Talk:Eannatum

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In my humble opinion this article needs a bit of work. 1)His 'empire' is NOT verifiable: do we have any archeological proofs of his conquests? 2)His name 'Lumma':what 'Syrian' means in this age? From my sources 'Tidnu' name means probably 'Semitic'. 3)All the article takes as true his accounts. Sumerian royal inscriptions are hardly the most accurate of sources: and we must consider that Eannatum is not even on the Sumerian King List-it is possible that he conquered most of Sumer without anyone realizing? 4)Enlil is not the patron deity of Lagash. Ningirsu is. 'some accounts' is a valid source? 5)City of 'Nina' as a predecessor of Niniveh? Nina is a neighbourhood of Lagash as far as I know. So, I'm not a native english speaker and surely not a expert of Sumerian history, if someone more skilled than me respond to my doubts and take care of this article it would be magnificent.Thanks in advance.79.51.8.1 (talk) 21:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Eannatum's reign is fairly well attested archaeologically, but I agree the article could use some good sources. It seems he controlled large areas of Mesopotamia and finally defeated Enshakushanna of Uruk, and his name is attested at Nippur, but apparently he didn't control Nippur long enough for the temple priests to bestow the overlordship of Sumer on him, so he would not be recorded on the Sumerian King List, which at any rate is highly suspect for this period, since it says Enshakushanna was succeeded by his son Lugalkinishedudu who reigned for 120 years. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 00:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, my problem is that most of my sources are not in English ...or published.I'm merely doing an exam on Near Eastern history and I was surprised to find the article on the Wiki about Eannatum wildly different from my textbooks and notes. I found something on the net about his Tidnu name- different both from the 'Syrian' origin and the 'Semitic' one: that it should be a 'ethnic' name (whatever it means). One thing I'm pretty sure is wrong is the equation Eannatum's Nina=precursor of Niniveh, and the 'Enlil as patron deity of Lagash': they're minor details that can be eliminated from the article without damaging it much. Maybe when my exams are over I'll find some time to check the Near Eastern section of my universitarian library and find some reliable sources to improve the article.Thanks for the reply!80.180.115.57 (talk) 12:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

"Pronunciation Needed"
Can we stop putting this on every article related to Sumerian. There will likely NEVER be a pronunciation for his name seeing as modern Sumerology does not even pretend to know how to pronounce this language. Among the first things I learned in Sumerian 100 was that we have literally no idea how to speak this language. My professor said numerous times that what we write down as "Sumerian" is largely a way for scholars to discuss the language among themselves, and that if we were actually trying to go for efficiency we'd call all of the signs by their numbers in a sign list rather than the "values" we ascribe to them. 100% of our understanding of the Sumerian language is disseminated through Akkadians who very likely barely understood the language themselves by 1000 BC. How are we going to learn to pronounce something in a language which is an isolate, has no native speakers, and was barely understood by the people we are forced to learn it from? Can we please stop putting the "Pronunciation Needed" tag on every Sumerian name as if that's going to happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.60.45 (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Enlil is the patron deity of Nippur
I think the last sentence of this article should be "...to Enlil, the patron deity of Nippur", (not Lagash).