The Legend of Etana, King of Kish
Etana, the first king of Kish according to the Sumerian King List, was supposedly the king "who stabilised the lands" after the gods created the world, and established kingship and government at Kish. Etana is also known from a legend in which this king ascends to the heavens on the back of an eagle in search of a mythical plant known as the "plant of birth", so that he and his wife might have a son.
[/kish/images/etana-seal-large.jpg]1. This small cylinder seal was made in Iraq, some time between 2400 and 2200 BC. Carved from a serpentine block less than 4 cm high, it probably shows a variant of the legend of Etana. The modern impression shows the eagle in a tree at top right, clutching a lion cub (rather than a serpent's egg) and the cub's angry parents pacing and narling below. An Etana-like figure rides the eagle at top right (in reality just to the left of the tree). The centre of the scene shows shepherds and dairymen making cheese. Source: BM 129480, British Museum [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1945-1013-24], purchased from a private collector in 1945.
In the style of earlier Sumerian literature and of much later tales in Arabic and Persian, like Alf Leila wa Leila and Kalilah wa Dimnah, the Akkadian legend of Etana is a story within a story which features talking animals. The myth opens in the city of Kish where the goddess Inanna has chosen Etana to rule the city. After Etana builds a shrine to thank the god Adad, the story turns to an eagle and a serpent who live in a poplar tree by the shrine. These unlikely neighbours are both raising their children in opposite nests, the eagle at the top of the tree, in its branches, and the snake at the bottom, in its roots. To promise they will not harm each other's babies, both swear an oath before the sun god Shamash, like all serious human beings in Babylonia. But unable to stop himself, the eagle devours the snake's children. To punish his broken oath, Shamash must act, and throws the eagle in a pit.
It is then that Etana returns to the story and meets the eagle. Unable to have children, Etana is looking for a way to reach the heavens to bring back a mythical plant that could grant him a child. Grateful to have been rescued, the eagle offers to help carry him there on his back.
Unfortunately, no one knows the end of this legend. Up to the present day, all tablets discovered have been found to be broken at the end. However, the Sumerian King List explicitly identifies Balih, king of Kish, as the son of Etana. So Etana might have successfully returned home with this plant.
The legend of Etana began to be recovered in 1876, when British Assyriologist George Smith deciphered fragments containing the story of the eagle. The broken tablets had been sent to the British Museum from Nineveh, after they were discovered in the palace of Ashurbanipal. During his short lifetime, Smith translated many literary treasures in the British Museum, the most well-known being the 11th tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which recounts the flood story.
The copies of the Epic found at Nineveh were written in the 7th century BC, but the oldest surviving copies date to the Old Babylonian period,over a thousand years earlier. However, scholars believe that the story was already known in the mid-third millennium BC, because of beautifully crafted cylinder seals from that time, depicting the eagle's ascent to the heavens with Etana mounted on its back (Figure 1).
30 Sep 2025
Nadia Aït Saïd-Ghanem
Nadia Aït Saïd-Ghanem, 'The Legend of Etana, King of Kish', The Forgotten City of Kish • مدينة كيش المنسية, The Kish Project, 2025 [http://oracc.org/KingsandLegends/Etana/]