[Illustration: PORTION OF THE "STELE OF VULTURES," SCULPTURED WITH SCENES REPRESENTING EANNATUM, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA, LEADING HIS TROOPS IN BATTLE AND ON THE MARCH.--_In the Louvre; Déc. en Chald., pl._ 3 (_bis_).] The record of his victory which Eannatum has left us is couched in metaphor, and is doubtless coloured by Oriental exaggeration; and the scribes who drew it up would naturally be inclined to represent the defeat of Umma as even more crushing than it was. Thus the number of burial-mounds suggests that the forces of Lagash suffered heavily themselves, and it is quite possible the remnant of Umma's army rallied and made a good fight within the city. But we have the independent testimony of Entemena's record, written not many years after the fight, to show that there is considerable truth under Eannatum's phrases; and a clear proof that Umma was rendered incapable of further resistance for the time may be seen in the terms of peace which Lagash imposed. Eannatum's first act, after he had received the submission of the city, was to collect for burial the bodies of his own dead which strewed the field of battle. Those of the enemy he would probably leave where they fell, except such as blocked the streets of Umma, and these he would remove and cast out in the plain beyond the city-walls. For we may conclude that, like Entemena, Eannatum left the bones of his foes to be picked clean by the birds and beasts of prey. The monument on which we have his record of the fight is known as the Stele of the Vultures from the vultures sculptured upon the upper portion of it. These birds of prey are represented as swooping off with the heads and limbs of the slain, which they hold firmly in their beaks and talons. That the sculptor should have included this striking incident in his portrayal of the battle is further testimony to the magnitude of the slaughter which had taken place. That Eannatum duly buried his own dead is certain, for both he and Entemena state that the burial-mounds which he heaped up were twenty in number; and two other sculptured portions of the Stele of the Vultures, to which we shall presently refer, give vivid representations of the piling of the mounds above the dead.