also notable is a story about the invention of writing on clay tablets.
Source : http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1...
Enmerkar requests precious stones for a new temple, but Aratta needs barley as his people are in famine. Though Enmerkar begins negotiations belligerently, Aratta does not fear Uruk's military might. Thus begins the conflict between the two cities.
The text is reportedly a very early version of the Bible's Tower of Babel ("Confusion of Tongues") narrative. Also notable is a story about the invention of writing on clay tablets.
Source : http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1...
7 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2101
112 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 24, 2016
An actual text from Mesopotamian history. Gives priceless insight into the daily economic lives of people at the dawn of civilization… and set in pristine lands that only the ancients were lucky enough to witness.
With such descriptive, poetic quotes:
————————-
“Kolaba… where destiny is determined.”
“Let Aratta pack nuggets of gold in leather sacks … package up precious metals, and load the packs on the donkeys of the mountains.”
“For the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings…”
"Messenger, by night drive on like the south wind! By day be up like the dew!”
“The lord of Unug, the sajkal snake living in Sumer, who pulverizes mountains like flour…”
“Water libations are offered and flour is sprinkled; on the mountain, sacrifices and prayers are offered in obeisance.”
“He need not pour barley into sacks, nor have it carted, nor have that barley carried into the settlements, nor place collectors over the laborers.”
“Like a sand fly he went on his way in the morning calm.”
“He even bellowed at him like a bull, and Enmerkar listened to him like an ox driver.”
“Then the lord opened his mighty storehouse, and firmly set his great lidga-measure on the ground. The king removed his old barley from the other barley; he soaked the greenmalt all through with water... the hirin plant. He narrowed the meshes of the carrying nets. He measured out in full the barley for the granary, adding for the teeth of locusts.”
“He made the people go on to Aratta on their own, like ants out of crevices.”
"The base of my sceptre is the divine power of magnificence.”
“Let him hold it in his hand like a string of carnelian beads, a string of lapis lazuli beads.”
“His feet raised the dust of the road and made the little pebbles of the hills thud, like a dragon prowling the desert unopposed.”
"Contemplate a sceptre that is not of wood, nor designated as wood - not ildag, cimgig, cedar, cypress, hacur-cypress, palm, hardwood, nor zabalum - not poplar as in a chariot, not reedwork as in whip handles; not gold, copper, genuine kumea metal, silver, cornelian, nor lapis lazuli…”
“He ran in one track, like a long-wool sheep butting other sheep in its fury.”
“The messenger, whose journey to Aratta was like a pelican over the hills, a fly over the ground, darting through the mountains as swiftly as carp swim, reached Aratta.”
“As for we in dire hunger, in our direst famine, are we to prostrate ourselves before the lord of Kulaba?”
"A champion who is not black-colored, nor white, nor brown, nor red, nor yellow, nor a champion who is multi-coloured -- let him give you such a champion. My champion will compete against his champion, and let the more able one prevail!”
“He gazed like a goat on the mountain slopes… as if it were a huge mir snake coming out of a field.”
“On Aratta's parched flanks, in the midst of the mountains, wheat grew of its own accord, and chickpeas also grew of their own accord. They brought the wheat which grew of its own accord into the granary.”
“The clever champion, when he came, had covered his head with a colorful turban and wrapped himself in a garment of lion skins.”
“When the old hag came to the shining mountain, she went up to him like a maiden who in her day is perfect, eyes painted with kohl, wrapped in a white garment, she came forth with the good crown like the moonlight.”
“Golden fruit, fruit trees, with their figs and grapes, shall heap the fruit up in great mounds.”
.
With such descriptive, poetic quotes:
————————-
“Kolaba… where destiny is determined.”
“Let Aratta pack nuggets of gold in leather sacks … package up precious metals, and load the packs on the donkeys of the mountains.”
“For the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings…”
"Messenger, by night drive on like the south wind! By day be up like the dew!”
“The lord of Unug, the sajkal snake living in Sumer, who pulverizes mountains like flour…”
“Water libations are offered and flour is sprinkled; on the mountain, sacrifices and prayers are offered in obeisance.”
“He need not pour barley into sacks, nor have it carted, nor have that barley carried into the settlements, nor place collectors over the laborers.”
“Like a sand fly he went on his way in the morning calm.”
“He even bellowed at him like a bull, and Enmerkar listened to him like an ox driver.”
“Then the lord opened his mighty storehouse, and firmly set his great lidga-measure on the ground. The king removed his old barley from the other barley; he soaked the greenmalt all through with water... the hirin plant. He narrowed the meshes of the carrying nets. He measured out in full the barley for the granary, adding for the teeth of locusts.”
“He made the people go on to Aratta on their own, like ants out of crevices.”
"The base of my sceptre is the divine power of magnificence.”
“Let him hold it in his hand like a string of carnelian beads, a string of lapis lazuli beads.”
“His feet raised the dust of the road and made the little pebbles of the hills thud, like a dragon prowling the desert unopposed.”
