Lu-digira S message to his mother is an engaging composition based around the very simple idea of sending a letter home. Lu-digira is no one special, indeed no one in particular, as it is one of the commonest Sumerian personal names. The dramatic situation is presupposed that Lu-digira, who is away for some unexplained reason in another city, wishes to communicate with his mother who (we are told) has been worrying about him. Lu-digira instructs a messenger (rather grandly addressed as ‘royal courier’) to take a message to the city of Nibru to his mother, who has been asking other travellers for news of him.
The main part of the composition consists of five paragraphs of description of Lu-digira’s mother, ostensibly to enable the messenger to recognize her when he delivers the hand-written tablet into her hands. In fact this is an excuse for Lu-digira to express his affection for his mother, and each section focuses on a different aspect. In the first, we are told her name (Sat-Estar, literally ‘She of the goddess IStar’) and her social role as a mistress of the family household is stressed. In the second her physical appearance is compared to various precious stones or metals and, interestingly, she is said to resemble a fine statue. The third section uses botanical metaphors to evoke the mother’s bounty; the fourth describes her joyous nature. Finally the fifth paragraph employs a range of images most of which are luxury objects to emphasize the mother’s refinement and kindness. These include ostrich eggs, which were made into vessels in ancient Mesopotamia, some of which survive. By the time he begins the message itself, we are expecting something equally elaborate and flowery: its simplicity and brevity—‘Your beloved son Lu-digira is in good health’—are a very funny anticlimax.
This composition was quite popular in the schools of Nibru, although there is no evidence that the young pupils were themselves living apart from their families. Several hundred years later it was known in Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, and was also translated into the Hittite language.
World History
