Lament for Uruk

It is dated to the Isin-Larsa period.

[2] The Lament for Uruk is one of five known Mesopotamian "city laments"—dirges for ruined cities in the voice of the city's tutelary goddess, recited by elegists called gala.

[4] First written in c. 1940 BCE,[5] the Lament was recopied during the Hellenistic period, when Babylonia had again been overrun by foreigners.

[6][7] The Lament is 260 lines long, being composed of 12 kirugu (sections, songs) and 11 gišgigal (antiphons).

[8] Numbered by kirugu, the lament is structured as follows: It is composed in the standard emegir dialect of Sumerian.