Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta
Also known as: Enmerkar and the Land of Aratta, Enmerkar and Aratta, Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (ETCSL 1.8.2.3)
The king Enmerkar of Uruk seeks Aratta’s rare stones and crafts to build Inanna’s temple, trading challenges and messages with Aratta’s ruler. As the envoy’s speech grows too long to bear, Enmerkar inscribes the words—an early literary reflection on writing, divine favor, and city rivalry.
Description
This Sumerian narrative recounts a diplomatic–ritual contest between Enmerkar of Uruk and the unnamed lord of Aratta, a distant, mountainous land famed for its precious stones and skilled artisans. Enmerkar, claiming Inanna’s favor, demands tribute and materials to adorn the Eanna precinct. The tale unfolds through repeated embassies, boasts, and set tasks that test legitimacy and divine backing, with the mountains and deserts of the messenger’s route serving as a dramatic backdrop. When the verbal message becomes too elaborate to memorize, Enmerkar presses the speech onto a tablet, a striking tradition-motif that associates royal administration and temple-building with the emergence of writing. The narrative closes with Aratta’s conditional submission to Inanna’s will, foregrounding themes of sacred kingship, urban prestige, and the power of eloquent command under divine patronage.
Historiography
Known from fragmentary Old Babylonian tablets, chiefly from southern Mesopotamian sites, the poem is part of the Uruk cycle centered on Enmerkar and Lugalbanda. Its relationship to the companion text “Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana” is close but distinct in episodes and personnel. The famous passage on the burdens of memorized messages provides one of the earliest literary reflections on writing. Modern editions and translations are synthesized in ETCSL and in standard anthologies of Sumerian literature; lineation varies by manuscript joins.
Date Notes
Survives on Old Babylonian tablets; composition likely earlier in the Ur III or late Early Dynastic traditions.
Major Characters
- Enmerkar
- Lord of Aratta
- Inanna
- The Messenger
Myths
- The Embassy to Aratta
- The Building of Inanna’s Temple
- The Invention of Writing
- The Incantation of Enmerkar
Facts
- Centers on Enmerkar, a legendary early king of Uruk, before the time of Gilgamesh.
- Aratta is portrayed as a distant, mountainous land rich in precious stones and skilled craftsmen.
- The poem links temple construction at Eanna with acquisition of exotic materials from abroad.
- Features repeated diplomatic missions rather than pitched battle, emphasizing rhetoric and ritual.
- Includes a celebrated episode where writing is invoked to fix a message too long to memorize.
- Presents Inanna as arbiter of political legitimacy between rival cities.
- Belongs to the Sumerian Uruk narrative cycle alongside Lugalbanda tales and a second Enmerkar poem.
- Survives in Old Babylonian copies with variant lineation and lacunae.
- Shows early Mesopotamian ideas about sovereignty achieved through divine sanction and resource control.
- Employs formulaic speeches and parallel scenes typical of Sumerian narrative style.