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Updated: May 22, 2025
But as they were uttered in a dream, it was necessary that the patesi, in view of his country's peril, should have divine assurance that they implied no other meaning. And in his case such assurance was the more essential, in view of the symbolism attaching to the other features of his vision. That this is sound reasoning is proved by a second vision vouchsafed to Gudea by Ningirsu.
After the account of the installation of Ningirsu, and his spouse Bau, and his attendant deities, the text records the sumptuous offerings which Gudea placed within Ningirsu's shrine.
Peters informs me that from his observations at Telloh, he questions whether the building in question represents a zikkurat at all, though, as we know from other sources, a zikkurat existed there in the days of Gudea. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xviii. Of Sargon's zikkurat at Khorsabad, also, only four stories have been found. E.g. Perrot and Chiplez, ib. p. 128.
The long name which Gudea gave to the statue, "Unto Gudea the builder of the temple hath life-been-given," is characteristic of the practice of the Sumerian patesis, who always gave long and symbolical names to statues, stelae, and sacred objects dedicated and set up in their temples.
A deity, the phonetic reading of whose name is unknown, or at all events uncertain, is mentioned once by Gudea in the long list of deities that has been several times referred to.
Eannatum and Gudea of Lagash both place her immediately after Anu and Enlil, giving her precedence over Enki; and even in the Kassite Kudurru inscriptions of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, where she is referred to, she takes rank after Enki and before the other gods.
For the geographical references need not be treated as exhaustive, but as confined to the more important districts through which the expedition passed. The district of Ibla which is also mentioned by Narâm-Sin and Gudea, lay probably to the north of Iarmuti, perhaps on the southern slopes of Taurus.
For these also shrines were built within or near the sacred precinct. Gudea sets the example for his successors by parading a large pantheon at the close of his inscriptions, and a list of temples in Lagash, recently published by Scheil, shows that most, if not all, of the gods invoked by the ruler had a sanctuary erected in his or her honor.
To cut the long story short, Gudea decided to seek the help of Ninâ, "the child of Eridu", who, as daughter of Enki, the God of Wisdom, could divine all the mysteries of the gods. But first of all by sacrifices and libations he secured the mediation of his own city-god and goddess, Ningirsu and Gatumdug; and then, repairing to Ninâ's temple, he recounted to her the details of his vision.
The occasion of the dream in this case was not a coming deluge but a great dearth of water in the rivers, in consequence of which the crops had suffered and the country was threatened with famine. This occurred in the reign of Gudea, patesi of Lagash, who lived some centuries before our Sumerian document was inscribed.
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