View source for Lament for Ur

{{short description|Sumerian lament}}
{{Infobox artifact|image=Lament for ur (cropped).JPG|created={{circa}} 2000 BC|caption=Lament for Ur at the
[[Louvre Museum]]|height=22.9 cm|width=11.4 cm|location=[[Paris]], [[Ile-de-France]], [[France]]}}
{{Mesopotamian myth (7)}}
The '''Lament for Ur''', or '''Lamentation over the city of Ur''' is a [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] [[lament]] composed around the time of the fall of [[Ur]] to the [[Elamites]] and the end of the city's [[Third Dynasty of Ur|third dynasty]] (c. 2000 BC).
==Laments<span class="anchor" id="Mesopotamian City Laments"></span>==
It contains one of five known [[City Lament|Mesopotamian "city laments"]]&mdash;[[dirge]]s for ruined cities in the voice of the city's [[tutelary deity|tutelary goddess]].
The other city laments are:
*The [[Lament for Sumer and Ur]]
*The [[Lament for Nippur]]
*The [[Eridu#Lament_for_Eridu|Lament for Eridu]]
*The [[Lament for Uruk]]
The [[Book of Lamentations]] of the [[Old Testament]], which bewails the destruction of [[Jerusalem]] by [[Nebuchadnezzar II]] of [[Babylon]] in the sixth century B.C., is similar in style and theme to these earlier [[Mesopotamia]]n laments. Similar laments can be found in the [[Book of Jeremiah]], the [[Book of Ezekiel]] and the [[Book of Psalms]], [[Psalm 137]] ({{Bibleverse||Psalms|137:1-9|HE}}).<ref name="MatthewsBenjamin2006">{{cite book|author1=Victor Harold Matthews|author-link=Victor Harold Matthews|author2=Don C. Benjamin|title=Old Testament parallels: laws and stories from the ancient Near East|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6gVAFOSDhL4C&pg=PA248|access-date=4 June 2011|date=2006|publisher=Paulist Press|isbn=978-0-8091-4435-8|pages=248–}}</ref>
==Compilation==
The first lines of the lament were discovered on the [[University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology]] catalogue of the [[Babylonia]]n section, tablet numbers 2204, 2270, 2302 and 19751 from their excavations at the [[temple]] [[library]] at [[Nippur]] in modern-day Iraq. These were translated by [[George Aaron Barton]] in 1918 and first published as "Sumerian religious texts" in ''[[Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions]]'', number six, entitled "A prayer for the city of [[Ur]]".<ref name="Barton1918">{{cite book|author=George Aaron Barton|title=Miscellaneous Babylonian inscriptions, p. 45|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nn5hAAAAMAAJ|access-date=23 May 2011|date=1918|publisher=Yale University Press}}</ref> The restored tablet is {{convert|9|by|4.5|by|1.75|in|cm}} at its thickest point. Barton noted that "from the portions that can be translated it appears to be a prayer for the city of Ur at a time of great danger and distress. It seems impossible to assign it with certainty to any particular period." He noted that it was plausible but unconfirmed to conjecture that it "was written in the last days of [[Ibbi-Sin]] when Ur was tottering to its fall".<ref name="Barton1918"/>
[[Edward Chiera]] published other tablets CBS 3878, 6889, 6905, 7975, 8079, 10227, 13911 and 14110 in "Sumerian texts of varied contents" in 1934, which combined with tablets CBS 3901, 3927, 8023, 9316, 11078 and 14234 to further restore the myth, calling it a "Lamentation over the city of Ur".<ref name="ChieraKramer1934">{{cite book|author1=Edward Chiera|author2=Samuel Noah Kramer|author3=University of Pennsylvania. University Museum. Babylonian Section|title=Sumerian texts of varied contents, p. 1-|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHhiAAAAMAAJ|access-date=3 June 2011|date=1934|publisher=The University of Chicago Press}}</ref> A further tablet source of the myth is held by the [[Louvre]] in [[Paris]], number AO 6446.<ref name="antiqueorientales">{{cite book|author1=Musée du Louvre. Département des antiquités orientales et de la céramique antique|author2=Musée du Louvre. Département des antiquités orientales|title=Textes cunéiformes, 16, 40|publisher=Librairie orientaliste, Paul Geuthner}}</ref> Others are held in the [[Ashmolean]], [[Oxford]], numbers 1932,415, 1932,522, 1932,526j and 1932,526o.<ref name="Museum">{{cite book|author1=Ashmolean Museum|title=Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts, 12, 13, 14 and 15|date=1976|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> Further tablets were found to be part of the myth in the [[Hermann Volrath Hilprecht|Hilprecht]] collection at the [[University of Jena]], [[Germany]], numbers 1426, 1427, 1452, 1575, 1579, 1487, 1510 and 1553.<ref name="Antiquities">{{cite book|author=Universität. Jena. Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities|title=Texte und Materialien der Frau-Professor-Hilprecht-Collection of Babylonian antiquities: Neue Folge, 4 18, 4 19, 4 21, 4 20, 4 22, 4 23, 4 24 and 4 25|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0QK1YgEACAAJ|access-date=4 June 2011|publisher=Hinrichs}}</ref> More fragments are held at the [[Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva)]] in [[Switzerland]], MAH 15861 and MAH 16015.<ref name="Literatures1970">{{cite book|author=University of Chicago. Dept. of Oriental Languages and Literatures|title=Journal of Near Eastern studies, pl. 1 and 2|date=1970|publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press.}}</ref>
