“Everyone who rises with the sun 

shall fall with its shine.”

 

Ladies and gentlemen, today I’ll tell you a tale. A tale so far away that your mother or her mother or hers hasn’t heard it… A tale so lost that it got buried into the core of the world through the dust of history running through it over those lost centuries. Let’s go all the way back to 12000 BC; to Mesopotamia, where the silks of humanity were first weaved, and the fertility of Anatolia first began to amaze these mere peasants living in this paradise of a crescent. This tale is the tale of Ekuria, a city so small that even history felt no remorse while committing the diabolical act of erasing it through the untrue legends of exaggerated heroes, just like the mere soldiers who died to protect them. Thus, I shall be the one to avenge Ekuria, the one to tell the story of this small yet divine landmass more fertile than spring itself, more versed than the quill of an author, stronger than the foothills of the highest mountain and more celestial than the temple of Anu. Ekuria, the passageway of Gods.

As light dawns upon it, to tell the tale of Ekuria is to correct the poorly written history of the crescent moon who shall also shine as bright as the day life as we know it begins; while the reality buried so deep, awakens once again. The Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia was initially built by Gods, each ruling one of the cities with the beautiful Ekuria being one of them, located in the middle, right in between Euphrates and Tigris, the connector of the cities, the crossway of roads, the gateway to the worlds above and below, thus, the passageway of Gods. Of course, the divinity of Ekuria was no coincidence. When the Gods created humanity to gain their servings and prayers, Ekuria was where they landed. For a God to enter the peasants' world, it has to downgrade itself, hence, it has to leave a piece behind at the gateway, at Ekuria. In consequence, there was born Ekuria, the land of the divine, made by the sole pieces of the Gods. It had the wisdom of Enki, the beauty of Ishtar and the protection of Anu. It carried pieces of the Gods, so the Gods protected it with all of their might.

It was at the first dawn of humanity, when the Gods felt a little too supercilious and interfered with humanity, personally inducing themselves into their vassals' lives. The hubris of the Gods bore Ekuria, and that was also part of Ekuria. Albeit, there was something even the divinest had missed: humans are not Gods. They are filled with beauty and gratitude and fear, yet also with jealousy and anger and rage. How can the favour of the Gods go unnoticed to those mere peasants, whose only reason to live is to serve their creators?

Now, where was I… At the first dawn of humanity Gods landed on the at that time quite conventional and untrampled soil of Ekuria. Within seconds, this soil was no longer ordinary, it was divine and healthy and pure. The vainglorious mighty beings felt agitated to be living behind such extraordinary power hanging so they found an unbelievably human solution: finding someone to yield this power for them. 

At the same time, Gods descended from above a little family, Tabni, his wife Ninlil and their three children were passing through the then grounds of not-yet-Ekuria, running away from a hefty execution, wished upon a misunderstanding. At the time, small mistakes caused big results, and our dearest Tabni had been the victim of one of these mistakes. He was one of the servants of Tashlultum, the wife of Sargon of Akkad. The gentlest slip of one's foot may cause the biggest of the problems; which was what happened for poor Tabni her,e who happened to slip while serving her highness her absolute favourite of sweets and happened to dye her with the redness of pomegranates, from head to toe… Who could have known the great Sargon of Akkad didn’t like his wife in red, so he decided to punish Tabni with death. That's the sum of how they got there. Thereby, Tabni and his family were cruising the grounds of Mesopotamia seeking a new home at the morning light. At that moment, finally, destiny had smiled on this family’s face as they were at the right place at the right time: the Gods chose Tabni. A man who was a nobody now had the favour of Gods, he was the new king of now founded Ekuria;  now-queen Ninlil had established a bloodline to this city even before it was set and that gave her the protection of Dumuzi, the children were under Gods protection -a heir to their power were a heir of their own. The sacrosanct beings were generous to them; they built them a city to rule, played with people's minds to join them, and most importantly, each had given them something of their own. Adad gifted them rain, Gula presented them the best of healers, Enlil gave them wind… They were God's favourites. Despite Tabni’s illiteracy, which the Gods also had handled -Nisaba is a generous one- it didn’t take long for Ekuria to make a name for itself. “The Passageway of Gods” they called it, it had “the favour and protection of Gods” they marked, people were striving to live in a divine land. And just like the land was ruling over the Fertile Crescent by just its name, Tabni was known as the supreme king amongst them all, even once brutal Sargon of Akkad had bowed to his might.

There was one thing this glorious kingdom was too oblivious to see, though: the jealousy growing. As I said, each kingdom was built by a God, but only one had all the divinity. One could have said they were the favourite of Ereshkigal, that they had known the ways of the underworld, but that wasn’t true anymore. Ekuria had them all roads to above and below, farthest of the wisdoms, best of artists and musicians, everything… And it was all carved by the Gods personally. 

Just a decade after its establishment, Ekuria entered its glorious age. Bestest of the crescent were all living in the divine lands. Tabni had set his dearest wife, Ninlil, as the “chooser” to pick who was worthy to live on the celestial ground. The children were taught by the best of masters in various subjects to become the best of the best. Above all, the Gods were exhilarated; they had forgotten everything else and were watching how humanity praised them in this small land with everything they had. While the magnificent land where living its midday, getting all the sunlight of noon, all were skipping a very dangerous threat forming over the borders of Ekuria: a horde of kings. A legion of resentful rulers all over the crescent had formed to destroy the divine lands, gathered at the gentle light of afternoon, planning the end of a legend. 

The plan had taken decades to perfect since finding an opening the Gods left as they built the sacred grounds was like finding a needle in a haystack, but there is no better motivation than grudge and envy. The kings choose the best of their soldiers, each attacking from a different side as the lastest of the sun's rays mingled over the crescent land. The soldiers burned down each and every temple of the Gods, making them infuriated with how their mystic land and dearest power were all being demolished, they faulted Tabni for not protecting their power correctl,y so to punish him Ninlil and the children were killed in front of his eyes at the very palace of his own. The anger of a God is the anger of mother Earth, as dusk once again captivated the crescent Gods rage strike, Adad had taken away its gentle and nouriting rains and sent wildest of the storms, Dumuzi had wished upon the death of the sacred soil of Ekuria and had made it coarsest of them all, Ishtar had taken away all the beauty away from the small land and made it all pain and anguish… What was created by the Gods was destroyed by them in mere seconds, leaving Tabni alone in his pain as the tentacles of the night crawled upon his skin and took him to the very ground of his once land, Ekuria… 

There was the tale Ekuria, folks; the passageway of Gods, the jealousy of kings… Hubris of the Gods had once again blinded the eyes of humanity, and there suffered the poor for the consequences of envy. Never forget, the sun always dies at the end.