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The Sumerian King List or Chronicle of the One Monarchy is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims to power of various city-states and kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia during the late third and early second millennium BC. It does so by repetitively listing Sumerian cities, the kings that ruled there, and the lengths of their reigns. Especially in the early part of the list, these reigns often span thousands of years. In the oldest known version, dated to the Ur III period but probably based on Akkadian source material, the SKL reflected a more linear transition of power from Kish, the first city to receive kingship, to Akkad. In later versions from the Old Babylonian period, the list consisted of a large number of cities between which kingship was transferred, reflecting a more cyclical view of how kingship came to a city, only to be inevitably replaced by the next. In its best-known and best-preserved version, as recorded on the Weld-Blundell Prism, the SKL begins with a number of antediluvian kings, who ruled before a flood swept over the land, after which kingship went to Kish. It ends with a dynasty from Isin, which is well-known from other contemporary sources.
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 Eridu Genesis and appears in the writings of Berossus as Xisuthros.
Disputation is a genre of literate involving two contenders who seek to establish a resolution to a problem or establish the superiority of something. An example of the latter is in Sumerian disputation poems.
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.
Ninlil was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the wife of Enlil. She shared many of his functions, especially the responsibility for declaring destinies, and like him was regarded as a senior deity and head of the pantheon. She is also well attested as the mother of his children, such as the underworld god Nergal, the moon god Nanna or the warrior god Ninurta. She was chiefly worshiped in Nippur and nearby Tummal alongside Enlil, and multiple temples and shrines dedicated to her are attested in textual sources from these cities. In the first millennium BCE she was also introduced to Ḫursaĝkalamma near Kish, where she was worshiped alongside the goddess Bizilla, who was likely her sukkal.
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Enkimdu (𒀭𒂗𒆠𒅎𒁺) was a Mesopotamian god associated with agriculture and irrigation. He is best known from the poem Dumuzi and Enkimdu, but in laments he was instead connected with the god Martu, who like Dumuzi could be described and depicted as a shepherd.
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 3rd and 2nd millennia 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.
Aga commonly known as Aga of Kish, was the twenty-third and last king in the first dynasty of Kish during the Early Dynastic I period. He is listed in the Sumerian King List and many sources as the son of Enmebaragesi. The Kishite king ruled the city at its peak, probably reaching beyond the territory of Kish, including Umma and Zabala.
The "Debate between bird and fish" is an essay written in the Sumerian language on clay tablets, dating back to the mid to late 3rd millennium BC. It belongs to the genre of Sumerian disputation.
The "Debate between sheep and grain" or "Myth of cattle and grain" is a Sumerian disputation and creation myth, written on clay tablets in the mid to late 3rd millennium BC.
The Debate between Winter and Summer or Myth of Emesh and Enten is a Sumerian creation myth belonging to the genre of Sumerian disputations, written on clay tablets in the mid to late 3rd millennium BC.
Self-praise of Shulgi is a Sumerian hymn dedicated to the Third Dynasty of Ur ruler Shulgi, written on clay tablets dated to between 2100 and 2000 BC.
The Song of the hoe, sometimes also known as the Creation of the pickaxe or the Praise of the pickaxe, is a Sumerian creation myth, written on clay tablets from the last century of the 3rd millennium BCE.
The Sumerian disputation poem or Sumerian debate is a genre of Sumerian literature in the form of a disputation. Extant compositions from this genre date to the middle-to-late 3rd millennium BC. There are six primary poems belonging to this genre. The genre of Sumerian disputations also differs from Aesopic disputations as the former contain only dialogue without narration. In their own language, the texts are described as adamin in the doxologies at the end of the poem, which literally means "contests (between) two".
The "Series of the Poplar" is an Akkadian disputation poem containing a discussion between a Poplar, an Ash, and probably other trees, who each tries to establish his preeminence in the vegetal kingdom by listing their many uses and excellent qualities. Most of the surviving examples of the work are from the library of King Assurbanipal of Nineveh, "one of the most important repositories of texts from the entire ancient world".
Palm and Vine is a work of Akkadian literature. It contains a disputation poem between two litigants, Palm and Vine, each of which praises its own merits and many uses, and discredits those of its rival. The text may have been composed in the second-millennium BCE, but only first-millennium manuscripts of it are known. Fifty-four lines from the middle section of the text are preserved, which begin in medias res with a long speech of Palm, immediately followed by Vine's rejoinder. Three library manuscripts of the poem are known, as well as an excerpt on a peculiar school tablet.
The Debate between tree and reed is a work of Sumerian literature belonging to the genre of disputations poem. It was written on clay tablets and dates to the Third Dynasty of Ur. The text was reconstructed by M. Civil in the 1960s from 24 manuscripts but it is currently the least studied of the disputation poems and a full translation has not yet been published. Some other Sumerian disputations include the dispute between bird and fish, cattle and grain, and Summer and Winter.
The Debate between the hoe and the plough is a work of Sumerian literature and one of the six extant works belonging to this literature's genre of disputations poem. It was written on clay tablets and dates to the Third Dynasty of Ur and runs 196 lines in length. The text was reconstructed by M. Civil in the 1960s. The two protagonists, as in other disputation poems, are two inarticulate things: in this case, two pieces of agricultural equipment, the hoe and the plough. The debate is about which is the better tool.
References
Citations
- ↑ Jimenez 2017, p. 16–18.
- ↑ Jimenez 2017, p. 16, 23.
- ↑ Peterson 2010.
- ↑ Mittermayer 2020, p. 14.
- 1 2 Jimenez 2017, p. 23.
- ↑ Sneed 2015, p. 83.
- ↑ Jimenez 2017, p. 24.
Sources
- Jimenez, Enrique (2017). "The Babylonian Disputation Poems: With Editions of the Series of the Poplar, Palm and Vine, the Series of the Spider, and the Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren". The Babylonian Disputation Poems. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-33626-1.
- Mittermayer, Catherine (2020). "The Sumerian Precedence Debates: The World's Oldest Rhetorical Exercises?". In Jimenez, Enrique; Mittermayer, Catherine (eds.). Disputation Literature in the Near East and Beyond. De Gruyter. pp. 11–32. ISBN 978-1-5015-1021-2.
- Peterson, Jeremiah (2010). "Sumerian Literary Fragments in the University Museum, Philadelphia II: Eduba Compositions, Debate Poems, Diatribes, Elegies, Wisdom Literature, and Other Compositions". Ugarit-Forschungen. 42: 535–572.
- Sneed, Mark (2015). The Social World of the Sages: An Introduction to Israelite and Jewish Wisdom Literature. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-1-4514-7036-9.