Other translations were made from tablets in the Nippur collection of the [[Istanbul Archaeology Museums|Museum of the Ancient Orient]] in [[Istanbul]] (Ni). [[Samuel Noah Kramer]] amongst others worked to translate several others from the Istanbul collection including Ni 4496, 1162, 2401, 2510, 2518, 2780, 2911, 3166, 4024, 4424, 4429, 4459, 4474, 4566, 9586, 9599, 9623, 9822 and 9969.<ref name="Kramer1944">{{cite book|author=Samuel Noah Kramer|title=Sumerian literary texts from Nippur: in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul, 32, 45, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98 and 99|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hqdIGQAACAAJ|access-date=28 May 2011|date=1944|publisher=American Schools of Oriental Research}}</ref><ref name="CigKizilyay1969">{{cite book|author1=Muazzez Cig|author2=Hatice Kizilyay|title=Sumerian literary tablets and fragments in the archeological museum of Istanbul-I, 81, 95, 100, 107, 115, 118, 139, 142 and 147|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vrEnGwAACAAJ|access-date=28 May 2011|date=1969|publisher=Tarih Kurumu Basimevi}}</ref> Other tablets from the Istanbul collection, numbers Ni 2510 and 2518 were translated  by Edward Chiera in 1924 in "Sumerian religious texts".<ref name="Chieraottoman1924">{{cite book|author1=Edward Chiera|author2=Constantinople. Musée impérial ottoman|title=Sumerian religious texts, 32 & 45|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8BF3QgAACAAJ|access-date=23 May 2011|date=1924|publisher=University}}</ref> Sir [[Charles Leonard Woolley]] unearthed more tablets at [[Ur]] contained in the "Ur excavations texts" from 1928.<ref name="Mesopotamiamuseum1928">{{cite book|author1=British museum and Pennsylvania University. University museum. Joint expedition to Mesopotamia|author2=Pennsylvania University. University museum|title=Ur excavations texts... 6 137, 6 135, 6 136, 6 137, 6 138, 6 139, 6 *290|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4GF1QwAACAAJ|access-date=28 May 2011|date=1928|publisher=British museum}}</ref> Other tablets are held in the [[Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin]] and the [[Yale]] Babylonian collection.<ref name="AbteilungZimmern1966">{{cite book|author1=Königliche Museen zu Berlin. Vorderasiatische Abteilung|author2=Heinrich Zimmern|author3=Otto Schroeder|author4=H. H. Figulla |author5=Wilhelm Förtsch |author6=Friedrich Delitzsch |title=Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler 10, 141|year=1966|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZA5mYgEACAAJ|access-date=4 June 2011|publisher=Louis D. Levine}}</ref> [[Samuel Noah Kramer]] compiled twenty-two different fragments into the first complete edition of the ''Lament'', which was published in 1940 by the [[University of Chicago]] as ''Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur'' (''Assyriological Study'' no. 12). Other tablets and versions were used to bring the myth to its present form with a composite text by Miguel Civil produced in 1989 and latest translations by [[Thorkild Jacobsen]] in 1987 and Joachim Krecher in 1996.<ref name="ETCSL">[http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.2.2&charenc=j# The Lament for Ur., Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G., The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford 1998-.]</ref><ref>[http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.80.2&display=Crit&charenc=&lineid=c4802.B.22#c4802.B.22 ETCSLtransliteration : c.4.80.2]</ref> In 2012 3 new fragments from Nippur (Ni. 4296, Ni. 4383, and Ni. 4566) were published.<ref>Nili Samet, and Selim F. Adali. “NEW NIPPUR MANUSCRIPTS OF THE UR LAMENT, I.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 64, 2012, pp. 31–37. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5615/jcunestud.64.0031</ref>
==Composition==
