“By the immutable word of Enlil, king of the lands, father of the gods, Ningirsu and Shara set a boundary to their lands. Mesilim, King of Kish, at the command of his deity Kadi, set up a stele [a boundary marker] in the plantation of that field.Ush, ruler of Umma, formed a plan to seize it. That stele he broke in pieces, into the plain of Lagash he advanced. Ningirsu, the hero of Enlil, by his just command, made war upon Umma. At the command of Enlil, his great net ensnared them. He erected their burial mound on the plain in that place.”

These documents were found on clay cylinders and date from about 2500 BC.

Palette of Narmer (c. 31st cen. B.C.E)

Hark the piping!My heart is piping in the

wildernessWhere the young man once

went free.He is a prisoner now in death’s

kingdom,lies bound where once he

lived….“It is you,” she cried to him,

“but you are changed.”The agony, the agony she bears.Woe to the house and the inner

room…

She is the mother desolate in a desolate place

Where once he was alive, now he lies

like a young bull felled to the ground.

Into his face she stares, seeing what she has lost -

his mother who has lost him to death’s kingdom.

O, the agony she bears, shuddering in the wilderness,she is the mother suffering so

much.

The Mother Sings

Thy two wings are spread out like a falcon with thick plumage, like the hawk seen in the evening traversing the sky

He flies who flies; this king Pepi flies away from you, ye mortals. He is not of the earth, he is of the sky. . . . This king Pepi flies as a cloud to the sky, like a masthead bird; this king Pepi kisses the sky like a falcon, this king Pepi reaches the sky like Horizon-godKing Unis ascends upon the ladder which his father Re) made for him

The king ascends to the sky among the gods dwelling in the sky. He stands on the great [dais], he hears (in judicial session) the (legal) affairs of men. Re finds thee upon the shores of the sky in this lake that is in Nut ‘The arriver comes !’ say the gods. He (Re) gives thee his arm on the stairway to the sky. ‘He who knows his place comes,’ say the gods. 0 Pure One, assume thy throne in the barque of Re and sail thou the sky. . . . Sail thou with the Imperishable Stars, sad thou with the Unwearied Stars. Receive thou the tribute’ of the Evening Barque, become thou a spirit dwelling in Dewat. Live thou this pleasant life which the lord of the horizon lives