Enmerkar's army is faced with a setback, Lugalbanda volunteers to return to Uruk to ask the goddess Inana's aid. He crosses through the mountains, into the flat land, from the edge to the top of Anshan and then to Uruk, where Inana helps him. She advises Enmerkar to carry off Aratta's "worked metal and metalsmiths and worked stone and stonemasons" and all the "moulds of Aratta will be his". Then the city is described as having battlements made of green lapis lazuli and bricks made of "tinstone dug out in the mountains where the cypress grows". Other mentions in Sumerian literature Praise Poem of Shulgi (Shulgi Y): "I filled it with treasures like those of holy Aratta." Shulgi and Ninlil's barge: "Aratta, full-laden with treasures" Proverbs: "When the authorities are wise, and the poor are loyal, it is the effect of the blessing of Aratta." Unprovenanced Proverbs: "When the authorities are wise, and the poor are passed by, it is the effect of the blessing of Aratta." Hymn to Hendursanga (Hendursanga A): "So that Aratta will be overwhelmed (?), Lugalbanda stands by at your (Hendursanga's) behest." Hymn to Nisaba (Nisaba A): "In Aratta he (Enki?) has placed E-zagin (the lapis lazuli temple) at her (Nisaba's) disposal." The building of Ninngirsu's temple (Gudea cylinder): "pure like Kesh and Aratta" Tigi to Suen (Nanna I): "the shrine of my heart which I (Nanna) have founded in joy like Aratta" Inana and Ibeh: "the inaccessible mountain range Aratta" Gilgamesh and Huwawa (Version B): "they know the way even to Aratta" Temple Hymns: Aratta is "respected" The Kesh Temple Hymn: Aratta is"important" Lament for Ur: Aratta is "weighty (counsel)" Location hypotheses Early 20th century scholars initially took Aratta to be an epithet of the Sumerian city Shuruppak related to its local name for the god Enlil; however that is no longer seen to be the case. Although Aratta is known only from myth, some Assyriologists and archaeologists have speculated on possible locations where Aratta could have been, using criteria from the myths: Land travelers must pass through Susa and the mountainous Anshan region to reach it. It is a source of, or has access to valuable gems and minerals, in particular lapis lazuli, that are crafted on site. It is accessible to Uruk by watercourse, yet remote from Uruk. It is close enough to march a 27th-century BC Sumerian army there. In 1963, Samuel