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Lagash
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Lagash (modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq) is located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, Lagash was one of the oldest cities of Sumer and later Babylonia. Nearby Ngirsu (modern Telloh) was the religious center of the Lagash state.
Lagash's temple was E-Ninnu, dedicated to the god Ningirsu.
sh is represented by a rather low, long line of ruin mounds, now known as Tell al-Hiba in Iraq.
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Lagash (modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq) is located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, Lagash was one of the oldest cities of Sumer and later Babylonia. Nearby Ngirsu (modern Telloh) was the religious center of the Lagash state.
Lagash's temple was E-Ninnu, dedicated to the god Ningirsu.
History
Lagash is represented by a rather low, long line of ruin mounds, now known as Tell al-Hiba in Iraq. It is positioned on the dry bed of an ancient canal, some 5 km east of the Shatt-el-Haj, and about 22 km east of the modern town of Ash Shatrah in the Dhi Qar Governorate. Ngirsu (Telloh) lies about 25 km northwest of Al-Hiba.
The E-Ninnu temple had been razed and a fortress built upon its ruins, in the Greek or Seleucid period, some of the bricks found bearing the inscription in Aramaic and Greek of a certain Hadad-nadin-akhe, king of a small Babylonian kingdom. It was beneath this fortress that numerous statues of Gudea were found, constituting one of the prizes of the Near Eastern Antiquities collection at the Louvre. These had been decapitated and otherwise mutilated, and thrown into the foundations of the new fortress. From this stratum also came various fragments of bas reliefs of high artistic excellence. The excavations in the other larger mound resulted in the discovery of the remains of buildings containing objects of all sorts in bronze and stone, dating from the earliest Sumerian period onward, and enabling the art history of the ancient Near East to be traced to a date some hundreds of years before the time of Gudea.
Apparently this mound had been occupied largely by store houses, where were stored not only grain, figs, etc., but also vessels, weapons, sculptures and every possible object connected with the use and administration of palace and temple. In a small outlying mound, de Sarzec discovered the archives of the temple — about 30,000 inscribed clay tablets containing the business records, and revealing in extraordinary detail the administration of an ancient Near Eastern temple, the character of its property, the method of farming its lands, herding its flocks, and its commercial and industrial dealings and enterprises - an ancient Near Eastern temple was a great industrial, commercial, agricultural and stock-raising establishment. Unfortunately, before these archives could be removed, the galleries containing them were rifled by looters, and large numbers of the tablets were sold to antiquity dealers, by whom they have been scattered all over Europe and America.
Political History
From inscriptions found at Telloh, it appears that Lagash was an important Sumerian city in the late 3rd millennium BC. It was at that time ruled by independent kings, Ur-Nanshe (24th century BC) and his successors, who were engaged in contests with the Elamites on the east and the kings of "Kiengir" and Kish on the north.
Some of the earlier works from before the Akkadian conquest are also extremely interesting, in particular Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures and a Entemena's great silver vase ornamented with Ningirsu's sacred animal Anzu: a lion-headed eagle with wings outspread, grasping a lion in each talon.
With the Akkadian conquest, Lagash lost its independence, its ruler or ensi becoming vassal of Sargon of Akkad and his successors; but it remained Sumerian, continuing to be a city of much importance and above all, a centre of artistic development. Indeed, it was in this period and under the immediately succeeding supremacy of the kings of Ur, Ur-Nammu and Shulgi, that it reached its highest artistic development.
After the collapse of Sargon's state, Lagash again throve under its independent kings (ensis) Ur-Bau and Gudea, and had extensive commercial communications with distant realms. According to his own records, Gudea brought cedars from the Amanus and Lebanon mountains in Syria, diorite from eastern Arabia, copper and gold from central and southern Arabia, while his armies were engaged in battles with Elam on the east. His was especially the era of artistic development. We even have a fairly good idea of what Gudea looked like, since he placed in temples throughout his city numerous statues or idols depicting himself with lifelike realism.
