Description
The impressed cuneiform characters, which are well-spaced in the horizontal registers on the shaft of this votive nail, record in Sumerian the building of a temple in Girsu (modern Tell Telloh) for Ningeshzida, a deity of the underworld, by Gudea, ensi of Lagash. Girsu was an important religious and civic center in the 3rd millennium BCE. Gudea ruled over the city-state of Lagash (in southern Iraq) in the second half of the 22nd century BCE (ca. 2144-2124 BCE). In this text, Gudea draws attention to his personal connections to two deities: Ningeshzida, his patron, and Gatumdu (or Gatumdug), a goddess local to Lagash. Over one hundred examples of this text are known, appearing mostly on clay nails.
Clay cones and nails were inscribed in the name of a ruler of a Mesopotamian city-state to commemorate an act of building or rebuilding, often of a temple for a specific deity. Deposited in the walls or under the foundations of these structures, the words of the texts were directed at the gods but would be found by later restorers.
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