Enmerkar, ancient Sumerian ruler, according to the
Sumerian king listThe Sumerian King List is an ancient manuscript, originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties. It records the location of "official" kingship, along with the rulers and their supposed reign lengths...
, is listed as having reigned for "420 years" (some copies read "900 years").
The Sumerian king list implies that Enmerkar inherited official kingship at E-ana after his father
Mesh-ki-ang-gasherMesh-ki-ang-gasher was a Sumerian ruler and the founder of the First Dynasty of Uruk and the father of Enmerkar, according to the Sumerian king list. If a historical ruler, he would have flourished in ca...
, son of
UtuUtu is the Sumerian for "Sun". The Sumerian cuneiform character is encoded in Unicode at U+12313 ....
, had "entered the sea and disappeared."
Enmerkar is also known from a few other Sumerian legends, most notably
Enmerkar and the Lord of ArattaEnmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is a legendary Sumerian account, of preserved, early post-Sumerian copies, composed in the Neo-Sumerian period ....
, where a previous confusion of the languages of mankind is mentioned.
Enmerkar, ancient Sumerian ruler, according to the
Sumerian king listThe Sumerian King List is an ancient manuscript, originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties. It records the location of "official" kingship, along with the rulers and their supposed reign lengths...
, is listed as having reigned for "420 years" (some copies read "900 years").
The Sumerian king list implies that Enmerkar inherited official kingship at E-ana after his father
Mesh-ki-ang-gasherMesh-ki-ang-gasher was a Sumerian ruler and the founder of the First Dynasty of Uruk and the father of Enmerkar, according to the Sumerian king list. If a historical ruler, he would have flourished in ca...
, son of
UtuUtu is the Sumerian for "Sun". The Sumerian cuneiform character is encoded in Unicode at U+12313 ....
, had "entered the sea and disappeared."
Enmerkar is also known from a few other Sumerian legends, most notably
Enmerkar and the Lord of ArattaEnmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is a legendary Sumerian account, of preserved, early post-Sumerian copies, composed in the Neo-Sumerian period ....
, where a previous confusion of the languages of mankind is mentioned. Here, Enmerkar is called 'the son of Utu', the Sumerian sun god. Besides founding Uruk, he is documented having built a temple at
EriduEridu is an ancient city in what is now Tell Abu Shahrain, in Iraq. Eridu was the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia, founded c. 5400 BCE. Located 12 km southwest of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew about temples, almost in sight of one another...
, and is even credited with the invention of writing on clay tablets for purposes of coercing
ArattaAratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.-Role in Sumerian literature:Aratta is described as follows in Sumerian literature:...
into submission.
David RohlThe New Chronology is an alternative Chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers, beginning with A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History in 1995...
has claimed parallels between Enmerkar, builder of Uruk, and
NimrodNimrod means "Rebellion"; was a Biblical Mesopotamian king mentioned in the Table of Nations. The term Nimrod when vague or general is applied to the means of hunter, normally to a person...
, ruler of biblical Erech and architect of the
Tower of BabelThe Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built at the city of Babylon , a cosmopolitan city typified by a confusion of languages, also called the "beginning" of Nimrod's kingdom...
in extra-biblical legends. Rohl has also suggested that Eridu near
UrUr was a city in ancient Sumer, located at the site of modern Tell el-Mukayyar in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate....
is the original site of
BabelBabylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, and that the incomplete
zigguratZiggurats were massive pyramidal temples built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. There are 32 ziggurats known at, and near, Mesopotamia...
found there - by far the oldest and largest of its kind - is none other than the remnants of the Biblical tower.
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