A third passage in Gudea's texts, referring to the transport of materials from a distance, occurs upon the colossal statue of himself which he erected in E-ninnû.[20] Here he states that Magan, Melukhkha, Gubi, and Dilmun collected wood, and that ships loaded with wood of all kinds came to the port of Lagash. Moreover, on eight out of his eleven statues he records that the diorite, from which he fashioned them, was brought from Magan. In his search for building materials, he asserts that he journeyed from the lower country to the upper country; and, when summarizing the area over which he and his agents ranged, he adopts an ancient formula, and states that Ningirsu, his beloved king, opened the ways for him from the Upper to the Lower Sea, that is to say, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. The enumeration of these distant countries, and Gudea's boastful reference to the Upper and the Lower Sea, might, perhaps, at first sight be regarded as constituting a claim to an empire as extensive as that of Shar-Gani-sharri and Narâm-Sin. But it is a remarkable fact that, with the exception of Lagash and her constituent townships, Gudea's texts make no allusion to cities or districts situated within the limits of Sumer and Akkad. Even the names of neighbouring great towns, such as Ur, Erech, and Larsa, are not once cited, and it can only be inferred that they enjoyed with Lagash an equal measure of independence. But if Gudea's authority did not extend over neighbouring cities and districts within his own country, we can hardly conclude that he exercised an effective control over more distant regions. In fact, we must treat his references to foreign lands as evidence of commercial, not of political, expansion. [Illustration: BRICK PILLAR AT TELLO, OF THE TIME OF GUDEA, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.--_Déc. en Chald._, pl. 53.]