The Poem of Erra and Ishum: A Babylonian Poet’s View of War

Abstract

The history of war begins in ancient Iraq.The earliest reported conflict in human history was fought by neighbouring city-states, Lagash and Umma, in the mid-third millennium bc.The early course of the war is reported by Enmetena, ruler of Lagash, in a Sumerian cuneiform inscription preserved on clay objects (a cone, a cylinder, two votive jars) that commemorate his restoration of a religious building that had been damaged in the war (Cooper 1986: 54-57 La 5.1; Frayne 2008: 194-99).The text records a succession of aggressive acts and retaliations.The prose is bald and matter-of-fact.The following passage is typical.It recounts the invasion of Lagash's territory by Ur-Lumma of Umma and his allies during the time of Enmetena's father, Enannatum, and their repulse by forces commanded by his son: kur-kur e-ma-Óun e ki-sur-ra d nin-gír-su-ka-ka e-ma-ta-bal en-an-na-túm en 5 -si lagaš ki -ke 4 gána-ú gig-ga a-šà aša 5 d nin-gír-su-ka-ka giš ur-ur-šè e-da-lá en-te:me-na dumu ki-ág en-an-na-túm-ma-ke 4 tùn-šè ì-ni-sè ur-lum-ma ba-da-kar šà umma ki -šè e-gaz anše-ni érin 60-am 6 gú íd-lum-ma-gír-nun-ta-ka e-šè-tag nam-lú-ùlu-ba gìr-pad-rá-bi eden-da e-da-tag 4 -tag 4 saÓar-du 6 -tag 4 -bi ki-iá-a ì-mi-dub Enmetena 28-29 iii 1-27 He enlisted (troops from) all countries and crossed over the boundary ditch of the god Ningirsu (i.e. of Lagash).Enannatum, ruler of Lagash, joined battle 02_Warfare&Poetry_Ch2_039-072.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 24 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.