Complex Numbers

Sumer Time

Nothing is forever, but some things endure for quite some time.

    Poet of impermanence  
Enheduana is the first known named author. Her poems of strife and upheaval resonate in our own unstable times

Ironic, then, that works about societal change have survived over 4,000 years.

About 4,200 years ago, the area we now call southern Iraq was rocked by revolts.

History doesn't repeat itself. It echoes.

The once-independent Sumerian city states had been brought under one rule by the legendary king Sargon of Akkad.

For comparison's sake, I tried to figure out when Sumer became, well, Sumer. There's a pretty wide range of possible founding times. Seems like the Sumerian civilization had been around for at least 1000 years before the time of this poet, and possibly even 3000. That's a pretty long time for a civilization.

One such revolt is depicted in a fascinating poem known as ‘The Exaltation of Inana’. Besides being a poetic masterpiece in its own right, ‘The Exaltation’ bears the distinction of being the first known work of literature that was attributed to an author whom we can identify in the historical record, rather than to an anonymous tradition or a fictional narrator. The narrator of the poem is Enheduana, the high priestess of the city of Ur and the daughter of Sargon. According to ‘The Exaltation’, she was cast into exile by one of the many revolts that plagued the Old Akkadian Empire.

Regular readers might also recognize ancient Sumer as the source of the world's oldest known joke. It is a fart joke. I'm just reminding us of this so we don't start thinking that all Sumerian literature was highbrow.

We do not know for sure whether the poem was written by the historical Enheduana herself, as a literary retelling of a real event, or by a later poet writing in her name, in the ancient version of a historical fiction that was meant to celebrate the famous high priestess.

I think this is important to note, also. Whatever the provenance, though, it exists. The clay cuneiform tablets shown at the link are also remarkably well-preserved.

The poems do not merely register the reality of an historic upheaval – they go one step further by turning that instability into a cosmic insight, an occasion to reflect on what the world is really like. They contain, compressed within their often-cryptic verses, the germ of an ancient philosophy of change.

An ancient philosophy of change, sunk into clay to preserve it for a very, very long time. Like I said... irony.

The article presents excerpts of translations of some of the writing (it was only a couple of days ago that I did an entry about translation). It's fairly long, but I found the whole thing intriguing, even the way the author related the upheavals of ancient Sumer to some of the changes we're going through today. I'm not saying I agree, but having the perspective of history can be useful.

I just wanted to make one more observation here, relevant to writers in general. It's not complacency and peace that generates lasting works of literature, but upheaval, change, and tragedy. Something to keep in mind if you want your works to last over 4,000 years.