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At a very early period Babylon itself was not a capital and Nineveh had not come into existence. The important cities, such as Nippur and Shirpurla, were situated farther to the south.
The group of mounds and hillocks, known as Telloh, which marks the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Shirpurla, is easily distinguished from the flat surrounding desert. The mounds extend in a rough oval formation running north and south, about two and a half miles long and one and a quarter broad.
This document tells us that at the command of the god Enlil, described as "the king of the countries," Ningirsu, the chief god of Shirpurla, and the god of Gishkhu decided to draw up a line of division between their respective territories, and that Mesilim, King of Kish, acting under the direction of his own god Kadi, marked out the frontier and set up a stele between the two territories to commemorate the fixing of the boundary.
That they could maintain a stubborn fight for their territory is proved by the prolonged struggle maintained by Shirpurla against her rival Gishkhu, but neither ruler nor people was inflamed by love of conquest for its own sake.
Then he kindled a great fire of cedar and other aromatic woods, to make a sweet savour for the gods, and prayers were offered day and night; and the patesi addressed a prayer to the Anun-naki, or Spirits of the Earth, who dwelt in Shirpurla, and assigned a place to them in the temple. Then, having completed his purification of the city itself, he consecrated its immediate surroundings.
A similar remark applies to the success against the city of Anshan in Elam, achieved by Grudea, the Sumerian ruler of Shirpurla, inasmuch as he was a patesi, or viceroy, and not an independent king.
Such is the account, which has come down to us from the rough tablet of some unknown scribe, of the greatest misfortune experienced by Shirpurla during the long course of her history.
On this we see the enemies of Eannadu, one of the early rulers of Shirpurla, cast out to be devoured by the vultures. The two reliefs are curiously alike in their clumsy, naïve style of art.
It is, in fact, one of the three towns that combined with Shirpurla to create the great capitol bearing the latter name; and Jensen has called attention to a passage in one of Gudea's inscriptions in which the goddess is brought into direct association with the town, so that it would appear that Ninâ is the patron of Ninâ, in the same way that Nin-girsu is the protector of Girsu.
Entemena also restored and extended the system of canals in the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, lining one of the principal channels with stone. Socket Bearing An Inscription Of Entemena, A Powerful Patesi, Or Viceroy, Of Shirpurla.
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