At the time of Gudea, the capital of Lagash was actually in Ngirsu (Telloh). The kingdom covered an area of approximately 1,600 km². It contained 17 larger cities, eight district capitals, and numerous villages (about 40 known by name).
According to one estimate, Lagash was the largest city in the world from ca. 2075 to 2030 BC.
Soon after after the time of Gudea, Lagash was absorbed into the Ur III state as one of its prime provinces. There is some information about the area during the Old Babylonian period. After that it seems to have lost its importance; at least we know nothing more about it until the construction of the Seleucid fortress mentioned, when it seems to have become part of the Greek kingdom of Characene.
Dynasties of Lagash
These dynasties are not found on the Sumerian king list, although one extremely fragmentary supplement has been found in Sumerian, known as the The rulers of Lagash (). It recounts how after the flood mankind was having difficulty growing food for itself, being dependent solely on rainwater; it further relates that techniques of irrigation and cultivation of barley were then imparted by the gods. At the end of the list is the statement "Written in the school", suggesting this was a school exercise. A few of the names from the Lagash rulers listed below may be made out, including Ur-Nanshe, "Ane-tum", En-entar-zid, Ur-Ningirsu, Ur-Bau, and Gudea.
First Dynasty of Lagash
| Ruler | Reigned | Comments |
|---|
| Enhengal | | | | Lugal-sha-engur (Lugal-Suggur) | | high priest or patesi | | Ur-Nanshe (Ur-nina) | ca. 2500 BC | king | | Akurgal | | | | Eannatum | ca. 25th century BC | grandson of Ur-Nanshe, king, took Sumer away from Enshagkushana of Uruk and repulsed the armies of Kish, Elam and Mari | | En-anna-tum I | ca. 25th century BC | brother to Eanatum, high priest, Ur-Luma and Illi of Umma, as well as Kug-Bau of Kish gained independence from him. | | Entemena | ca. 25th century BC | son of Enanatum I, king, contemporary with Lugal-ure (or Lugalkinishedudu) of Uruk and defeated Illi of Umma | | Enanatum II | | | | Enentarzid | | | | Lugalanda | | | | Urukagina | ca. 2300 BC | king, defeated by Lugalzagesi of Uruk, issued a proclamation of social reformes. |
Second Dynasty of Lagash (short chronology)
| Ruler | Reigned | Comments |
|---|
| Ki-Ku-Id | | | | Engilsa | | | | Ur-A | | | | Lugal-Ushumgal | | | | Puzur-Mama | | contemporary of Shar-kali-sharri of Akkad | | Ur-Utu | | | | Ur-Mama | | | | Lu-Baba | | | | Lugula | | | | Kaku of Lagash or Kakug | | | | Ur-Bau or Ur-Baba | ca. 2093—2080 BC (short) | | | Gudea | ca. 2080—2060 BC (short) | son-in-law of Ur-Bau | | Ur-Ningirsu | ca. 2060—2055 BC (short) | son of Gudea | | Pirigme or Ugme | ca. 2055—2053 BC (short) | grandson of Gudea | | Ur-Gar | ca. 2053—2049 BC (short) | | | Nammahani | ca. 2049—2046 BC (short) | grandson of Kaku, defeated by Ur-Namma | |
Archaeology
Al-Hiba is one of the largest archaeological mounds in the region, measuring roughly two miles long
and one mile wide. Estimates of it's area range from 400 to 600 hectares. The site, as is often the
case in Mesopotamia, is divided by the bed of a canal/river, which runs diagonally through the mound.
The site was first excavated, for six weeks, by Robert Koldewey in 1887. It was inspected during a
survey of the area by Thorkild Jacobsen and Fuad Safar in 1953, finding the first evidence of it's
identification as Lagash. Tell Al-Hiba was again
explored in four seasons of excavation between 1968 and 1976 by a team from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. The team was led
by Vaughn E. Crawford, and included Donald P. Hansen and Robert D. Biggs. The primary focus was the
excavation of the temple Ibgal of Inanna and the temple Bagara of Ningirsu, as well as an
associated administrative area.
See also
External links
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