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342 all of its streets, where they were wont to promenade, dead bodies were lying about; in its places where the land's festivities took place, the people lay in heaps." The dead were not brought to buri- al: "the dead bodies, like fat placed in the sun, of themselves melted away." Then did Ningal raise her great lamentation for Ur, the once- majestic city, head city of Sumer, capital of an empire: O house of Sin in Ur, bitter is thy desolation . . . O Ningal whose land has perished, make thy heart like water! The city has become a strange city, how can one now exist? The house has become a house of tears, it makes my heart like water. . . Ur and its temples have been given over to the wind. All of southern Mesopotamia lay prostrate, its soil and waters left poisoned by the Evil Wind: "On the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, only sickly plants grew. .. In the swamps grow sickly-headed reeds that rot in the stench. . . . In the orchards and gardens there is no new growth, quickly they waste away... . The cultivated fields are not hoed, no seeds are implanted in the soil, no songs resound in the fields." In the countryside the ani- mals were also affected: "On the steppe, cattle large and small become scarce, all living creatures come to an end." The domesti- cated animals, too, were wiped out: "The sheepfolds have been delivered to the wind. . . . The hum of the turning churn resounds not in the sheepfold. . . . The stalls provide not fat and cheese. .. . Ninurta has emptied Sumer of milk." "The storm crushed the land, wiped out everything; it roared like a great wind over the land, none could escape it; desolating the cities, desolating the houses. . . . No one treads the highways, no one seeks out the roads." In the THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN The desolation of Sumer was complete.