The lament is composed of four hundred and thirty eight lines in eleven ''kirugu'' (sections), arranged in stanzas of six lines. It describes the goddess [[Ningal]], who weeps for her city after pleading with the god [[Enlil]] to call back a destructive storm. Interspersed with the goddess's wailing are other sections, possibly of different origin and composition; these describe the ghost town that Ur has become, recount the wrath of Enlil's storm, and invoke the protection of the god [[Nanna (Sumerian deity)|Nanna]] ([[Nergal]] or [[Suen]]) against future calamities. Ningal, the wife of the moon god Nanna, goes on to recall her petition to the leaders of the gods, [[Anu|An]] and [[Enlil]] to change their minds and not to destroy Ur.<ref name="Launderville2003">{{cite book|author=Dale Launderville|title=Piety and politics: the dynamics of royal authority in Homeric Greece, biblical Israel, and old Babylonian Mesopotamia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z4oHNWUWTSkC&pg=PA248|access-date=4 June 2011|date=2003|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-3994-7|pages=248–}}</ref> She does this both in private and in a speech to the [[Annunaki]] assembly:
{{cquote|I verily clasped legs, laid hold of arms, truly I shed my tears before An, truly I made supplication, I myself before Enlil: "May my city not be ravaged, I said to them, May Ur not be ravaged.<ref name="Launderville2003"/>}}
The council of gods decide that the Ur III dynasty, which had reigned for around one hundred years, had its destiny apportioned to end. The temple treasury was raided by invading [[Elam]]ites and the centre of power in Sumer moved to Isin, while control of trade in Ur passed to several leading families of the city. Kenneth Wade suggested that [[Terah]], the father of [[Abraham]] in the [[Book of Genesis]] could have been one of the heads of such a leading family ({{Bibleverse||Genesis|11:28|HE}}).<ref name="Wade2004">{{cite book|author=Kenneth R. Wade|title=Journey to Moriah: The Untold Story of How Abraham Became the Friend of God|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a9tiuu1byC8C&pg=PA21|access-date=4 June 2011|date=February 2004|publisher=Pacific Press Publishing|isbn=978-0-8163-2024-0|pages=21–}}</ref> The metaphor of a garden hut being knocked down is used for the destroyed temple of Ur and in subsequent lines this metaphorical language is extended to the rest of the setting, reminiscent of the representation of Jerusalem as a "booth" in the [[Book of Amos]] ({{Bibleverse||Amos|9:11|HE}}).<ref name="EllensEllens2004">{{cite book|author1=J. Harold Ellens|author2=Deborah L. Ellens|author3=Rolf P. Knierim|author4=Isaac Kalimi|title=God's Word for Our World: Biblical studies in honor of Simon John De Vries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tMKRgS6G9xUC&pg=PA287|access-date=4 June 2011|date=2004|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-8264-6974-8|pages=287–}}</ref> Ningal bewails:
{{cquote|My faithful house ... like a tent, a pulled-up harvest shed, like a pulled-up harvest shed! Ur, my home filled with things, my well-filled house and city that were pulled up, were verily pulled up.<ref name="EllensEllens2004"/>}}
The different temples throughout the land are described with their patron gods or goddesses abandoning the temples, like [[sheepfold]]s:
{{cquote|[[Ninlil]] has abandoned that house, the [http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/e3103.html Ki-ur], and has let the breezes haunt her sheepfold. The queen of [[Kesh (Sumer)|Kesh]] has abandoned it and has let the breezes haunt her sheepfold. Ninmah has abandoned that house Kesh and has let the breezes haunt her sheepfold.<ref name="ETCSL"/>}}
Edward L. Greenstein has noted the emptying of sheep pens as a metaphor of the destruction of the city. He also notes that the speakers of the laments are generally male lamentation-priests, who take on the characteristics of a traditional female singer and ask for the gods to be appeased so the temples can be restored. Then a goddess, sometimes accompanied by a god notes the devastation and weeps bitterly with a dirge about the destructive storm and an entreats to the gods to return to the sanctuaries. The destruction of the Elamites is compared in the myth to imagery of a rising [[flood]] and raging [[storm]]. This imagery is facilitated by the title of Enlil as the "god of the winds"<ref name="Weisman2010">{{cite book|author=Karen Weisman|title=The Oxford handbook of the elegy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1d5OlvBRc38C&pg=PA75|access-date=4 June 2011|date=6 June 2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-922813-3|pages=75–}}</ref> The following text suggests that the setting of the myth was subject to a destructive storm prior to its final destruction:<ref name="Louvain1977">{{cite book|author=Institut orientaliste de Louvain|title=Orientalia Lovaniensia periodica|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GOZtAAAAMAAJ|access-date=4 June 2011|date=1977|publisher=Instituut voor Oriëntalistiek.}}</ref>
{{cquote|Alas, storm after storm swept the Land together: the great storm of heaven, the ever-roaring storm, the malicious storm which swept over the Land, the storm which destroyed cities, the storm which destroyed houses, the storm which destroyed cow-pens, the storm which burned sheepfolds, which laid hands on the holy rites, which defiled the weighty counsel, the storm which cut off all that is good from the Land.<ref name="ETCSL"/>}}
