The ME (Divine Offices of Civilization)
Kingship, craft, music, even strife — all of civilization handed down as objects the gods could carry off.
The me (pronounced 'may') are one of the most distinctive Sumerian ideas: the divine 'givens' that make ordered civilized life possible. They include kingship and priesthood, the crafts and the arts, the temple offices, music, sexual customs, and even darker realities like strife and deceit — a complete inventory of the institutions of culture, conceived as objects the gods possess and bestow. In one famous myth Inana carries the me off from Enki to her city Uruk. To hold the me is to hold the very building-blocks of an ordered world.
Key passages(7)
You who bundle together the divine powers, …… the divine powers, articulate …… house of the king ……, who give instruction throughout the breadth of heaven and earth, adviser of the Land, Nuska! The Gr
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My father gave me the heavens and he gave me the earth. I am Inana! Which god compares with me? Enlil gave me the heavens and he gave me the earth. I am Inana! He gave me lordship, and he gave me que
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A tigi to Enki for Ur-Ninurta (Ur-Ninurta B)
Lord of complex divine powers, who establishes umderstanding, whose intentions are unfathomable, who knows everything! Enki, of broad wisdom, august ruler of the Anuna, wise one who casts spells, who
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Not only did the lord make the world appear in its correct form -- the lord who never changes the destinies which he determines: Enlil, who will make the human seed of the Land come forth up from the
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She …… of the desert. She put the šu-gura, the desert crown, on her head. …… when she went out to the shepherd, to the sheepfold, …… her genitals were remarkable. …… her genitals were remarkable. She
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A hymn to Inana for Išme-Dagan (Išme-Dagan K)
Young woman Inana, Suen's daughter, who makes the divine powers of the Land supreme, who achieves everything, who seizes the divine powers in heaven and gathers them up on earth, who proceeds proudly
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ASARE, bestower of arable land, who [... ] a plan, creator of barley and flax, who makes vegetation grow. ASARALIM, who is honoured in the council hall, whose advice is supreme, whom the gods attend t
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