A praise-poem to Shulgi: the defiant layer

Last week we saw how Shulgi – a properly historical king of the Ur III Dynasty of Sumer – was pleading with the gods to forgive him for his ‘illicit’ affair with the great goddess Inanna (‘Ishtar’ to the Canaanites, ‘Artemis’ to the Greeks).

We noted that while conventional historians view Shulgi’s claims to have made love to Inanna as ‘mere, fanciful figures of speech’, Shulgi’s own words showed that he was not making love to a mere figment of his imagination, but to a real-live ‘goddess’; a member of an elite set of real, flesh-and-blood entities of advanced technology who dominated the lives of ordinary people for millennia, lording even over kings.

Because Shulgi’s reign was during the sensitive time of the biblical Abraham (who was born 2123 BC), when great tension existed between certain rival gods, the gods were displeased with Shulgi as he became more and more preoccupied with Inanna and less with matters of State, so they eventually executed him in the same chaotic year, 2048 BC, that Abraham, at 75 years old, was commanded to leave for the Negev, in Canaan. In A praise poem to Shulgi, one of the greatest pieces of double-speak I have ever seen, Shulgi appears to plead with the gods to bear with him on the one hand…but with the very same diction (words) displays utter derision and defiance.

Editor's Comment
Routine child vaccination imperative

The recent Vaccination Day in Motokwe, orchestrated through collaborative efforts between UNICEF, USAID, BRCS, and the Ministry of Health, underscores a commendable stride towards fortifying child health services.The painful reality as reflected by the Ministry of Health's data regarding the decline in routine immunisation coverage since the onset of the pandemic, is a cause for concern.It underscores the urgent need to address the...

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