Page Content (OCR)
261 He defied the word of Enlil, Crushed those who had served Enlil, Mobilized his troops, and Like a hero accustomed to high-handedness Put a restraining hand on the Ekur. Overrunning the seemingly undefended city, "like a bandit he plundered it." He then approached the Ekur in the sacred precinct, "erecting large ladders against the House." Smashing his way in, he entered its Holy of Holies: "the people now saw its sacred cella, a chamber that knew not light: the Akkadians saw the holy vessels of the god"; Naram-Sin "cast them into the fire." He "docked large boats at the quay by the House of Enlil, and carried off the possessions of the city." The horrible sacrilege was complete. Enlil—his whereabouts unstated, but clearly away from Nip- pur—"lifted his eyes" and saw the destruction of Nippur and the defilement of the Ekur. "Because his beloved Ekur had been at- tacked." he ordered the hordes of Gutium—a mountainland to the northeast of Mesopotamia—to attack Akkad and lay it waste. They came down upon Akkad and its cities "in vast numbers, like lo- custs . . . nothing escaped their arm." "He who slept on the roof died on the roof; he who slept inside the house was not brought to burial . . . heads were crushed, mouths were crushed ... the blood of the treacherous flowed over the blood of the faithful." Once, and then a second time, the other gods interceded with Enlil: "curse Agade with a baleful curse." they said, but let the other cities and the farmlands survive! When Enlil finally agreed, eight great gods joined in putting a curse on Agade. "the city who dared assault the Ekur." "And lo," said the ancient historian, "so it came to pass . . . Agade is destroyed!" The gods decreed that Agade be wiped off the face of the Earth; and unlike other cities that, having been destroyed, were rebuilt and resettled, Agade for- ever remained desolate. As to Inanna, "her heart was appeased" finally by her parents. What exactly happened, the texts do not state. They tell us. how- ever, that her father Nannar came forth to fetch her back to Sumer while "her mother Ningal proffered prayers for her, greeted her back at the temple's doorstep." "Enough, more than enough inno- vations, O great queen!" the gods and the people appealed to her: "and the foremost Queen, in her assembly, accepted the prayer" The Era of Ishtar was over. ok ok ok Prelude to Disaster