Lamentations are well-recorded in Sumerian archives. Essays and poems bemoaning the looting of a city and the temple of its patron deity were etched onto tablets and kept for posterity. Many of them have survived (in most cases because the clay tablets got baked and hardened when the palace library went up in flames). Reading them is like reading a newspaper today (well, today in 2006).
How would generations 5000 years hence interpret the blame-game currently ongoing between the US and Iran?
Lamentation of Lagash
The translated text reads,
“Umma’s man set fire to the border slope, He set fire to Anta Sura and plundered money and lapis lazuli. He killed in the palace of Tiras, he killed in ‘Apsu-banda, he killed in the chapel of the god Enlil. (…) He set fire to the temple of the goddess Gatumdug, plundered the silver and the lapis lazuli and destroyed the statues. (…) He took away the cereals from the Ningirsu fields! (…) On the part of UruKagina, the king of Girsu | city of the state of Lagash there was no fishing! May the goddess Nidaba, the goddess of Lugalzagesi, prince of Umma, bear the weight of this sin!”
I need to fill this up with much better content than I had populated it with earlier. Why I write a blog maybe? I started blogging in 2009 or thereabouts. I was a newly turned atheist and wanted to converse with others of the same persuasion. We're not exactly a big population group in India! It didn't go very well and I sort of lost interest, posting a few things now and then.
I got a lot more regular over the last few months and have been posting almost daily since February '15. There were many reasons why I gradually became more regular in posting, but one way or the other, here I am! So this blog has taken shape, being at different points in time my showcase, my comedy club, my art gallery, my book club, my therapist, my close friend, my innermost self....but always my little corner of the world. You are all welcome to visit and I hope you stay awhile!
A few points about me because I don't want to lead anyone on(and trust me this does become an issue more often than I'd care to admit).
I'm Indian, the brown-skinned variety; if race, ethnicity or skin colour is an issue, you don't have to get to know me any more than what you see on my blog.
I'm 40, so if age is an issue, please be informed accordingly.
I was a doctor, an ophthalmic surgeon for 10 years before I quit practice.
hbhatnagar 
chanced upon your translation of Poems by Ms Kartika, great efforts keeping the soul of the words written. My compliments..
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Posted by Sanjeev Bhatnagar | 23/01/2020, 12:24 AMI’m not sure which translation you’re referring to here, sorry.
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Posted by hbhatnagar | 26/01/2020, 6:01 PM