Lament for Uruk

{{short description|Sumerian lament}}

File:Uruk ziggurat (2).jpg in Uruk]]

The Lament for Uruk, also called the Uruk Lament or the Lament for Unug,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=86qMDwAAQBAJ&q=%22unug%22&pg=PA165|title=Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World|first1=Raija|last1=Mattila|first2=Sanae|last2=Ito|first3=Sebastian|last3=Fink|date=March 11, 2019|publisher=Springer|isbn=9783658243883 |via=Google Books}} is a Sumerian lament. It is dated to the Isin-Larsa period.{{Cite web|url=https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/347141|title=Tablet - CBS13856 | Collections - Penn Museum|website=www.penn.museum}}

History

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

Text

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}}

See also

References

{{Reflist|2}}

Further reading

  • {{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}}