Vulture stele
A vulture stele is a fragmentary stele with an inscription by the Sumerian king E-ana-tum of the city of Lagaš , which according to the middle chronology was around the year 2,470 BC. Could have arisen. The fragments of the stele were discovered by Ernest de Sarzec in 1878 in various places in the temple district of Telloh and are now in the Louvre in Paris . The stele got its name from the depiction of vultures in one of the fragments. With its historical inscription, it is one of the oldest historical documents ever and testifies to the conflict between the early dynastic city-states Umma and Lagaš (see Lagaš-Umma War ).
presentation
The stele was made entirely of limestone . Its dimensions are estimated from the remaining fragments to be approx. 180 cm high, 130 cm wide and 11 cm deep. Both the wide and the narrow sides were in relief:
The largest fragment shows on its front Ningirsu , the city god of Lagaš, who kills naked enemies caught in a net with a club. The closure of this net has the shape of a lion eagle, possibly an anzu . On the front of the smaller fragments there are probably parts of other deities, one of which drives a chariot, while another carries a standard in the shape of an eagle.
On the back of the largest fragment, King E-ana-tum is shown in the clothes customary for kings (so-called villi coat and robe), who leads his phalanx, striding in battle order over fallen enemies. In the lower area of this fragment, part of a frieze is preserved, on which the king with a spear in hand on board a chariot can be seen in front of his troops marching with spears. The eponymous vultures can be seen on a fragment of the upper arch field as they carry human heads off. Another fragment of this arc shows the enemies who fell in battle. On a fragment from the lower area of the stele there is a sacrificial scene and a depiction of a mountain of corpses, which is supposed to represent a burial in a mass grave.
The remaining representations of the stele elude a more detailed description due to the fragmentation.
background
The reason for the production of the vulture stele was the contract carved on it between E-ana-tum of Lagaš and the prince of Umma, which was supposed to end a long-lasting conflict over land between the two cities, from which E-ana-tum was previously the winner had emerged. This conflict is attested at least twice:
Later inscription
A later inscription shows that Mesilim of Kiš set the border between the cities of Umma and Lagaš and marketed it with a stele. At that time, the King of Kiš probably had a prominent position among the Sumerian city rulers and was able to intervene in conflicts as an arbitrator. Uš von Umma then removed this stele during an attack on the area of the neighboring town, whereupon E-ana-tum recaptured these areas, appropriated territories from Umma and marketed the new border with a ditch and a stele. It is unclear whether this stele is the vulture stele, as its fragments were found in Telloh, the ruins of the city of Girsu .
Inscription of the vulture stele
The inscription on the stele reports the events from E-ana-tum's perspective. According to this, Umma repeatedly used the water, canals and fields of Lagaš and thus misused property of the city god Ningirsu. After a mediation by the city of Kiš failed, E-ana-tum, as the representative of God, answered this abuse:
| é-an-na-túm-me | Date |
| umma ki -a | has in umma |
| IM - ḫul im-ma-gim | like a bad rainstorm |
| a-MAR mu-ni-tag4 | a storm surge released there |
After the victory of E-ana-tum this was officially confirmed by Umma with an oath before the gods and the new border was marked by the stele. In the event of a breach of peace, Ummah should suffer the fate depicted on the front of the stele, annihilation by the gods.
literature
- Dietz-Otto Edzard : History of Mesopotamia. Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-51664-5 , pp. 54-55.
- Donald P. Hansen : Early Sumerian and Early Dynastic Flat Art. In: Winfried Orthmann : The Old Orient. Propylaea, Berlin 1975, Propylaea art history 18, ISBN 3-549-05666-4 , pp. 189–190.
- Jutta Börker-Klähn: Ancient Near Eastern picture steles and comparable rock reliefs (= Baghdad Research. Vol. 4). von Zabern, Mainz 1982, pp. 9. 16-17. 124-125 No. 17.
- Horst Steible : The old Sumerian building and dedicatory inscriptions. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1982, ISBN 3-515-02590-1 .
