The Letter-Prayer (Petition to a God)
A petition addressed not to the governor but to one's god: 'Why have you let this befall your servant?'
Some Sumerian prayers take the literary form of a letter — written, like a petition to a king or governor, but addressed to a god. The petitioner names the deity with honor, describes their suffering or injustice, protests their own devotion, and asks the god to intervene. Because Mesopotamians could write to their superiors to seek redress, it felt natural to write the same way to the divine superior who governed one's fate. These letter-prayers give us an unusually personal, almost legal voice of complaint and appeal directed heavenward.
Key passages(20)
Letter from Inanaka to the goddess Nintinuga
Letter from Lugal-nesaĝe to Enlil-massu
Letter from Kug-Nanna to the god Ninšubur
Letter from Gudea to his personal deity
Letter from the scribe Nanna-manšum to the goddess Ninisina
Letter from Sîn-iddinam to the god Utu
The message of Lu-diĝira to his mother
Letter from Lugal-nesaĝe to a king radiant as the moon
Letter from Ur-saga to a king fearing the loss of his father's household
Letter from Lugal-nesaĝe to a king radiant as the sun
A prayer to Enki for Ḫammu-rābi (Ḫammu-rābi B)
A prayer to Nanna for Rīm-Sîn (Rīm-Sîn E)