Various buildings are noted to be destroyed in Enlil's storm, including the shrines of Agrun-kug and Egal-mah,  the [[Ekur]] (the sanctuary of Enlil), the Iri-kug, the Eridug and the Unug.<ref name="ETCSL"/> The destruction of the E-kiš-nu-ĝal is described in detail. {{cquote|The good house of the lofty untouchable mountain, E-kiš-nu-ĝal, was entirely devoured by large axes. The people of Šimaški and Elam, the destroyers, counted its worth as only thirty shekels. They broke up the good house with pickaxes. They reduced the city to ruin mounds.<ref name="ETCSL"/>}}
Images of what was lost, and the scorched earth that was left behind indicate the scale of the catastrophe. The Line 274 reads {{cquote|"[[Garden of Eden|eden]] kiri-zal bi du-du-a-mu gir-gin ha-ba-hu-hur" - My steppe, established for joy, was scorched like an oven.<ref name="Michalowski1989"/>}}
The destruction of the location is reported to Enlil, and his consort Ninlil, who are praised and exalted at the end of the myth.<ref name="Ramet1996">{{cite book|author=Sabrina P. Ramet|title=Gender reversals and gender cultures: anthropological and historical perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZDalL3qJavgC&pg=PA58|access-date=4 June 2011|date=1996|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-11482-0|pages=58–}}</ref>
==Discussion==
The Lament for Ur has been well known to scholarship and well edited for a long time. Piotr Michalowski has suggested this gave literary primacy to the myth over the [[Lament for Sumer and Ur]], originally called the "Second Lament for Ur", which he argues was chronologically a more archaic version.<ref name="Michalowski1989">{{cite book|author=Piotr Michalowski|title=The lamentation over the destruction of Sumer and Ur|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=te_g2xGYIFEC&pg=PA4|access-date=4 June 2011|date=1989|publisher=Eisenbrauns|isbn=978-0-931464-43-0|pages=4–}}</ref> Philip S. Alexander compares lines seventeen and eighteen of the myth with {{Bibleverse|Lamentations|2:17|HE}} "The Lord has done what he purposed, he has carried out his threat; as he ordained long ago, he has demolished without pity", suggesting this could "allude to some mysterious, ineluctable fate ordained for [[Zion]] in the distant past":
{{cquote|The wild bull of Eridug has abandoned it and has let the breezes haunt his sheepfold. Enki has abandoned that house Eridug and has let the breezes haunt his sheepfold.<ref name="Alexander2007">{{cite book|author=Philip S. Alexander|title=The Targum of Lamentations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kmUaWZy6JZQC&pg=PA26|access-date=4 June 2011|date=1 December 2007|publisher=Liturgical Press|isbn=978-0-8146-5864-2|pages=26–}}</ref>}}
The devastation of cities and settlements by natural disasters and invaders has been used widely throughout the history of literature since the end of the [[Third Dynasty of Ur]]. A stela (pictured) from [[Iraq]] depicts a similar destruction of a mountain house at [[Susa]].
{{cquote|Dead men, not potsherds. Covered the approaches. The walls were gaping, the high gates, the roads, were piled with dead. In the side streets, where feasting crows would gather, scattered they lay. In all the side streets and roadways bodies lay. In the open fields that used to fill with dancers, they lay in heaps. The country's blood now filled its holes, like metal in a mould; Bodies dissolved - like fat left in the sun.<ref name="Tsouras2005">{{cite book|author=Peter G. Tsouras|title=The Book of Military Quotations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BDgnD0omDo0C&pg=PA12|access-date=4 June 2011|date=24 October 2005|publisher=Zenith Imprint|isbn=978-0-7603-2340-3|pages=12–}}</ref>}}
Michelle Breyer suggested tribes of neighbouring [[shepherd]]s destroyed the city and called Ur, "the last great city to fall".<ref name="Breyer1997">{{cite book|author=Michelle Breyer|title=Ancient Middle East|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f3bFW1qY8eYC&pg=PA41|access-date=4 June 2011|date=December 1997|publisher=Teacher Created Resources|isbn=978-1-55734-573-8|pages=41–}}</ref>
==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Flickr - The U.S. Army - Soldiers explore the biblical home of Abraham.jpg|Reconstructed ruins of the city of Ur
File:Ziggarat of Ur 001.jpg|[[Ziggurat of Ur]]
File:Ancient ziggurat at Ali Air Base Iraq 2005.jpg|U.S. soldiers on the Ziggurat of Ur
</gallery>
==Further reading==
*Gabbay, Uri, and Nili Samet, "An Early Old Babylonian Bilingual Version of the Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur", Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 116.1., pp. 57-67, 2022
* Jacobsen, Thorkild., The Harps that Once .. Sumerian Poetry in Translation. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. 151–166. 1987.
