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Aratta is a land that appears in surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.
Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana - The lord of Aratta, who is here named En-suhgir-ana (or Ensuhkeshdanna), challenges Enmerkar of Uruk to submit to him over the affections of Inanna, but he is rebuffed by Enmerkar. A sorcerer from the recently defeated Hamazi then arrives in Aratta, and offers to make Uruk submit. The sorcerer travels to Eresh where he bewitches Enmerkar's livestock, but a wise woman outperforms his magic and casts him into the Euphrates; En-suhgir-ana then admits the loss of Inanna, and submits his kingdom to Uruk.
Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave - is a tale of Lugalbanda, who will become Enmerkar's successor. Enmerkar's army travels through mountainous territory to wage war against rebellious Aratta. Lugalbanda falls ill and is left in a cave, but he prays to the various gods, recovers, and must find his way out of the mountains.
Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird - Lugalbanda befriends the Anzud bird, and asks it to help him find his army again. When 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".
In 1963, Samuel Noah Kramer thought that a "Mount Hurum" in a Lugalbanda myth (which he titled "Lugalbanda on Mount Hurrum" at the time) might have referred to the , and hence speculated Aratta to be near Lake Urmia.Kramer (1963) p. 275. However, "Mount Hurum", "hur-ru-um kur-ra-ka", in what is now called Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, is today read "mountain cave",see e.g. Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, ETCSL (2006) line 102, etc.; Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie (1990) vol. 7, p. 121; Black (1998) p. 136; Vanstiphout (2003) p.110-111, etc. and Kramer subsequently introduced the title "Lugalbanda, the Wandering Hero" for this story.Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie (1990) vol. 7, p. 121
Other speculations referred to the early gem trade route, the "Great Khorasan Road" from the Himalayan MountainsThe only source of lapis lazuli for the ancient world was Badakhshan, Afghanistan (see Clark (1986) p. 67). to Mesopotamia, which ran through northern Iran., note 9. The Sanandaj area.. South or southeast of the Caspian Sea (cited in ).. The Hamadan area.
Anshan, which had not yet been located then, was assumed to be in the central Zagros mountain range.e.g. note 9. Kermanshah; . Bakhtiari people territory (cited in , note 1).
However, when AnshanIn contrast to Aratta, Anshan is well documented beyond literary texts (cf. Hansman (1985) pp. 25-35). was identified as Tall-i Malyan in 1973,Reiner, Erica (1973) "The Location of Anšan", Revue d'Assyriologie 67, pp. 57-62 (cited in , ). it was found to be 600 km south-east of Uruk, far removed from any northerly routes or watercourses from Uruk, and posing the logistical improbability of getting a 27th-century BC Sumerian army through 550 km of territory to wage war with Aratta. Cohen also notes that the farthest east that any Assyrian king ever went was Hamadan.
Nevertheless, there have been speculations referring to eastern Iran as well.Hansman, John F. (1972, 1978). Shahr-e Sukhteh.: Shahdad; : Jiroft. Dr. Yousef Majidzadeh believes the Jiroft culture could be Aratta.
By 1973, archaeologists were noting that there was no archaeological record of Aratta's existence outside of myth, and in 1978 Hansman cautions against over-speculation.: "In the case of Aratta, where no inscriptions or texts are currently available to favor any one site, the mechanics of identification depend largely on inductive inquiry. At best such methods provide indications from which a location may be postulated as being reasonable or possible. But one cannot assume too much, for then the hypothesis becomes subjective rather than objective."
Writers in other fields have continued to hypothesize potential Aratta locations. A "possible reflex" has been suggested in Sanskrit Āraṭṭa or Arāṭṭa mentioned in the Mahabharata and other texts.Michael Witzel ( Aryan and non-Aryan Names in Vedic India 1999, p. 8 People.fas.harvard.edu "Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts" EJVS 2001, p. 18-19 Alternatively, the name is compared with the toponym Ararat or Urartu.
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