"Contemplate a sceptre that is not of wood, nor designated as wood - not ildag, cimgig, cedar, cypress, hacur-cypress, palm, hardwood, nor zabalum - not poplar as in a chariot, not reedwork as in whip handles; not gold, copper, genuine kumea metal, silver, cornelian, nor lapis lazuli…”
“He ran in one track, like a long-wool sheep butting other sheep in its fury.”
“The messenger, whose journey to Aratta was like a pelican over the hills, a fly over the ground, darting through the mountains as swiftly as carp swim, reached Aratta.”
“As for we in dire hunger, in our direst famine, are we to prostrate ourselves before the lord of Kulaba?”
"A champion who is not black-colored, nor white, nor brown, nor red, nor yellow, nor a champion who is multi-coloured -- let him give you such a champion. My champion will compete against his champion, and let the more able one prevail!”
“He gazed like a goat on the mountain slopes… as if it were a huge mir snake coming out of a field.”
“On Aratta's parched flanks, in the midst of the mountains, wheat grew of its own accord, and chickpeas also grew of their own accord. They brought the wheat which grew of its own accord into the granary.”
“The clever champion, when he came, had covered his head with a colorful turban and wrapped himself in a garment of lion skins.”
“When the old hag came to the shining mountain, she went up to him like a maiden who in her day is perfect, eyes painted with kohl, wrapped in a white garment, she came forth with the good crown like the moonlight.”
“Golden fruit, fruit trees, with their figs and grapes, shall heap the fruit up in great mounds.”
.
October 6, 2024
[Abridged in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Volume A]
Sumerian story from the 21st century BC, so the flip side of where we are!
Famous for having an account of confusion of tongues and construction of towers. Possibly inspiring the Tower of Babel story.
Enmerkar king of Uruk demands the people of Aratta to submission and tribute and threatens the linguistic unity of the area. The king of Aratta denies submission and will fight but will submit if Uruk sends lots of grain... then precious stones... later requesting Enmerkar deliver them himself. All the requests get confusing enough over such a long period of time that Enmerkar invents writing on tablets!
Somewhat ironically the tablets telling this story have been damaged so the ending is unclear. Aratta does end up submitting.
Sumerian story from the 21st century BC, so the flip side of where we are!
Famous for having an account of confusion of tongues and construction of towers. Possibly inspiring the Tower of Babel story.
Enmerkar king of Uruk demands the people of Aratta to submission and tribute and threatens the linguistic unity of the area. The king of Aratta denies submission and will fight but will submit if Uruk sends lots of grain... then precious stones... later requesting Enmerkar deliver them himself. All the requests get confusing enough over such a long period of time that Enmerkar invents writing on tablets!
Somewhat ironically the tablets telling this story have been damaged so the ending is unclear. Aratta does end up submitting.
February 3, 2018
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is a legendary Sumerian account, of preserved, early post-Sumerian copies, composed in the Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 21st century BC). It is one of a series of accounts describing the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug-Kulaba (Uruk), and the unnamed king of Aratta (probably somewhere in Armenia or Iran). The kingdom of Ararat and mountain Ararat has quite close resemblance with name Aratta.
Because it gives a Sumerian account of the "confusion of tongues", and also involves Enmerkar constructing temples at Eridu and Uruk, it has, since the time of Samuel Kramer, been compared with the Tower of Babel narrative in the Book of Genesis.
the full text @ http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1...
Because it gives a Sumerian account of the "confusion of tongues", and also involves Enmerkar constructing temples at Eridu and Uruk, it has, since the time of Samuel Kramer, been compared with the Tower of Babel narrative in the Book of Genesis.
the full text @ http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1...
February 11, 2024
this was a quick and fun read. the myth tells not just about the invention of cuneiform but the rivalry between the Lord of Aratta and the Sumerian hero and king, Enmerkar. the commentary on the text is extremely helpful and provides all sorts of avenues for further study. this was a fantastic read and extremely helpful as a tool towards understanding Sumerian myth further. excellent work.
October 20, 2023
This piece has more historic value than literary value. most parts of the epic are destroyed which makes it a not fun read. But it's facinating to see that epic writing existed far before Homer! After reading it, I have so much more admiration for Ancient civilizations.
January 19, 2026
i read the english translation by the university of oxford which is openly accessible online.
this was such a strange experience. i have quite the history with sumerian texts and history, but given that i took off a few years and pursued other interests i seemed to have forgotten a lot more than i am comfortable to admit. the prose still feels very familiar, the missing words and unavailable lines, the variations in spelling of the same names just a few lines apart.
though i am a in all honesty a bit ashamed to admit how heavily i relied on provided footnotes, analysis and context in my earlier readings. this time none of these were given, it was just the oxford translation as it is freely available online.
my familiarity with adjacent texts and epic poems also seems to lack quite a bit. i expected a philosophically imbued text about the invention of writing and cuneiform script. instead it literally says:
"His speech was substantial, and its contents extensive. The messenger, whose mouth was heavy, was not able to repeat it. Because the messenger, whose mouth was tired, was not able to repeat it, the lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message as if on a tablet. Formerly, the writing of messages on clay was not established. Now, under that sun and on that day, it was indeed so. The lord of Kulaba inscribed the message like a tablet. It was just like that."
