The oldest love poem in the world
Inanna's marriage to Dumuzi
TangLung (Public Domain)
The oldest love poem in the world is the Love Song to Shu-Sin (c. 2000 BC), which was composed in ancient Mesopotamia for use in sacred fertility rituals, before it was discovered in the nineteenth century and then translated in the In the twentieth century, it was believed that the biblical Book of Songs was the oldest love poem in existence.
In the nineteenth century, archaeologists turned to the Mesopotamian region to search for material evidence supporting the biblical narratives in the Old Testament. While this may not have been their initial motivation, their need for funding - based on the public interests that justified such funding - soon made it so.
Instead of finding the hoped-for proof, they discovered cuneiform figures that proved that many accounts in the Bible were derived from Mesopotamian sources. This discovery had a profound impact not only on biblical studies at that time, but also on world history as it was understood at the time.
Exploration and discovery
When archaeologist Austin Henry Layard began excavations at Kalh in 1845, assisted by Hormizd Rassam, he was under great pressure to find biblical sites, which led him to jump to the conclusion that the city he discovered was Nineveh . The title of his report on the excavations published in 1894 was “Nineveh and Its Antiquities,” and because of Nineveh’s Biblical reputation, this book became the most popular. The success of the book sparked a growing interest in the history of the Mesopotamian region as a means of confirming the Biblical narratives, and so the book was sent. Other missions to search for second cities were mentioned in the Bible.
Before this period, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world, and the Bible's Song of Songs - also known as the Song of Solomon - was considered the oldest love poem. Interestingly, missions sent to prove the Bible's stories historically did just the opposite. When Layard excavated the actual site of Nineveh in 1846-1847, he discovered the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 BC) and the cuneiform texts, later translated by the legendary George Smith[4], made clear that the story of the fall of Man, the Great Flood, and Noah's Ark were not original works by the authors of Genesis, but were pre-existing Mesopotamian tales that were reworked by later Hebrew writers. The Song of Songs dates back to the period between the sixth and third centuries BC. AD, it could no longer be considered the oldest love poem once the Love Song of Shu-sin (written around 2000 BC) was discovered.
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