Lament for Uruk

The Lament for Uruk is one of five known Mesopotamian "city laments"—dirges for ruined cities in the voice of the city's tutelary goddess, recited by elegists called gala.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ma_qDwAAQBAJ&q=%22lament+for+uruk%22++&pg=PT214|title=The Essential Poet's Glossary|first=Edward|last=Hirsch|date=April 4, 2017|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=9780544932098 |via=Google Books}} It was inspired by the Lament for Ur.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pR3RJwwCW2YC&dq=%22+uruk+Lament%22&pg=PA62|title=From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature|first=Carl S.|last=Ehrlich|date=January 16, 2009|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=9780742563476 |via=Google Books}}

First written in {{circa|1940 BCE}},{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v-bkDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22+uruk+Lament%22&pg=PA77|title=By the River Chebar: Historical, Literary, and Theological Studies in the Book of Ezekiel|first=Daniel I.|last=Block|date=March 27, 2014|publisher=ISD LLC|isbn=9780227902318 |via=Google Books}} the Lament was recopied during the Hellenistic period, when Babylonia had again been overrun by foreigners.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M8s3cp97b-AC&dq=%22+Lament+for+uruk%22&pg=PA66|title=Seers, Sibyls, and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism|first=John Joseph|last=Collins|date=September 21, 2001|publisher=BRILL|isbn=9780391041103 |via=Google Books}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wwaJAAAAMAAJ&q=%22+Lament+for+uruk%22|title=Metaphors and Monsters: A Literary-critical Study of Daniel 7 and 8|first=Paul A.|last=Porter|date=September 21, 1985|publisher=Paul A. Porter|isbn=9780969202707 |via=Google Books}}

File:Mésopotamie Isin-Larsa.svg

The Lament is 260 lines long, being composed of 12 kirugu (sections, songs) and 11 gišgigal (antiphons).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dhh-CwAAQBAJ&dq=%22+Lament+for+uruk%22+kirugu&pg=PA21|title=The Fall of Cities in the Mediterranean: Commemoration in Literature, Folk-Song, and Liturgy|first1=Mary R.|last1=Bachvarova|first2=Dorota|last2=Dutsch|first3=Ann|last3=Suter|date=February 15, 2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107031968 |via=Google Books}}

Numbered by kirugu, the lament is structured as follows:

1. storm of Enlil (storm in Uruk)
2. storm of Enlil (storm in Uruk)
3. storm of Enlil (storm in Sumer)
4. weeping goddess; the poet addresses Sumer
5. weeping goddess; the poet addresses Uruk
6. weeping goddess; the poet addresses Uruk (?)
7. lost
8. lost
9. lost
10. lost
11. prayer; the poet addresses the gods
12. prayer; the poet addresses Inanna{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AWLiCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22storm+of+Enlil%3B%22%22Dagan+recreates+Nippur%22&pg=PA23|title=The Fall of Cities in the Mediterranean: Commemoration in Literature, Folk-Song, and Liturgy|first1=Mary R.|last1=Bachvarova|first2=Dorota|last2=Dutsch|first3=Ann|last3=Suter|date=February 15, 2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781316483169 |via=Google Books}}

It is composed in the standard emegir dialect of Sumerian.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Et8vAK1wn7IC&dq=%22+uruk+Lament%22&pg=PA21|title=Lament: Studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond|first=Ann|last=Suter|date=February 5, 2008|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-971427-8 |via=Google Books}}

• The Lament for Sumer and Ur
• The Lament for Ur
• The Lament for Eridu
• The Lament for Nippur

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{Cite journal |last=Green |first=M. W. |date=1984 |title=The Uruk Lament |url= |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=104 |issue=2 |pages=253–279 |doi=10.2307/602171 |issn=0003-0279 |jstor=602171}}

• [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/literary/pager Full text in Sumerian]
• [https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.2.5&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc# Full text (transliteration) at ETCSL (Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature)]
• [https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.2.5# Translation at ETCSL]
• [https://www.mesopotamiangods.com/lament-for-unug-uruk/ English translation]

Category:20th-century BC literature

Category:Sumerian texts

Category:Isin-Larsa period

Uruk