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159 King, the glory of thy day is lordly; Ninurta, Foremost, possessor of the Divine Powers, who into the throes of the Mountainlands stepped forth. Like a flood which cannot be stopped, the Enemyland as with a girdle you tightly bound. Foremost one, who in battle vehemently enters; Hero, who in his hand the Divine Brilliant Weapon carries; Lord: the Mountainland you subdued as your creature. Ninurta, royal son, whose father to him had given might; Hero: in fear of thee, the city has surrendered . . . O mighty one— , the Great Serpent, the heroic god, you tore away from all the mountains. Thus extolling Ninurta, his feats, and his Brilliant Weapon, the poem also describes the location of the conflict ("the Mountainlands") and his principal enemy: "The Great Ser- pent," leader of the Egyptian deities. The Sumerian poem identifies this adversary several times as Azag and once refers to him as Ashar, both well-known epithets for Marduk, thereby establishing the two principal sons of Enlil and Enki—Ninurta and Marduk—as the leaders of the opposing camps in the Sec- ond Pyramid War. The second tablet (one of thirteen on which the long poem was inscribed) describes the first battle. Ninurta's upper hand is as- cribed to both his godly weapons and a new airship that he built for himself after his original one had been destroyed in an accident. It was called IM.DU.GUD, usually translated "Divine Storm Bird" but which literally means "That Which Like Heroic Storm Runs"; we know from various texts that its wingspan was about seventy- five feet. Archaic drawings depicted it as a mechanically constructed "bird," with two wing surfaces supported by cross beams (Fig. 47a); an undercarriage reveals a series of round openings, perhaps air intakes for jetlike engines. This aircraft, from millennia ago. bears a remarkable resemblance not only to the early biplanes of the modem air age, but also an incredible likeness to the sketch made in 1497 by Leonardo da Vinci, depicting his concept of a man-powered flying machine (Fig. 47b). The Pyramid Wars Geller in Altorientalische Texte und Untersuchungen. Like all Mesopotamian texts, it is so titled after its opening line: