History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent DiscoveryKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C.; History, Ancient
The cultivator of the district of Gu-edin was the god Gishbare, and he
was installed in the temple that he might cause the great fields to be
fertile, and might make the wheat glisten in Gu-edin, the plain assigned
to Ningirsu for his revenues. It was this god’s duty also to tend the
machines for irrigation, and to raise the water into the canals and
ditches of Shirpurla, and thus to keep the city’s granaries well filled.
The god Kal was the guardian of the fishing in Gu-edin, and his chief
duty was to place fish in the sacred pools. The steward of Gu-edin was
the god Dimgalabzu, whose duty it was to keep the plain in good order,
so that the birds might abound there and the beasts might raise their
young in peace; he also guarded the special privilege, which the plain
enjoyed, of freedom from any tax levied upon the increase of the
cattle pastured there. Last of all Gudea installed in E-ninnû the god
Lugalenurua-zagakam, who looked after the construction of houses in the
city and the building of fortresses upon the city wall; in the temple it
was his privilege to raise on high a battle-axe made of cedar.
All these lesser deities, having close relations to the god Ningirsu,
were installed by Gudea in his temple in close proximity to him, that
they might be always ready to perform their special functions. But the
greater deities also had their share in the inauguration of the temple,
and of these Gudea specially mentions Ana, Enlil, Ninkharsag, Enki, and
Enzu, who all assisted in rendering the temple’s lot propitious. For at
least three of the greater gods (Ana, Enlil, and the goddess Nin-makh)
Gudea erected shrines near one another and probably within the temple’s
precincts, and, as the passage which records this fact is broken, it is
possible that the missing portion of the text recorded the building of
shrines to other deities. In any case, it is clear that the composer
of the text represents all the great gods as beholding the erection and
inauguration of Ningirsu’s new temple with favour.
After the account of the installation of Ningirsu, and his spouse Bau,
and his attendant deities, the text records the sumptuous offerings
which Gudea placed within Ningirsu’s shrine. These included another
chariot drawn by an ass, a seven-headed battle-axe, a sword with nine
emblems, a bow with terrible arrows and a quiver decorated with wild
beasts and dragons shooting out their tongues, and a bed which was
set within the god’s sleeping-chamber. On the couch in the shrine the
goddess Bau reclined beside her lord Ningirsu, and ate of the great
victims which were sacrificed in their honour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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