Lament for Ur

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The Lament for Ur is a Sumerian lament composed after the fall of Ur to the Elamites and the end of the city's third dynasty (c. 2000 BC). It contains one (possibly the first) of five known Mesopotamian "city laments"—dirges for ruined cities in the voice of the city's tutelary goddess—within its eleven kirugu (sections or stanzas). In this case it is Ningal who weeps for her city, after pleading with the god Enlil to call back his 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 against future calamities.

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).

The other city laments are:

The Biblical Book of Lamentations, which bewails the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, is similar in theme to these Mesopotamian laments.

External links

Translation of the Lament, from the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
Composite text, also from ETCSL

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Last updated on Friday May 11, 2007 at 16:19:47 PDT (GMT -0700)
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