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Again, at the beginning of one of his inscriptions, he appeals to Nin-girsu, En-lil, Ninâ, Bau, Ga-tum-dug, Gal-alim, and Dun-shagga. He recounts what he has done to promote the cults of these deities, and upon his conduct he grounds his hope that they will aid him in his undertakings. The lists, as will be observed, vary in the number and in the order of the gods enumerated.
Gal-alim may have been again a merely local deity belonging to one of the towns that fell under Gudea's rule, and whose attributes again were so little marked that this god too disappeared under the overshadowing importance of Nin-girsu. He and another god, Dun-shagga, are viewed as the sons of Nin-girsu.
Gudea makes mention in one of his inscriptions, by the side of Nin-gish-zida, of a god Dun-shagga, whose name signifies the 'chief hero, but the phonetic reading of which it is impossible to determine. Like Nin-gish-zida, he is a warlike god, and from that one might suppose that he too is only another form of Nin-girsu-Ninib. At all events, he did not differ materially from the latter.
The element 'Dun, which is very much the same as 'Nin, speaks in favor of regarding Dun-shagga as a title; but, in default of positive evidence, it will not be out of place to give him an independent position, and to regard his identification with Nin-girsu as a later phase due to the extension of Nin-girsu's jurisdiction and his corresponding absorption of a varying number of minor gods.
With Ninib the solar deity coming into prominence as the god of war, all three names, Nin-girsu, Nin-gish-zida, and Nin-shakh, would be regarded by a later age as merely descriptive of one and the same god. Dun-shagga.
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