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Updated: May 22, 2025
Having interpreted the meaning of the dream, the goddess Ninâ proceeded to give Gudea instruction as to how he should go to work to build the temple. She told him first of all to go to his treasure-house and bring forth his treasures from their sealed cases, and out of these to make certain offerings which he was to place near the god Ningirsu, in the temple in which he was dwelling at that time.
And he prayed to the goddess, calling her his queen and the child of the pure heaven, who gave life to the countries and befriended and preserved the people or the man on whom she looked with favour. "I have no mother," cried Gudea, "but thou art my mother! I have no father, but thou art a father to me!" And the goddess Gatumdug gave ear to the patesi's prayer.
Mari was a city on the middle Euphrates, but the name may here signify the district of Mari which lay in the upper course of Sargon's march. Now we know that the later Sumerian monarch Gudea obtained his cedar beams from the Amanus range, which he names Amanum and describes as the "cedar mountains". Doubtless he felled his trees on the eastern slopes of the mountain.
It is true that Gudea states that he did not understand the meaning of the god's message, and so required an interpretation; but he was equally at a loss as to the identity of the god who gave it, although Ningirsu was his own city-god and was accompanied by his own familiar city-emblem. We may thus assume that the god's words, as words, were equally intelligible to Gudea.
During the most recent diggings that have been carried out at Telloh a find of considerable value to the history of Sumerian art has been made. The find is also of great general interest, since it enables us to identify a portrait of Gudea, the most famous of the later Sumerian patesis.
Petrie has shown that the unit of measurement represented in it is the cubit of the pyramid-builders of Egypt. The diorite of Sinai was not the only material which was imported into Babylonia for the buildings of Gudea.
Ur-Bau expressly calls the god the 'king of Eridu. The sacredness of the place is attested by Gudea, who boasts of having made the temple of Nin-girsu as sacred as Eridu. It is over this city that Ea watches. The importance of the Persian Gulf to the growth of the city, would make it natural to place the seat of the god in the waters themselves.
And Gudea took the brick and raised it on high towards the heavens, and he carried the brick to his people. In this way the patesi inaugurated the manufacture of the sun-dried bricks for the temple, the sacred brick which he had made being the symbol and pattern of the innumerable bricks to be used in its construction.
That Girsu was once quite distinct from Lagash is also evident from the title of "king of Girsu," with which a certain Uru-kagina, who is to be placed somewhat before Gudea, contents himself. The other three quarters, all of which were originally independent cities, are Uru-azagga, Ninâ, and apparently Gish-galla.
The offerings were to consist of a chariot, adorned with pure metal and precious stones; bright arrows in a quiver; the weapon of the god, his sacred emblem, on which Gudea was to inscribe his own name; and finally a lyre, the music of which was wont to soothe the god when he took counsel with himself.
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