We have no information as to the events which led to his accession, beyond the negative evidence afforded by the complete absence of any genealogy from his inscriptions. Like Ur-Bau, Gudea does not name his father, and it is possible that he was a man of obscure or doubtful birth. The energy which he displayed as patesi is sufficient to account for his rise to power, and the success which attended his period of rule may be held to have amply justified a break in the succession. Another problem suggested by a study of his texts concerns the source of the wealth which enabled him to undertake the rebuilding and refurnishing of the temples of Lagash upon so elaborate a scale. The cause of such activity we should naturally seek in the booty obtained during a number of successful campaigns, but throughout the whole of his inscriptions we have only a single reference to an act of war. On the statue of himself in the character of an architect, holding the plan of E-ninnû upon his knees, he gives in some detail an account of the distant regions whence he obtained the materials for the construction of Ningirsu's temple. At the close of this list of places and their products, as though it formed a continuation of his narrative, he adds the record that he smote with his weapons the town of Anshan in Elam and offered its booty to Ningirsu. This is the only mention of a victory that occurs in Gudea's inscriptions, and, although in itself it proves that he was sufficiently independent to carry on a war in Elam on his own account, it does not throw light upon the other causes of his success.