This book was simply fascinating! Having recently read Kathy Henderson's retelling of the ancient Sumerian story of Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War, which was my introduction to this Sumerian prince, said to be the father of epic hero Gilgamesh, as well as the son of King Enmerkar, I was delighted to stumble across The City of Rainbows, which offers a retelling of another episode in the conflict between the cities of Uruk and Aratta.

Unlike the tale of Lugulbanda, which features an Urukian king determined to conquer Aratta, this story relates how King Sukesh-danna of Aratta, having heard of the glories of Uruk's temple to Inanna, with its rainbow walls, sends a bellicose message to that city, and to its ruler, King Mer-kar (a variant on Enmerkar), boasting of his own temple, constructed of lapis-lazuli. Declaring that, while King Mer-kar may have seen the great Inanna in a dream, the goddess truly lived at the temple in Aratta, Sukesh-danna demands that Uruk submit therefore to him. King Mer-kar, in his turn, sends a reply entirely in writing (the story does not specify the message), which the Arattan ruler, being unable to read cuneiform, interprets as a declaration of war. At this point, a wicked sorcerer named Urgir-nunna enters the story, dispatched from Aratta to Uruk to work his powerful magic. Instead he finds himself stopped at the small city of Eresh, where, as a consequence of his disrespect in meddling with the livestock of the goddess Nisaba, he is defeated by the good witch Sag-burru.

Taken from Adele Berlin's 1979 translation of the poem cycle concerning King Mer-kar of Uruk and King Sukesh-danna of Aratta, Enmerkar and Ensuhkesdanna: A Sumerian Narrative Poem (perhaps also the source that Henderson used for her Lugalbanda?), The City of Rainbows is presented by Karen Foster, a professor of ancient art and archaeology at Yale University, and contains an extensive afterword that gives quite a bit of background information about the Sumerians and their writing system, and the tale cycle from which this story comes. The cut-paper artwork mimics the style of Sumerian mosaics, and the page numbers are indicated both with Arabic numerals and with their cuneiform equivalents. All in all, an excellent selection, one I would recommend to anyone - young or old - with an interest in ancient literature. I think I may have to track down that Berlin title... ( )