It is difficult to trace through all its stages the early growth of the city, but it would seem that the shrine in the centre of the town was soon raised upon an artificial mound to protect it during periods of inundation. Moreover, as at Fâra, the original settlement must have expanded quickly, for even below the mounds to the south-west of the Shatt en-Nîl, strata have been found similar in character to those under the temple-mound, as well as bricks and wells of the pre-Sargonic period. In reconstructing the plan of the later areas occupied by the temple and its enclosure, considerable assistance has been obtained from an ancient plan of the temple, drawn upon a clay tablet that was found at Nippur. From the form of the characters inscribed upon it, it does not appear to date from an earlier period than the first half of the second millennium B.C., but it may well be a copy of an older original since the form of its temple-enclose appears to agree with that in the time of Narâm-Sin as revealed by the excavations. In it the position of E-kur is marked at one end of a great enclosure surrounded by an irregular wall. The enclosure is cut by a canal or sluice, on the other side of which stood temple-storehouses. [Illustration: NIPPUR: The inner city after Fischer] The position of gates in the wall are marked, and it will be noted that a large stream, labelled the Euphrates, washes its upper side, while on its other sides are terraces and moats. These details are incorporated in the accompanying plan, but their suggested relation to the remains uncovered in the course of the excavations is largely conjectural. Moreover the period in the temple's history represented by the tablet is not certainly established, and some of the details such as the ground-plan of the temple itself may reproduce its later form.