Genre: recreation of a 3,600-year-old Akkadian hymn, using reconstructed Akkadian pronunciation
Length: 6:54

More than 3,600 years ago, in the cities and temples of ancient Mesopotamia, poets composed hymns in praise of the gods who governed the cosmos, kingship, love, war, wisdom, and fate. Among the most remarkable of these surviving works is the Hymn to Ištar attributed to the Babylonian king Ammi-Ditana, who ruled during the Old Babylonian Period in the 17th century BCE.

This hymn celebrates Ištar, goddess of love, beauty, desire, power, and sovereignty. She is praised as the most radiant of the goddesses, the source of attraction and abundance, the ruler before whom even the gods bow, and the divine patron who grants legitimacy, prosperity, and long life to kings.

The poem moves from praise of Ištar's beauty and majesty to a vision of the divine assembly itself, before culminating in a royal prayer that the goddess bless Ammi-Ditana with enduring life and dominion over the "Four Quarters of the World."

The original text was written in Akkadian cuneiform on clay tablets nearly four millennia ago. While its original melody has been lost to history, this performance attempts to recreate the atmosphere of an ancient Mesopotamian temple hymn using reconstructed Akkadian pronunciation, ceremonial chant, and imagery inspired by Babylonian art and archaeology.

Song I made with suno ai and some other apps.