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One of the monuments discovered at Tello, the ancient Lagas, describes the victories of the "high-priest" Entemena over the ancestral foe, and the appointment of a certain Ili as "high-priest" of the land of Opis. From henceforward Kis and Opis disappear from history. A new power had meanwhile appeared on the scene.
Building stone from Magan had already been imported to Babylonia by Ur-Nina, a king of Lagas, and grandfather of E-ana-gin, but it must have been brought in the ships of Eridu. Naram-Sin's son was Bingani-sar-ali. A queen, Ellat-Gula, seems to have sat on the throne not many years later, and with her the dynasty may have come to an end. At any rate, the empire of Akkad is heard of no more.
Babylonia was united under his rule, Elam was subjugated, and three campaigns sufficed to make "the land of the Amorites," Syria and Canaan, obedient to his sway. He caused an image of himself to be carved on the shores of the Mediterranean, and demanded tribute from Cyprus, Uru-Malik or Urimelech being appointed governor of Syria, as we learn from a cadastral survey of the district of Lagas.
Nippur was watered by the canal Kabaru, the Chebar of Ezekiel, and to the south of it was the city of Lagas, now Tello, where French excavators have brought to light an early seat of Sumerian power.
A little to the west of Lagas was Larsa, the modern Senkereh, famous for its ancient temple of the Sun-god, a few miles to the north-west of which stood Erech, now Warka, dedicated to the Sky-god Anu and his daughter Istar. Northward of Nippur was Bab-ili or Babylon, "the Gate of God," a Semitic translation of its original Sumerian name, Ka-Dimirra.
The whole of "Sumer" was subdued, and the memory of a time when a king of Kis, Mesa by name, had subjected Lagas to his rule, was finally wiped out. High-priests now took the place of kings in Kis and the country of Opis. But a time came when the same change occurred also at Lagas. doubtless in consequence of its conquest by some superior power.
The institution of the Sabbath went back to the Sumerian days of Chaldæa; the name itself was of Babylonian origin. The great festivals of Israel find their counterparts on the banks of the Euphrates. Even the year of Jubilee was a Babylonian institution, and Gudea, the priest-king of Lagas, tells us that when he kept it the slave became "for seven days the equal of his master."
The so-called "Stela of the Vultures," now in the Louvre, commemorates the overthrow of the forces of the land of Upe or Opis, and depicts the bodies of the slain as they lie on the battlefield devoured by the birds of prey. E-ana-gin, the king of Lagas who erected it, never rested until he had subjected the rest of southern Babylonia to his sway.
Bitumen, it is true, was found in Babylonia itself near Hit, but if Amiaud is right, one of the objects imported from abroad for Gudea of Lagas was asphalt. But no reference to the place is to be met with anywhere else in cuneiform literature. When Abram returned with the captives and spoil of Sodom, the new king came forth to meet him "at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale."
How long the supremacy of Ur lasted we do not know. Nor do we know whether it preceded or was followed by the supremacy of Lagas. The kings of Lagas had succeeded in overcoming their hereditary enemies to the north.
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