Lugal-e
lugal-e ud me-lam2-bi nir-gal2
The warrior-god Ninurta earns his place at the head of the pantheon by defeating a rebellious stone demon, Asag, and then repurposing the mountain's defeated stones into the useful and useless materials of the civilized world.
- divine warfare as cosmic reorganization
- etiology of stone as a natural resource
- Ninurta as both warrior and farming deity
- flood as byproduct of divine combat
Ninurta, son of Enlil, marches against Asag, a monstrous being born of Earth and Sky whose army of stones threatens cosmic order. After a battle so violent it floods the land, Ninurta kills Asag, then reorganizes the defeated stones themselves, cursing some to uselessness and blessing others as building or ornamental material, before building a wall to hold back the floodwaters he has unleashed and turning the reclaimed land over to agriculture. The myth doubles as an origin story for stone as a resource and for Ninurta's cult status as a farmer's god.
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