Eski Mezopotamya Kaynaklarında Kent Ağıtları

Year 2024, Volume: 14 Issue: 28, 201 - 235

Kübra Karaköz

https://doi.org/10.33207/trkede.1462546

Abstract

Eski Mezopotamya kent ağıtları, Eski Yakındoğu dışında benzeri olmayan, kendine özgü bir türdür. Tarihsel retorik metinler olarak nitelendirilebilecek bu ağıtlarda bahsedilen yıkımlar, edebi bir kurgu değil, gerçektir. Metinler kentin işgalden kurtulmasından sonra yazdırılmıştır. Kent ağıtları, tanrılar tarafından verilen yıkım kararı, meydana gelen yıkımın tasviri ve ardından şehri yeniden kurarak eski düzenine geri döndüren kahraman kralı konu alır. İki ana bölümden oluşan bu metinlerin ilk kısmında, kentlerin yıkım kararı ve karar sonunda ortaya çıkan fiziksel ve metafiziksel yıkıma odaklanmıştır. Kentlerin kutsal alanları da dâhil olmak birçok yapısı tahrip edilmiş, kentin ekonomik dinamiğini sağlayan tarım ve hayvancılıkla ilgili işlikler de yerle bir edilerek, kent nüfusu da yok edilmiştir. Bu bölümde ayrıca ilahi terk motifi işlenmiştir. Teolojik açıdan kentleri kuran ve yöneten tanrılar, yıkımla beraber şehri terk etmiş ve enkaza bakarak ağıt yakmıştır. İkinci kısım, restorasyon sürecini ele alır. Tanrılar tarafından seçilen kurtarıcı kral, şehri yeniden eski günlerine kavuşturmakla övünmektedir. Bu bölümde, kralın kahramanlıkları, kentlerin yenilenme süreci, şehri terk eden tanrıların geri döndürülmesi anlatılır. Aynı zamanda kralın kendi propagandasını da içeren bu bölüm, ekonomik, sosyal, siyasi ve teolojik bir yıkımın ardından kentin yeniden kuruluşunu konu alan sosyo-politik propaganda metinleri olarak değerlendirilebilir. Çalışma Eski Mezopotamya’daki Uruk, Ur, Nippur, Eridu ve Kiş kentlerini konu alan kent ağıtlarının, sosyo-politik değerlendirilmesini konu almaktadır.

Keywords

kent ağıtları, ilahi terk, Sumer ve Ur ağıtı, Uruk ağıtı

City Laments in Ancient Mesopotamian Sources

Abstract

Ancient Mesopotamian city laments are a unique genre, unique outside the Ancient Near East. The destruction described in these laments, which can be characterised as historical rhetorical texts, is not a literary fiction but a fact. The texts were dictated after the liberation of the city from occupation. The city laments are about the decision of the gods to destroy the city, the description of the destruction, and then the heroic king who rebuilt the city and returned it to its former order. The first part of these texts, consisting of two main sections, focuses on the decision to destroy the cities and the physical and metaphysical destruction that resulted from this decision. Many structures of the cities, including their sanctuaries, were destroyed, agriculture and animal labour establishments, which provided the economic dynamics of the city, were razed to the ground, and the population of the city was also destroyed. This chapter also deals with the motif of divine abandonment. From a theological point of view, the gods who founded and ruled the cities abandoned the city with the destruction and lamented over the wreckage. The second part deals with the restoration process. The saviour king, chosen by the gods, boasts of restoring the city to its former glory. In this part, the heroic deeds of the king, the process of renewal of the cities, and the return of the gods who left the city are described. This chapter, which also contains the king’s own propaganda, can be considered as socio-political propaganda texts about the reestablishment of the city after an economic, social, political and theological destruction. The study focuses on the socio-political evaluation of the city laments about the cities of Uruk, Ur, Nippur, Eridu and Kish in Ancient Mesopotamia.

Keywords

city laments, divine abandonment, Sumer and Ur laments, Laments for Uruk

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