Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird

Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird (or Lugalbanda II, The Return of Lugalbanda, Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird) is a Sumerian mythological account. The story is the second of two about the hero Lugalbanda. The first story is known as Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, or sometimes Lugalbanda in the Wilderness. They are part of a four-story cycle that describes the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug (Uruk), and the king of Aratta. The texts are believed to be composed during the Ur III Period (21st century BCE), but almost all of the extant copies come from Isin-Larsa period (20th-18th centuries BCE).^[1] Nevertheless, a few fragmentary bilingual copies (Sumerian and Akkadian) from Nineveh suggest that the texts were still known during the first millennium.^[2]