Building anthem

A genre of Sumerian literature is called the building hymn .

Like almost all written evidence of ancient Mesopotamia , the Sumerian hymns also belong primarily to religious literature . They explain the motives for creating a building as a gift to a deity or their commission to create a temple . Furthermore, they often describe the client's achievements in creating the building, the reasons for the building, the origin of the building materials and the effort involved in their work Transport. Building hymns are important historical sources for the development of Mesopotamian history , especially for dating and chronology .

The most famous building hymn, a temple building hymn, comes from Gudea von Lagasch . It was written as an inscription on two clay cylinders in Sumerian cuneiform . In this 1,363-line text, Gudea describes the construction of the Eninnu temple for the state god of the state of Lagasch, Ningirsu . The god appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to rebuild his temple. He even presented the plan for this ( there is also a famous statue for this subject , which depicts Gudea as the architect with the plan ). Gudea had the building site cleaned and delimited with fireplaces. Then he describes his efforts with which he has procured labor and building materials:

“ The Elamites came from Elam , the Susaers from Susa , Magan and Melucha collected timber from their mountains. [...] Gudea brought them together in his city of Girsu . [...] Gudea, the great en priest of Ningirsu, built a path into the cedar mountains that no one had entered before. He felled their cedars with great axes [...]. The cedars swam like great snakes down the water [of the river] from the cedar mountain, pine rafts from the pine mountain [...] in the quarries that no one had entered before, Gudea the great en -priest of Ningirsu made a path, and then they became Bricks delivered in large blocks. [...] Many other precious metals were carried to the governor, the builder of the Ninnu temple. From the copper mountain Kimasch [...] gold dust was brought from his mountain. [...] For Gudea they mined silver from his mountains and delivered red stones from Melucha in large quantities. "