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Sumerian tablets, as copied
A set of compositions, not one canon. Humans made for the gods’ work. The me carried to Uruk. A netherworld with gates. A flood, then kingship again.
Do not fold these lines into the Akkadian poems or into the Mesopotamian cell. Enūma Eliš is not this stack. Atraḫasīs’s noise is not this stack.
What is filed is a set of compositions, not one canon. Humans are made to carry the gods’ work. The me move from Eridu to Uruk. The netherworld has gates. A flood breaks the king list, and kingship is lowered again.
- 01
No single cosmogony filed
Kingship is lowered from heaven. A creation of the cosmos is not on these pieces.
- 02
Humans from clay
Enki and Ninmah: made so the gods’ labor can be carried. Not a moral code.
- 03
The me
Divine offices move from Enki’s city to Inanna’s. A gain, not a human crime.
- 04
Netherworld gates
Inanna dies below and returns. A substitute is taken. Death is a place.
- 05
Flood, then Kish
Ziusudra crosses. The King List resumes kingship. The flood cause is fragmentary.
- Time
- A flood, then kingship lowered again. Not a last judgment and not a wheel.
- Agents
- Enki, Inanna, and the powers of the netherworld. Knowing is the tablets and the King List.
- Human slot
- Made for a task. What humanity should become is not stated. One survivor is granted life like a god.
- Break
- The flood, in a broken tablet and in the King List. Not Atraḫasīs’s noise, and not the Watchers.