[24] The ideogram _Ki-en-gi_, by which the name of Sumer, or more correctly Shumer, was expressed, already occurs in the texts of Eannatum, Lugal-zaggisi and Enshagkushanna (see Chaps. V. and VII.). It has generally been treated as an earlier proper name for the country, and read as Kengi or Kingi. But the occurrence of the word _ki-en-gi-ra_ in a Sumerian hymn, where it is rendered in Semitic by _mâtu_, "land" (see Reisner, "Sum.-Bab. Hymnen," pl. 130 ff.), would seem to show that, like _kalam_, it was employed as a general designation for "the Land" (cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Die sumerischen und akkadischen Königsinschriften," p. 152, n.f.). The form _ki-en-gi-ra_ is also met with in the inscriptions of Gudea (see Hommel, "Grundriss," p. 242, n. 4, and Thureau-Dangin, _op. cit._, pp. 100, 112, 140), and it has been suggested that the final syllable should be treated as a phonetic complement and the word rendered as _shumer-ra_ (cf. Hrozný, "Ninib und Sumer," in the "Rev. Sémit.," July, 1908, Extrait, p. 15). According to this view the word shumer, with the original meaning of "land," was afterwards employed as a proper name for the country. The earliest occurrence of Shumerû, the Semitic form of the name, is in an early Semitic legend in the British Museum, which refers to "the spoil of the Sumerians" (see King, "Cun. Texts," Pt. V., pl. 1 f., and cf. Winckler, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, col. 346, Ungnad, _op. cit._, 1908, col. 67, and Hrozný, "Rev. Sémit.," 1908, p. 350). [25] Akkad, or Akkadû, was the Semitic pronunciation of Agade, the older name of the town; a similar sharpening of sound occurs in Makkan, the Semitic pronunciation of Magan (cf. Ungnad, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1908, col. 62, n. 4). The employment of the name of Akkad for the whole of the northern half of the country probably dates from a period subsequent to the increase of the city's power under Shar-Gani-sharri and Narâm-Sin (see Chap. VIII.); on the employment of the name for the Semitic speech of the north, see below, p. 52. The origin of the name Ki-uri, or Ki-urra, employed in Sumerian as the equivalent of the name of Akkad, is obscure. CHAPTER II THE SITES OF EARLY CITIES AND THE RACIAL CHARACTER OF THEIR INHABITANTS