I had also forgotten just how unexplainable the gods are in these poems. And again it is always Inanna who acts in these poems. Though I of course knew of her, through stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the associated texts, Inannas descent into the Underworld, or Inanna and Shukalateda, her character remains quite a mystery to me. Something I had already planned to rectify through reading the works authored by or at least associated with Enheduanna. However I also recognise that some of that confusion may be through the fusion of perhaps two different imaginations of the characters of the sumerian Inanna and the akkadian Ishtar, though they had been worhipped as one throughout the First Dynasty of Ur as well as the Second Dynasty of Uruk, thereby again not explaining the confusion. My plan to read Enheduannas works might confuse me even further, given that she wrote during the Sargonid dynasty, which holds a whole different ethnicity in power and a different language as language of court and holy affairs altogether.
To reiterate my previous statement: this was a very strange experience. I dont even know if i can recommend this text to anyone who doesnt have a carnal obsession with Sumer or the earliest beginnings of writing. I had hoped to learn about the latter, yet just realised how ill-informed i am about the former. I leave the text with mixed feelings. Dissapointment in my memory and retained knowledge of the topic, nostalgia for having read this kind of prose again where every third word seems to be missing and parenthesis with questionmarks all throughout the text, and respect for the field of study of these peoples and these texts and poems. I hope to return in a few years with additional knowledge and a better understanding of the text.
this was such a strange experience. i have quite the history with sumerian texts and history, but given that i took off a few years and pursued other interests i seemed to have forgotten a lot more than i am comfortable to admit. the prose still feels very familiar, the missing words and unavailable lines, the variations in spelling of the same names just a few lines apart.
though i am a in all honesty a bit ashamed to admit how heavily i relied on provided footnotes, analysis and context in my earlier readings. this time none of these were given, it was just the oxford translation as it is freely available online.
my familiarity with adjacent texts and epic poems also seems to lack quite a bit. i expected a philosophically imbued text about the invention of writing and cuneiform script. instead it literally says:
"His speech was substantial, and its contents extensive. The messenger, whose mouth was heavy, was not able to repeat it. Because the messenger, whose mouth was tired, was not able to repeat it, the lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message as if on a tablet. Formerly, the writing of messages on clay was not established. Now, under that sun and on that day, it was indeed so. The lord of Kulaba inscribed the message like a tablet. It was just like that."
I had also forgotten just how unexplainable the gods are in these poems. And again it is always Inanna who acts in these poems. Though I of course knew of her, through stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the associated texts, Inannas descent into the Underworld, or Inanna and Shukalateda, her character remains quite a mystery to me. Something I had already planned to rectify through reading the works authored by or at least associated with Enheduanna. However I also recognise that some of that confusion may be through the fusion of perhaps two different imaginations of the characters of the sumerian Inanna and the akkadian Ishtar, though they had been worhipped as one throughout the First Dynasty of Ur as well as the Second Dynasty of Uruk, thereby again not explaining the confusion. My plan to read Enheduannas works might confuse me even further, given that she wrote during the Sargonid dynasty, which holds a whole different ethnicity in power and a different language as language of court and holy affairs altogether.
To reiterate my previous statement: this was a very strange experience. I dont even know if i can recommend this text to anyone who doesnt have a carnal obsession with Sumer or the earliest beginnings of writing. I had hoped to learn about the latter, yet just realised how ill-informed i am about the former. I leave the text with mixed feelings. Dissapointment in my memory and retained knowledge of the topic, nostalgia for having read this kind of prose again where every third word seems to be missing and parenthesis with questionmarks all throughout the text, and respect for the field of study of these peoples and these texts and poems. I hope to return in a few years with additional knowledge and a better understanding of the text.
May 2, 2020
An unknown author writes an account of the legendary king Enmerkar, during the Third Dynasty of Ur, (circa 2200 BCE) in Ancient Sumeria, and his rivalry with the distant, northern, Lord of Aratta. The plot features oral communications delivered via a messenger between both men, culminating in a confrontation between the champions of both leaders. Most memorable for me was the mythologized creation of writing, when Enmerkar decided to invent cuneiform to aid his messenger's memory. While some readers may be disappointed that this story is fragmented, missing words, phrases, lines, and sections, other readers may enjoy this first installment of a series of legendary stories of one of the earliest known ancient rulers.
November 29, 2019
A jaunty little read, another of those ever-present tales where the fickleness of Great Inanna is paramount to the story, the simplicity and poetic execution make it an absorbing read all these years later.
August 20, 2019
Hard to understand because of the many lacunas and the many figurative speech, but Wikipedia's article helped a lot.
Nice tale, although it has an incomplete ending.
Nice tale, although it has an incomplete ending.
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March 27, 2023მხატვრული დოკუმენტი დამწერლობისა და ვაჭრობის შექმნის შესახებ, უძალიანბევრესი სიმბოლოთი!
September 8, 2023
Contains the talk via messengers between the king Enmerkar of Ur and the Lord of Aratta. It also contains a mythical creation story of cuneiform.
February 1, 2025
⭐⭐⭐⭐Really Good.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews