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Updated: May 22, 2025
A most valuable contribution has recently been made to our knowledge of Sumerian religion and of the light in which these early rulers regarded the cult and worship of their gods, by the complete interpretation of the long texts inscribed upon the famous cylinders of Gudea, the patesi of Shirpurla, which have been preserved for many years in the Louvre.
And while the patesi slept a vision of the night came to him, and he beheld a man whose stature was so great that it equalled the heavens and the earth. And by the crown he wore upon his head Gudea knew that the figure must be a god. And by his side was the divine eagle, the emblem of Shirpurla, and his feet rested upon the whirlwind, and a lion was crouching upon his right hand and upon his left.
The stream of Enlil bringeth not good water like the Tigris. Let the decrees of the temple E-ninnû be made illustrious in heaven and upon earth!" The great gods did not communicate their orders directly to Gudea, but conveyed their wishes to him by means of a dream.
Dungi and Gudea, who are far from being the earliest rulers in the Euphrates Valley, appear in tablets with the determinative for deity attached to their names, and it would be natural, therefore, that a hero belonging to a remote period should likewise be deified.
+761+. A very early female divinity is Bau, worshiped particularly at the city Lagash and by King Gudea. Her function as patron of productiveness is probably indicated in the spring festival held in her honor on New Year's Day, in which she is worshiped as the giver of the fruits of the earth. There are several local female deities that seem to be substantially identical in character with Bau.
One of these is the zikkurat to Nin-girsu at Lagash, which Gudea describes as 'the house of seven divisions of the world'; the other, the tower at Uruk, which bore the name 'house of seven zones. The reference in both cases is, as Jensen has shown, to the seven concentric zones into which the earth was divided by the Babylonians.
All these lesser deities, having close relations to the god Ningirsu, were installed by Gudea in his temple in close proximity to him, that they might be always ready to perform their special functions.
So the patesi set out to the temple of Ningirsu, and, having offered a sacrifice and poured out fresh water, he prayed to the god that his sister, Ninâ, the child of Eridu, might be prevailed upon to give him help. And the god hearkened to his prayer. Then Gudea made offerings, and before the sleeping-chamber of the goddess Gatumdug he offered a sacrifice and poured out fresh water.
In keeping with this we find the mention of the goddess limited to the rulers of Lagash. Several of them En-anna-tuma, Entemena, and Gudea declare themselves to have been chosen by her. She is said to regard Gudea with special favor. She determines destinies. Another king, Ur-Ninâ, embodies the name of the goddess in his own, and devotes himself to the enlargement of her temple.
Mansell & Co. Gudea caused many statues of himself to be made out of the hard diorite which he brought for that purpose from the Sinaitic peninsula, and from the inscriptions preserved upon them it is possible to ascertain the buildings in which they were originally placed.
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