* Klein, Jacob., "Sumerian Canonical Compositions. A. Divine Focus. 4. Lamentations: Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur (1.166)". In The Context of Scripture, I: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World. Hallo, William W. (ed). Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill. 535–539.  1997.
*Kramer, Samuel Noah., [https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/as12.pdf Lamentation Over the Destruction of Ur]. Assyriological Studies 12. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. 1940.
* Rosengarten, Yvonne., Trois Aspects de la Pensée Religieuse Sumérienne. Paris: Editions De Boccard. 1971.
* Witzel, Maurus., "Die Klage über Ur". In Orientalia 14. Rome 185–234. 1945.
* Witzel, Maurus. 1946., "Die Klage über Ur". In Orientalia 15. Rome 46–63. 1945.
* Samet, Nili, "The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur: A Revised Edition",  Eisenbrauns, 2014 {{ISBN|978-1-57506-292-1}}
==See also==
*[[Barton Cylinder]]
*[[Debate between Winter and Summer]]
*[[Debate between sheep and grain]]
*[[Enlil and Ninlil]]
*[[Eridu Genesis]]
*[[Old Babylonian oracle]]
*[[Self-praise of Shulgi (Shulgi D)]]
*[[Kesh temple hymn]]
*[[Hymn to Enlil]]
*[[Sumerian religion]]
*[[Sumerian literature]]
*[[Panbabylonism]]
*[[Third Dynasty of Ur]]
*[[Sumer]]
==References==
{{Reflist|2}}
==External links==
*[https://archive.org/stream/miscellaneousba00bartgoog#page/n6/mode/2up Barton, George Aaron., Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions, Yale University Press, 1918. Online Version]
* [http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/oip16.pdf Chiera, Edward and Kramer, Samuel Noah., Sumerian texts of varied contents, Number 20, University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications Volume XVI, Cuneiform series - volume IV, 1934. - Online Version]
* [http://www.worldcat.org/title/sumerian-religious-texts/oclc/4704929?title=&detail=&page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpi.lib.uchicago.edu%2F1001%2Fdig%2Fneh2%2F36%26checksum%3D2e862f1343fb82e31019de1bd4f61cc2&linktype=digitalObject Chirea, Edward., Sumerian Religious Texts, Constantinople. Musée impérial ottoman, 1924. Online Version]
*[http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.2.2&charenc=j# Translation of the ''Lament''], from the [[Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature]]
*[http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.2.2&display=Crit&charenc=j# Composite text], also from ETCSL
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110928222541/http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/cdlisearch/search/index3.php?SearchMode=Browse&ResultCount=25&txtContent=&txtPrimaryPublication=&txtAuthor=&txtDate_publication=&txtOther_Publication=&txtCitation=&txtCollection=&txtAccession_Number=&txtMuseum_no=CBS+19751&txtProvenience=&txtProvenienceRemarks=&txtExcavation_Number=&txtPeriod=&txtPeriodRemarks=&txtDates_Referenced=&txtDateRemarks=&txtDateOrigin=&txtID_Txt=&order=object_id&txtATFSource=&txtCatalogueSource=&txtTranslationSource=&txtObjectType=&txtObjectRemarks=&txtMaterial=&txtSealID=&txtLanguage=&txtGenre=&txtSubGenre=&txtSubgenreRemarks=&txtCDLIComments=&requestFrm=+++Search+++ Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative - CBS 02204, 02270, 02302, 19751 and N 3144]
{{Louvre Museum}}
[[Category:21st-century BC books]]
[[Category:Sumerian texts]]
[[Category:Clay tablets]]
[[Category:Mesopotamian myths]]
[[Category:Religious cosmologies]]
[[Category:Comparative mythology]]
[[Category:Ur]]
[[Category:Third Dynasty of Ur]]