[39] The name is expressed by the conflate sign, formed of the signs URU and A, the phonetic reading of which is unknown. [40] The name of the place was formerly read in a short inscription engraved upon a mace-head of Gudea, and it was supposed to be described in that passage as lying near the Persian Gulf; cf. Heuzey, "Rev. Arch.," vol. xvii. (1891), p. 153; Radau, "Early Bab. Hist.," pp. 81, 191. But the syllable as occurs in that text without the determinative for "place," and it is rather to be interpreted as part of the name of the mountain from which Gudea obtained the breccia for his mace-head; and the mountain itself is described as situated on "the Upper Sea," i.e. the Mediterranean, see below, p. 270 f. [41] See "Rev.," Col. VIII. [42] Foundation-stone A, Col. VII., ll. 3 ff. [43] For one of the inscribed bricks from the well, see the plate opposite p. 154. CHAPTER VI THE CLOSE OF UR-NINÂ'S DYNASTY, THE REFORMS OF URUKAGINA, AND THE FALL OF LAGASH Eannatum was the most famous and powerful member of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty, and it is probable that his reign marks the zenith of the power of Lagash as a city-state. We do not know the cause which led to his being succeeded upon the throne by his brother Enannatum I., instead of by a son of his own. That the break in the succession was due to no palace-revolution is certain from a reference Enannatum makes to his brother in an inscription found by Koldewey at El-Hibba,[1] where, after naming Akurgal as his father, he describes himself as "the beloved brother of Eannatum, patesi of Lagash." It is possible that Eannatum had no male issue, or, since his reign appears to have been long, he may have survived his sons. We may indeed conjecture that his victories were not won without considerable loss among his younger warriors, and many cadets of the royal house, including the king's own sons, may have given their lives in the service of their city and its god. Such may well have been the cause of the succession passing from the direct line of descent to a younger branch of the family. That Enannatum followed, and did not precede his brother upon the throne is proved by the reference to him in the El-Hibba text already referred to; moreover, he himself was succeeded by his own immediate descendants, and a reference to his reign upon the Cone of Entemena follows in order of time the same ruler's record concerning Eannatum. The few inscriptions of his reign, that have been recovered at Tello and El-Hibba, are of a votive rather than of an historical character, and, were it not for the historical summaries upon Entemena's Cone and an inscribed plaque of Urukagina, we should be without data for tracing the history of Sumer at this period. As it is, our information is in the main confined to the continued rivalry between Lagash and her near neighbour Umma, which now led to a renewal of active hostilities.