Page Content (OCR)
339 twenty-four hours—a day and a night that were commemorated in laments, as in this one from Nippur: "On that day, on that single day: on that night, on that single night ... the storm, in a flash of lightning created, the people of Nippur left prostrate." The Uruk Lament vividly describes the confusion among both the gods and the populace. Stating that Anu and Enlil had over- ruled Enki and Ninki when they "determined the consensus" to employ the nuclear weapons, the text asserts that none of the gods anticipated the awesome outcome: "The great gods paled at its im- mensity" as they witnessed the explosion's "gigantic rays reach up to heaven (and] the earth tremble to its core." As the Evil Wind began to "spread to the mountains as a net," the gods of Sumer began to flee their beloved cities. The text known as Lamentation Over the Destruction of Ur lists all the great gods and some of their important sons and daughters who had "abandoned to the wind" the cities and great temples of Sumer. The text called Lamentation Over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur adds dramatic details to this hurried abandonment. Thus. "Ninhar- sag wept in bitter tears" as she escaped from Isin; Nanshe cried, "O my devastated city" as "her beloved dwelling place was given over to misfortune." Inanna hurriedly departed from Uruk, sailing off toward Africa in a "submersible ship" and complaining that she had to leave behind her jewelry and other posses- sions. ... In her own lamentation for Uruk, Inanna/Ishtar be- wailed the desolation of her city and her temple by the Evil Wind "which in an instant, in a blink of an eye was created in the midst of the mountains," and against which there was no defense. A breathtaking description of the fear and confusion, among gods and men alike, as the Evil Wind approached is given in The Uruk Lament text, which was written years later as the time of Res- toration came. As the "loyal citizens of Uruk were seized with terror," the resident deities of Uruk, those in charge of the city's administration and welfare, set off an alarm. "Rise up!" they called to the people in the middle of the night; run away, “hide in the steppe!" they instructed them. But then, these gods them- selves, "the deities ran off . . . they took unfamiliar paths." Gloomily the text states: Thus all its gods evacuated Uruk: They kept away from it; They hid in the mountains. They escaped to the distant plains. The Nuclear Holocaust