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Aratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.
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Aratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.
Aratta is described as follows in Sumerian literature:
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta [2] - The goddess Inanna resides in Aratta, but Enmerkar of Uruk pleases her more than does the lord of Aratta, who is not named in this epic. Enmerkar wants Aratta to submit to Uruk, bring stones down from the mountain, craft gold, silver and lapis lazuli, and send them, along with "kugmea" ore to Uruk to build a temple. Inana bids him send a messenger to Aratta, who ascends and descends the "Zubi" mountains, and crosses Susa, Anshan, and "five, six, seven" mountains before approaching Aratta. Aratta in turn wants grain in exchange. However Inana transfers her allegiance to Uruk, and the grain gains the favor of Aratta's people for Uruk, so the lord of Aratta challenges Enmerkar to send a champion to fight his champion. Then the god Ishkur makes Aratta's crops grow.
Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana [3] - The lord of Aratta, who is here named En-suhgir-ana (or Ensuhkeshdanna), challenges Enmerkar of Uruk to submit to him over the affections of Inanna, but he is rebuffed by Enmerkar. A sorcerer from the recently defeated Hamazi then arrives in Aratta, and offers to make Uruk submit. The sorcerer travels to Eresh where he bewitches Enmerkar's livestock, but a wise woman outperforms his magic and casts him into the Euphrates; En-suhgir-ana then admits the loss of Inanna, and submits his kingdom to Uruk.
Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave [4] - is a tale of Lugalbanda, who will become Enmerkar's successor. Enmerkar's army travels through mountainous territory to wage war against rebellious Aratta. Lugalbanda falls ill and is left in a cave, but he prays to the various gods, recovers, and must find his way out of the mountains.
Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird [5] - Lugalbanda befriends the Anzud bird, and asks it to help him find his army again. When Enmerkar's army is faced with a setback, Lugalbanda volunteers to return to Uruk to ask the goddess Inana's aid. He crosses through the mountains, into the flat land, from the edge to the top of Anshan and then to Uruk, where Inana helps him. She advises Enmerkar to carry off Aratta's "worked metal and metalsmiths and worked stone and stonemasons" and all the "moulds of Aratta will be his". Then the city is described as having battlements made of green lapis lazuli and bricks made of "tinstone dug out in the mountains where the cypress grows".
Early 20th century scholars initially took Aratta to be an epithet of the Sumerian city Shuruppak related to its local name for the god Enlil; [21] however that is no longer seen to be the case. Although Aratta is known only from myth, [22] some Assyriologists and archaeologists have speculated on possible locations where Aratta could have been, using criteria from the myths: [23] [24]
In 1963, Samuel Noah Kramer thought that a "Mount Hurum" in a Lugalbanda myth (which he titled "Lugalbanda on Mount Hurrum" at the time) might have referred to the Hurrians, and hence speculated Aratta to be near Lake Urmia. [25] However, "Mount Hurum", "hur-ru-um kur-ra-ka", in what is now called Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, [4] is today read "mountain cave", [26] and Kramer subsequently introduced the title "Lugalbanda, the Wandering Hero" for this story. [27]
Other speculations referred to the early gem trade route, the "Great Khorasan Road" from the Himalayan Mountains [28] to Mesopotamia, which ran through northern Iran. [29] [30] [31]
Anshan, which had not yet been located then, was assumed to be in the central Zagros mountain range. [32]
However, when Anshan [33] was identified as Tall-i Malyan in 1973, [34] it was found to be 600 km south-east of Uruk, far removed from any northerly routes or watercourses from Uruk, and posing the logistical improbability of getting a 27th-century BC Sumerian army through 550 km of Elamite territory to wage war with Aratta. [35]
Nevertheless, there have been speculations referring to eastern Iran as well. [36] [37] Dr. Yousef Majidzadeh believes the Jiroft culture could be Aratta.
By 1973, archaeologists were noting that there was no archaeological record of Aratta's existence outside of myth, [22] and in 1978 Hansman cautions against over-speculation. [38]
Writers in other fields have continued to hypothesize potential Aratta locations. A "possible reflex" has been suggested in Sanskrit Āraṭṭa or Arāṭṭa mentioned in the Mahabharata and other texts. [39] [40] Alternatively, the name is compared with the toponym Ararat or Urartu. [41]
Inanna is the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine law, and political power. Originally worshiped in Sumer, she was known by the Akkadian Empire, Babylonians, and Assyrians as Ishtar. Her primary title was "the Queen of Heaven".
The history of Sumer spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BCE in southern Mesopotamia, and is taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumer was the region's earliest known civilization and ended with the downfall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BCE. It was followed by a transitional period of Amorite states before the rise of Babylonia in the 18th century BCE.
Ziusudra of Shuruppak is listed in the WB-62 Sumerian King List recension as the last king of Sumer prior to the Great Flood. He is subsequently recorded as the hero of the Sumerian creation myth and appears in the writings of Berossus as Xisuthros.
Lugalbanda was a deified Sumerian king of Uruk who, according to various sources of Mesopotamian literature, was the father of Gilgamesh. Early sources mention his consort Ninsun and his heroic deeds in an expedition to Aratta by King Enmerkar.
Enmerkar was an ancient Sumerian ruler to whom the construction of Uruk and a 420-year reign was attributed. According to literary sources, he led various campaigns against the land of Aratta.
