Identification Two B: Jemdet Nasr Period

Another Period?

We previously addressed the extensive legend of Enmerkar, the supposed inventor of writing, who might play a critical role in understanding the ‘unity’ of languages.¹ However, Nimrod does not unify the languages, but the Torah merely tells us the world was already of one language. This would presumably put Enmerkar further back in time, and a figure excluded from the Bible since there appears to be no individual credited with this invention in the text - despite many other roles such as metallurgy, shepherding, etc all being attributed to specific people.

While Enmerkar doesn’t have exact parallels there are some striking resemblances. His obvious rule over the city of Uruk (Erech) places him within the geography, and the epithet ‘-kar’ at the end of his name does actually mean hunter - similar to Nimrod’s title as a mighty hunter. However, he appears to early roughly around ~3100 BCE² in the transition between Final Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods making the legend of Enmerkar something of a memory of that era.

In a very interesting situation, Naram-Sin of Akkad actually blames Enmerkar for the defeat of Akkad due to Enmerkar’s failure to record his own military campaigns.³ Given this seemingly ‘well-known absence of information regarding Enmerkar’ even in the Akkadian period, it's almost impossible to not assume Enmerkar was probably a bit mythological even if there was some sort of real figure he represented. Given that Enmerkar’s reign lacks records - during a period where rulers viewed physically recording your achievements was the difference between being ‘real’ and mythological - it’s very safe to assume he is not Nimrod, since a Nimrod figure would at the very least be fairly well attested, even if under a different name.

Enmerkar is mostly attested from various legends, and epics from later memory that appear more like oral history passed down through the ages. His successor, Lugalbanda, actually also appears in many of these legends, but is said to reign for a mythologically long 1200 years. Given Lugalbanda’s reign is so long it seems to be a memory of the over 1000-1200 year period between Lugalbanda’s supposed rise, and the end of the Early Dynastic period. Gilgamesh actually calls himself the “son” of Lugalbanda, but this must be some kind of dynastic sense rather than immediate father due to their separation by so much time. If Gilgamesh was the son of Lugalbanda, an immortal, why would he approach Utnapishtim for the secrets of immortality?

I would be remiss not to mention the now disproven etymological theory that Lugal-Ban-Da/=Lugal-Marad-D⁴, further dissociating Nimrod from Lugalbanda, but not necessarily Enmerkar, or Lugalbanda’s son Gilgamesh. Following Lugalbanda we actually see the end of the insanely long reigns and lifespans with the ruler Dumuzid the Fisherman only reigning 100 years at Uruk. His long reign still covers nearly half of the Jemdet Nasr period being likely a later name inserted during the Ur period to explain this probably known absence in the written historical record.⁵ Again, it would be very odd that a ruler came between Lugalbanda and his supposed son Gilgamesh hinting as Dumuzid being somewhat of a fabrication.

There is one problem with the scholarly identification of the Late Uruk period for Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, that I would personally contest. If we assume Dumuzid represents that 200 year Jemdet Nasr, flanked by his predecessor Lugalbanda and successor Gilgamesh for no more than 50 years, then the 1200 reign of Lugalbanda brings us back to 4200 BCE at earliest. This is even beyond the beginning of Uruk, and sets us back into the Ubaid. Add in the 420 years of Enmerkar’s reign - some lists even have 900 years - and we are back to 4620~ BCE, nearly at the beginning of Ubaid. If we include the full 900 that’s 5100 which interestingly does line up with the archeological founding of Uruk around 5000 BCE.⁶

This is important! While archeology sees these leaders coming from later periods - due mostly to textual insertions from those later periods - the reality is that a list would attempt to date the earliest founding of a city even if that city wasn’t ruling over the rest. Kingships shift at the end of a city's rulers, but they do not begin with that city's first ruler on the list! The list is therefore not chronological, and it is really only in the time of Gilgamesh when the “kingship” shifts to Uruk. Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, and Dumuzid are not rulers of any unified empire, but merely important rulers in the history of Uruk probably inserted to represent Ubaid, Uruk, and Jemdet Nasr periods based on the length of their supposed reigns. Through all of these periods, the kingship is then at Kish, with potentially the earliest Ubaid antediluvian immortals of Eridu representing some kind of proto-history of human civilization in the cycle before the Flood wiped out collective memory.

If we look at this from an ancient lens, a ruler such as Gilgamesh would feel the need to add back his father on the list, and then explain the founding of the city under Enmerkar. Dumuzid doesn’t appear to be added during that era, and appears to come during the Sargonic era to explain that lapse in records known to Akkadian rulers through their complaints on Steles of ancient rulers not recording known events. Until the era of Gilgamesh, Uruk wasn’t even mentioned and really their history would not have been written. Once the city comes to prominence, they would have felt the need to explain their origin, even if in a pseudo-mythological manner.

However, there is one clue for this Nimrod theory from Enmerkar’s dual role as a mighty hunter and founder of Uruk. Afterall, Nimrod is explicitly stated to have the beginning of his kingdom in “Babylon, Uruk, Akkad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar” . The Bible is unclear here and it doesn’t seem to claim Nimrod founded these cities, but it’s very interesting that if we associate Babylon to Eridu in the Ubaid period - remember, Eridu was called “Babylon” and Babylon called “Eridu” in later periods - then Uruk is the obvious Uruk period, and later Akkad being the center of Sargon of Akkad’s empire kicking off the true continually unbroken chain of human kingdoms. If there was one city per each era, the first two would be Eridu and Uruk, followed by Akkad, and these three cities would represent the “beginning” of the earliest kingdoms. If Calneh was Nippur, it would have served as the ritual center being mentioned as the location of every king on the Sumerian Kings List performing ceremonies at the site.

All of this points to many of these early leaders being rolled up into the mythology of Nimrod, or at the very least someone like Enmerkar would be the “second Nimrod”, with that earlier Nimrod potentially being the antediluvian ruler of Eridu known as Alulim. Having covered the Ubaid, Uruk, and Jemdet Nasr periods for two potential mythological data points in the Nimrod story, we can now move onto the Early Dynastic Period known from the famous Epic of Gilgamesh.

1. WOODS, C. (2010). Inventions of writing in the Ancient Middle East and beyond.

2. Pournelle, Jennifer R. (2003). Marshland of Cities: Deltaic Landscapes and the Evolution of Civilization. S.N. p. 267.

3. Katz, D. (2017). Ups and Downs in the Career of Enmerkar, King of Uruk. In 1038779203 795202920 O. Drewnowska & 1038779204 795202920 M. Sandowicz (Authors), Fortune and misfortune in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 60th Rencontre assyriologique internationale at Warsaw 21–25 July 2014 (pp. 201-202). Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.

4. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/369955

5. Mittermayer, Catherine (2009). Enmerkara und der Herr von Arata: Ein ungleicher Wettstreit. p. 93.

6. Charvát 2002, p.119