Enmerkar
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Enmerkar, according to the Sumerian king list, was the builder of Uruk, and was said to have reigned for "420 years" (or 900 as some copies).
It adds that he brought the official kingship with him from the city of Eana, after his father Mesh-ki-ag-gasher, son of Utu, had "entered the sea and disappeared".
Enmerkar is also known from a few other Sumerian legends, most notably "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta", where a previous confusion of the languages of mankind is mentioned. Here, he himself is called 'the son of Utu' (Utu was the Sumerian Sun god). In addition to founding Uruk, he is said here to have had a temple built at Eridu.
David Rohl has claimed parallels between Enmerkar, (-KAR meaning "hunter"), founder of Uruk, and Nimrod the Hunter, founder of Erech (the Biblical name for Uruk) according to Genesis 10, and builder of the Tower of Babel in post-Biblical legends. Rohl has even suggested that Eridu near Ur was the original site of Babel, and that the incomplete ziggurat found there, by far the oldest and largest of its kind, are none other than the ruins of the Biblical tower.
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| History of Sumer: Notable Rulers of Sumer |
|
|---|---|
| Legendary Kings: | Alulim Dumuzid Ziusudra |
| First Dynasty of Kish: | Etana Enmebaragesi |
| First Dynasty of Uruk: | Enmerkar Lugalbanda Gilgamesh |
| First Dynasty of Ur: | Meskalamdug Mesannepada Puabi |
| Dynasty of Adab: | Lugal-Anne-Mundu |
| Third Dynasty of Kish: | Kubaba |
| First Dynasty of Lagash: | Ur-Nanshe Eannatum En-anna-tum I Entemena Urukagina |
| Third Dynasty of Uruk: | Lugal-Zage-Si |
| Dynasty of Akkad: | Sargon Enheduanna Manishtushu Naram-Sin Shar-Kali-Sharri Dudu Shu-turul |
| Second Dynasty of Lagash: | Gudea |
| Fifth Dynasty of Uruk: | Utu-hegal |
| Third Dynasty of Ur: | Ur-Nammu Shulgi Amar-Sin Shu-Sin Ibbi-Sin |
