Home	Ancient Aratta

Published in 1956, Samuel Kramer wrote in his "History begins at Sumer":-

"On the table before me is a clay tablet written by a scribe who lived almost four thousand years ago. The script is cuneiform, or wedge-shaped; the language is Sumerian. The tablet is square in shape, nine by nine inches; it is therefore smaller in area than a standard sheet of typewriter paper. But the scribe who wrote this tablet divided it into twelve columns. By using a minute script, he succeeded in inscribing in this limited space more than six hundred lines of a Sumerian heroic poem. We may call it "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta." Though its characters and events go back almost five thousand years, they have a strangely familiar ring to our modern ears, for the poem records a political incident suggestive of the power-politics techniques of our own day and age."

You can follow this link to read more about Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. Enmerkar ruled over the Sumerian city of Erech. Aratta was also a city-state, coveted for its' wealth in the metals and stone that Erech lacked.

Several locations have been suggested as probable idenfications of Aratta. Samuel Kramer placed it in northwest Iran near the Caspian Sea, and Georgina Herrmann (1968) put it south of the Caspian, while S. Cohen (1973) favoured the Anshan-Hamadan area of western Iran. Hansman (1978) and G. Gnoli (1980) have suggested the Shahr-i Sokhta as a potential candidate. (See Refs.) Now, there is firm evidence that it was in the region of modern Ukraine, north of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. Some of the evidence for this is explored here in this website.

Whether Aratta was located in eastern Asia Minor, or modern-day Ukraine, the general implication of the Aratta cycle of myths is that Aratta played a seminal role in the development of Sumerian culture, and that trade and diplomacy between the two states was of such importance that writing was developed specifically for them. (See Ref.).

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