“In the day when the god Ningirsu, the strong warrior of Enlil, granted unto the god Ningishzida, the son of Ninâzu, the beloved of the gods, (the guardianship of) the foundation of the city and of the hills and valleys, on that day Gudea, patesi of Shirpurla, the just man who loveth his god, who for his master Ningirsu hath constructed his temple E-ninnu, called the shining Imgig, and his temple E-pa, the temple of-the seven zones of heaven, and for the goddess Ninâ, the queen, his lady, hath constructed the temple Sirara-shum, which riseth higher than (all) the temples in the world, and hath constructed their temples for the great gods of Lagash, built for his god Ningishzida his temple in Girsu. Whosoever shall proclaim the god Ningirsu as his god, even as I proclaim him, may he do no harm unto the temple of my god! May he proclaim the name of this temple! May that man be my friend, and may he proclaim my name! Gudea hath made the statue, and ‘Unto - Gudea - the - builder - of - the - temple - hath life-been-given hath he called its name, and he hath brought it into the temple.” The long name which Gudea gave to the statue, “Unto - Gudea - the - builder - of - the - temple - hath - life-been-given,” is characteristic of the practice of the Sumerian patesis, who always gave long and symbolical names to statues, stelae, and sacred objects dedicated and set up in their temples. The occasion on which the temple was built, and this statue erected within it, seems to have been the investiture of the god Ningishzida with special and peculiar powers, and it possibly inaugurated his introduction into the pantheon of Shirpurla. Ningishzida is called in the inscription the son of Ninazu, who was the husband of the Queen of the Underworld. In one of his aspects he was therefore probably a god of the underworld himself, and it is in this character that he was appointed by Ningirsu as guardian of the city’s foundations. But “the hills and valleys” (i.e. the open country) were also put under his jurisdiction, so that in another aspect he was a god of vegetation. It is therefore not improbable that, like the god Dumuzi, or Tammuz, he was supposed to descend into the underworld in winter, ascending to the surface of the earth with the earliest green shoots of vegetation in the spring.* * Cf. Thureau-Dangin, Rev. d’Assyr., vol. vi. (1904), p. 24.