Ninkasi was the Mesopotamian goddess of beer and brewing. It is possible that in the first millennium BC she was known under the variant name Kurunnītu, derived from a term referring to a type of high quality beer. She was associated with both positive and negative consequences of the consumption of beer. In god lists, such as the An = Anum list and the Weidner god list, she usually appears among the courtiers of the god Enlil, alongside deities such as Ninimma and Ninmada. She could also be paired with Siraš, a goddess of similar character, who sometimes was regarded as her sister. A possible association between her and the underworld deities Nungal and Laṣ is also attested, possibly in reference to the possible negative effects of alcohol consumption.
In Mesopotamian mythology, the Tablet of Destinies was envisaged as a clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform writing, also impressed with cylinder seals, which, as a permanent legal document, conferred upon the god Enlil his supreme authority as ruler of the universe.
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is a legendary Sumerian account, preserved in early post-Sumerian copies, composed in the Neo-Sumerian period . It is one of a series of accounts describing the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug-Kulaba, and the unnamed king of Aratta.
Sumerian literature constitutes the earliest known corpus of recorded literature, including the religious writings and other traditional stories maintained by the Sumerian civilization and largely preserved by the later Akkadian and Babylonian empires. These records were written in the Sumerian language in the 18th and 17th centuries BC during the Middle Bronze Age.
Dumuzid, titled the Fisherman, was a legendary Sumerian king of Uruk listed originating from Kuara. According to legend, in the one-hundredth year of his reign, he was captured by Enmebaragesi.
The earliest record of a Sumerian creation myth, called The Eridu Genesis by historian Thorkild Jacobsen, is found on a single fragmentary tablet excavated in Nippur by the Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania in 1893, and first recognized by Arno Poebel in 1912. It is written in the Sumerian language and dated to around 1600 BC. Other Sumerian creation myths from around this date are called the Barton Cylinder, the Debate between sheep and grain and the Debate between Winter and Summer, also found at Nippur.
En-sipad-zid-ana appears as the second king of Larak in some versions of the Sumerian King List (SKL). According to that literary composition, En-sipad-zid-ana ruled for 28,800 years. The kings on the early part of the SKL are usually not considered historical, except when they are mentioned in Early Dynastic documents. En-sipad-zid-ana is not one of them.
En-nun-tarah-ana of Uruk was the ninth Sumerian ruler in the First Dynasty of Uruk According to the Sumerian King List, he reigned for 8 years.
Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana is a text in Sumerian literature appearing as a sequel to Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, and is second in a series of four accounts describing the contests of Aratta against Enmerkar, lord of Unug and Kulaba, and his successor Lugalbanda, father of Gilgamesh.
Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave is a Sumerian mythological account. It is one of the four known stories that belong to the same cycle describing conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug (Uruk), and an unnamed king of Aratta. The story is also referred to as “Lugalbanda in the Wilderness” or “Lugalbanda I” and followed by the story known as Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird, together forming the two parts of one story. The stories, from the composer’s point of view, take place in the distant past. The accounts are believed to be composed during the Ur III Period, although almost all extant copies come from Isin-Larsa period. Tablets containing these stories were found in various locations of southern Iraq, primarily in the city of Nippur, and were part of the curriculum of Sumerian scribal schools during the Old Babylonian period.
Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird is a Sumerian mythological account. The story is sometimes called The Return of Lugalbanda or Lugalbanda II being the second of two stories about the hero Lugalbanda. The first story is known as Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, or sometimes Lugalbanda in the Wilderness. They are part of a four-story cycle that describes the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug (Uruk), and the king of Aratta. The texts are believed to be composed during the Ur III Period, but almost all of the extant copies come from Isin-Larsa period. Nevertheless, a few fragmentary bilingual copies from Nineveh suggest that the texts were still known during the first millennium.
Kindattu was the 6th king of the Shimashki Dynasty, in Elam, at the time of the third dynasty of Ur in ancient Lower Mesopotamia.
Lugal-kinishe-dudu also Lugal-kiginne-dudu , was a King and (ensi) of Uruk and Ur who lived towards the end of the 25th century BCE. The Sumerian King List mentions Lugal-kinishe-dudu as the second king of the dynasty after En-shakansha-ana, attributing to him a fanciful reign of 120 years.
Gilgamesh and Aga, sometimes referred to as incipit The envoys of Aga, is an Old Babylonian poem written in Sumerian. The only one of the five poems of Gilgamesh that has no mythological aspects, it has been the subject of discussion since its publication in 1935 and later translation in 1949.
Giparu or, more correctly, gipar is a central concept of both the Sumerian belief system and temple architecture. Typically translated as 'cloister', the actual meaning of gipar includes multiple linked concepts. The giparu was originally a woven reed mat used as wedding bed. Its symbolic meaning expanded to include the idea of the generative power of fertility to create and sustain life. In this sense the giparu expressed multiple ideas of abundance, the storehouse containing abundance, as well as a point of union with the generative power itself. In its role as point of union, the giparu was residence of the en, where the hierosgamos was consummated. Often the giparu temple was built over a giparu mat embedded in the structure. For this reason, cloister, connoting the residence of a priest, is given as the primary definition (ePSD).
