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Updated: June 10, 2025
The center of power was now in Erech, now in Ur, or Babylon, or some other city, whose king ruled supreme over numerous vassal kings. Another great builder was Gudea, king of Shirpurla. His kingdom included not only the whole of Babylonia proper, but also Assyria, and probably even the "West Land" as far as the Mediterranean.
The men of Gishkhu, by the despoiling of Shirpurla, have committed a transgression against the god Ningirsu! The power that is come unto them, from them shall be taken away! Of transgression on the part of Urukagina, King of Girsu, there is none.
In the time of Dungi, King of Ur, there was a constant interchange of officials between the various cities of Babylonia and Elam, and during the more recent diggings at Telloh there have been found vouchers for the supply of food for their sustenance when stopping at Shirpurla in the course of their journeys.
At this time Urlumma, the son and successor of Enakalli, was on the throne of Gishkhu, and he organized the forces of the city and led them out to battle. His first act was to destroy the frontier ditches named after Ningirsu and Ninâ, the principal god and goddess of Shirpurla, which Eannadu, the powerful foe of Gishkhu, had caused to be dug.
It would appear that under Eannadu the power and influence of Shirpurla were extended over the whole of Southern Babylonia, and reached even to the borders of Elam. At any rate, it is clear that during his lifetime the city of Gishkhu was content to remain in a state of subjection to its more powerful neighbour.
Gudea himself laid its foundations, and as he did so he blessed the temple seven times, comparing it to the sacred brick, to the holy libation-vase, to the divine eagle of Shirpurla, to a terrible couching panther, to the beautiful heavens, to the day of offerings, and to the morning light which brightens the land.
The occasion on which the temple was built, and this statue erected within it, seems to have been the investiture of the god Ningishzida with special and peculiar powers, and it possibly inaugurated his introduction into the pantheon of Shirpurla. Ningishzida is called in the inscription the son of Ninazu, who was the husband of the Queen of the Underworld.
If they ever actually crossed the Shaft el-Hai and raided the lands on its eastern bank, they never ventured to attack the city of Shirpurla itself.
The evidence of the catastrophe that befell Shirpurla at this period is furnished by a small clay tablet recently found at Telloh during Captain Cros's excavations on that site. The document on which the facts in question are recorded had no official character, and in all probability it had not been stored in any library or record chamber.
The result may not have been decisive, but Enannadu's action at least checked Urlumma's encroachments for the time. It would appear that the death of the reigning patesi in Shirpurla was always the signal for an attack upon that city by the men of Gishkhu.
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