e city's foundations. But "the hills and valleys"
(i.e. the open country) were also put under his jurisdiction, so that
in another aspect he was a god of vegetation. It is therefore not
improbable that, like the god Dumuzi, or Tammuz, he was supposed to
descend into the underworld in winter, ascending to the surface of the
earth with the earliest green shoots of vegetation in the spring.*

* Cf. Thureau-Dangin, Rev. d'Assyr., vol. vi. (1904), p. 24.

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.
These two great cylinders of baked clay were discovered by the late M.
de Sarzec so long ago as the year 1877, during the first period of his
diggings at Telloh, and, although the general nature of their contents
has long been recognized, no complete translation of the texts inscribed
upon them had been published until a few months ago. M. Thureau-Dangin,
who has made the early Sumerian texts his special study, has devoted
himself to their interpretation for some years past, and he has just
issued the first part of his monograph upon them. In view of the
importance of the texts and of the light they throw upon the religious
beliefs and practices of the early Sumerians, a somewhat detailed
account of their contents may here be given.

The occasion on which the cylinders were made was the rebuilding by
Gudea of E-ninnu, the great temple of the god Ningirsu, in the city of
Shirpurla. The two cylinders supplement one another, one of them having
been inscribed while the work of construction was still in progress, the
other after the completion of the temple, when the god Ningirsu had been
installed within his shrine with due pomp and ceremony. It would appear
that Southern Babylonia had been suffering from a prolonged drought, and
that the water in the rivers and canals had fallen, so that the crops
had suffered and the country was threatened with famine. Gudea was at a
loss to know by what means he might restore prosperity to his country,
when one night he had a dream, and it was in consequence of this dream
that he eventually erected one of the most sumptuously appointed of
Sumerian temples. By this means he secured the r