[1] The first lines of the lament were discovered on the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology catalogue of the Babylonian section, tablet numbers 2204, 2270, 2302 and 19751 from their excavations at the temple library at Nippur in modern-day Iraq.

These were translated by George Aaron Barton in 1918 and first published as "Sumerian religious texts" in Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions, number six, entitled "A prayer for the city of Ur".

Barton noted that "from the portions that can be translated it appears to be a prayer for the city of Ur at a time of great danger and distress.

[8][9] Other tablets from the Istanbul collection, numbers Ni 2510 and 2518 were translated by Edward Chiera in 1924 in "Sumerian religious texts".

Other tablets and versions were used to bring the myth to its present form with a composite text by Miguel Civil produced in 1989 and latest translations by Thorkild Jacobsen in 1987 and Joachim Krecher in 1996.

It describes the goddess Ningal, who weeps for her city after pleading with the god Enlil to call back a destructive storm.

Interspersed with the goddess's wailing are other sections, possibly of different origin and composition; these describe the ghost town that Ur has become, recount the wrath of Enlil's storm, and invoke the protection of the god Nanna (Nergal or Suen) against future calamities.

[16]The council of gods decide that the Ur III dynasty, which had reigned for around one hundred years, had its destiny apportioned to end.

The temple treasury was raided by invading Elamites and the centre of power in Sumer moved to Isin, while control of trade in Ur passed to several leading families of the city.

He also notes that the speakers of the laments are generally male lamentation-priests, who take on the characteristics of a traditional female singer and ask for the gods to be appeased so the temples can be restored.

The Line 274 reads "eden kiri-zal bi du-du-a-mu gir-gin ha-ba-hu-hur" - My steppe, established for joy, was scorched like an oven.

[21] Philip S. Alexander compares lines seventeen and eighteen of the myth with Lamentations 2:17 "The Lord has done what he purposed, he has carried out his threat; as he ordained long ago, he has demolished without pity", suggesting this could "allude to some mysterious, ineluctable fate ordained for Zion in the distant past": The wild bull of Eridug has abandoned it and has let the breezes haunt his sheepfold.

[23]The devastation of cities and settlements by natural disasters and invaders has been used widely throughout the history of literature since the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

The country's blood now filled its holes, like metal in a mould; Bodies dissolved - like fat left in the sun.