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Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta

Fragment of a tablet with "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta", c. 1900–1600 BC.

Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is a legendary Sumerian account, preserved in early post-Sumerian copies, composed in the Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 21st century BC). It is one of a series of accounts describing the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug-Kulaba, and the unnamed king of Aratta.[citation needed]

Because it gives a Sumerian account of the "confusion of tongues", and also involves Enmerkar constructing temples at Eridu and Uruk, it has, since the time of Samuel Kramer,[1] been compared with the Tower of Babel narrative in the Book of Genesis.

  1. ^ Kramer, Samuel Noah (1968). "The 'Babel of Tongues': A Sumerian Version". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 88 (1): 108–111. doi:10.2307/597903. JSTOR 597903.

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