the arms op the city and kings of
Lagash]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief from Lagash, now
in the Louvre

After this glimpse of light on these shadowy kings darkness once more
closes in upon us, and conceals from us the majority of the sovereigns
who ruled afterwards in Babylon. The facts and names which can be
referred with certainty to the following centuries belong not to
Babylon, but to the southern States, Lagash, Uruk, Uru, Nishin, and
Larsam. The national writers had neglected these principalities;
we possess neither a resume of their chronicles nor a list of their
dynasties, and the inscriptions which speak of their the arms of the
city gods and princes are still very rare and kings of Lagash. Lagash,
as far as our evidence goes, was, perhaps, the most illustrious of
all these cities.* It occupied the heart of the country, and its site
covered both sides of the Shatt-el-Hai; the Tigris separated it on the
east from Anshan, the westernmost of the Elamite districts, with which
it carried on a perpetual frontier war.

* We are indebted almost exclusively to the researches of M.
de Sarzec, and his discoveries at Telloh, for what we know
of it. The results of his excavations, acquired by the
French government, are now in the Louvre. The description of
the ruins, the text of the inscriptions, and an account of
the statues and other objects found in the course of the
work, have been published by Heuzey-Sakzec, _Decouvertes en
Chaldee_. The name of the ancient town has been read
Sirpurla, Zirgulla, etc.

All parts of the country were not equally fertile: the fruitful and
well-cultivated district in the neighbourhood of the Shatt-el-Hai gave
place to impoverished lands ending to the eastward, finally in swampy
marshes, which with great difficulty furnished means of sustenance to a
poor and thinly scattered population of fisher-folk.

[Illustration: 099.jpg FRAGMENT OF BAS-RELIEF BY URNINA, KING OF
LAGASH.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a stone in the Louvre.

The capital, built on the left bank of the river, stretched out to the
north-east and south-west a distance of some five miles. It was not so
much a city as an agglomeration of large villages, each grouped around a
temple or palace--Uruazagga, Gishgalla, G-irsu, Nina, and Lagash,
which latter imposed its name upon the whole. A branch of the river
Shatt-el-Hai protected it on the south,