Etana the shepherd tended his ﬂocks on the plains near Ur. In a day that lies beyond the dawn of history.
Just how far beyond, we do not know. But the tale already was old some fifteen hundred years before the birth of a man named Abraham, in a house in the goldsmith's quarters in Gay Street, caused the name of the Sumerian capital to come down to us.
Etana lived and the metropolis thrived as an eco nomic unit built upon agriculture, river commerce, and certain industries, while Egypt still struggled through the dark ages of barbarism.
And one day he ﬂew to heaven on the back of an eagle, but when he had almost reached his goal he was cast down to earth again.
There, as recorded in cuneiform characters on baked bricks, is the earliest tale of ﬂight by man. Etana was no kingly hero, no warrior seeking to emulate the gods: the Etana of this myth was a lowly shepherd, and bound upon a purely commercial venture. His ﬂocks were sterile; and it was well known that in the heavens above the Euphrates the gods of Sumer grew a certain herb which was the source of all life. Etana would prosper greatly, could he but bring back to earth a slip of that herb and plant it in his own fields.
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