Etana (the King Who Flew to Heaven)
A childless king rides an eagle up past the clouds to beg heaven for an heir — and the earth dwindles to nothing below.
Also: Etana · the eagle and the snake · plant of birth · flight to heaven · king of Kish · shepherd who ascended to heaven
Etana is remembered as an early king of Kiš — 'the shepherd who ascended to heaven' — but he has no son to continue his line, and he prays for the 'plant of birth.' His story is interwoven with a famous animal fable: an eagle and a snake swear friendship, but the eagle devours the snake's young and is punished, cast broken into a pit, until Etana rescues him. In gratitude the eagle carries Etana up through the heavens toward the gods to find the plant that will grant him an heir. As they climb ever higher and the earth shrinks below, Etana grows afraid — and here the surviving tablets break off, leaving the ending uncertain, though the king-list tradition names a son who succeeded him, implying his line did continue. The myth joins a meditation on dynastic continuity with one of the world's oldest fables and a soaring image of flight.
In short
The Akkadian myth of Etana, a legendary early king of Kiš who, lacking an heir, is carried up to heaven on the back of an eagle to seek the 'plant of birth' — framed by the fable of the eagle and the snake whose broken friendship the king must heal.
Where it’s found
The Etana epic, Akkadian, OB/MA/SB recensions (NOT freely served on ORACC — akkadian-pending; ed. J. V. Kinnier Wilson, The Legend of Etana; tr. B. Foster, Before the Muses). Etana is named among the kings of Kiš in 'The Sumerian king list' (ETCSL 2.1.1), which IS in our corpus.
How the idea developed across Sumer, Babylon & Assyria
Preserved in Old Babylonian, Middle Assyrian, and Standard Babylonian Akkadian recensions, all incomplete; the ending is lost. Etana is named among the kings of the First Dynasty of Kiš (the first post-Flood dynasty) in the Sumerian King List — well down the list, not at its head — where he is 'the shepherd who ascended to heaven' (a legendary placement). The eagle-and-snake portion is an embedded fable. The famous 'flight of Etana' is also depicted on Akkadian-period cylinder seals.
Etana is a LEGENDARY figure (a King List ruler of Kiš known through myth), not a documented historical person; the surviving epic is fragmentary and its ending is unknown — do not invent a resolution.