the complete name was A; see Foertsch, _Orient. Lit.-Zeit._,
Vol. XVIII, No. 12 (Dec., 1915), col. 367 ff. The reading is
deduced from the following entry in an Assyrian explanatory
list of gods (_Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XXIV, pl.
25, ll. 29-31): "The god A, who is also equated to the god
Dubbisaguri (i.e. 'Scribe of Ur'), is the priest of Kullab;
his wife is the goddess Ninguesirka (i.e. 'Lady of the edge
of the street')." A, the priest of Kullab and the husband of
a goddess, is clearly to be identified with A, the priest of
Kullab and father of Gilgamesh, for we know from the
Gilgamesh Epic that the hero's mother was the goddess
Ninsun. Whether Ninguesirka was a title of Ninsun, or
represents a variant tradition with regard to the parentage
of Gilgamesh on the mother's side, we have in any case
confirmation of his descent from priest and goddess. It was
natural that A should be subsequently deified. This was not
the case at the time our text was inscribed, as the name is
written without the divine determinative.

(6) Possibly 186 years.

This group of early kings of Erech is of exceptional interest. Apart
from its inclusion of Gilgamesh and the gods Tammuz and Lugalbanda,
its record of Meskingasher's reign possibly refers to one of the lost
legends of Erech. Like him Melchizedek, who comes to us in a chapter of
Genesis reflecting the troubled times of Babylon's First Dynasty,(1)
was priest as well as king.(2) Tradition appears to have credited
Meskingasher's son and successor, Enmerkar, with the building of Erech
as a city around the first settlement Eanna, which had already given its
name to the "kingdom". If so, Sumerian tradition confirms the assumption
of modern research that the great cities of Babylonia arose around the
still more ancient cult-centres of the land. We shall have occasion
to revert to the traditions here recorded concerning the parentage of
Meskingasher, the founder of this line of kings, and that of its most
famous member, Gilgamesh. Meanwhile we may note that the closing rulers
of the "Kingdom of Eanna" are wanting. When the text is again preserved,
we read of the hegemony passing from Erech to Ur and thence to Awan:

The k(ingdom of Erech(3) passed to) Ur.
In Ur Mesannipada became king and ruled for eighty years.
Meskiagunna, son of Mesannipada, ruled for thirty years.