It is interesting to note that the laws referred to by Urukagina, in giving an account of the changes he introduced, are precisely similar in form to those we find upon the Code of Hammurabi.[45] This fact furnishes definite proof, not only that Hammurabi codified the legislation of earlier times, but also that this legislation itself was of Sumerian origin.[46] It is probable that Urukagina himself, in introducing his reforms, revived the laws of a still earlier age, which had been allowed to fall into disuse. As Hammurabi ascribed the origin of his laws to the Sun-god, whom he represents upon his stele as reciting them to him, so Urukagina regards his reforms as due to the direct intervention of Ningirsu, his king, whose word it was he caused to dwell in the land;[47] and it was not with his people but with Ningirsu that he drew up the agreement to observe them.[48] Like Hammurabi, too, Urukagina boasts that he is the champion of the weak against the strong; and he tells us that in place of the servitude, which had existed in his kingdom, he established liberty.[49] He spoke, and delivered the children of Lagash from want, from theft, from murder and other ills. In his reign, he says, to the widow and the orphan the strong man did no harm.[50] Urukagina's championship of Ningirsu's rights is reflected, not only in his reforms, but also in the buildings he erected during his reign. Thus we find it recorded that, in addition to his great temple E-ninnû, he built or restored two other temples in his honour, his palace of Tirash, and his great storehouse. Other temples were erected in honour of Bau, his wife, and of Dunshagga and Galalim, two of Ningirsu's sons, the latter of whom is first mentioned in Urukagina's texts. To Khegir, one of the seven virgin daughters of Ningirsu, he dedicated a shrine, and he built another in honour of three of her sisters, Zarzari, Impae, and Urnuntaea; a third was dedicated to Ninsar, Ningirsu's sword-bearer. It may thus be inferred that Urukagina's building operations were mainly devoted to temples and shrines of the city-god Ningirsu, and to those dedicated to members of his family and household. Like Eannatum and Entemena, he also improved the water-supply of the city, and cut a canal, or more probably improved an old one, for bringing water to the quarter of the city named Ninâ. In connection with it he constructed a reservoir, with a capacity of eighteen hundred and twenty _gur_, which he made, he tells us, "like the midst of the sea."[51] The small canal of Girsu he also repaired, and he revived its former name, "Ningirsu is prince in Nippur."[52] This furnishes another instance of his policy of restoring to Ningirsu honours and privileges of which he had been deprived. The reference to Nippur is of interest, for it suggests that Urukagina maintained active relations with the central cult of Sumer and the north, an inference confirmed by his rebuilding of Enlil's temple in Lagash, which had been