The absence of military records from Gudea's texts is rendered the more striking, when we read the names of the countries he laid under contribution for the materials employed in the building of E-ninnû. The fullest geographical list is that given on the statue of the architect with the plan,[19] and, although unfortunately some of the places mentioned have still to be identified, the text itself furnishes sufficient information to demonstrate the wide area of his operations. Gudea here tells us that from Mount Amanus, the mountain of cedars, he fetched beams of cedar-wood measuring fifty and even sixty cubits in length, and he also brought down from the mountain logs of urkarinnu-wood five-and-twenty cubits long. From the town of Ursu in the mountain of Ibla he brought zabalu-wood, great beams of ashukhu-wood and plane-trees. From Umanu, a mountain of Menua, and from Basalla, a mountain of Amurru, he obtained great blocks of stone and made stelæ from them, which he set up in the court of E-ninnû. From Tidanu, another mountain of Amurru, he brought pieces of marble, and from Kagalad, a mountain of Kimash, he extracted copper, which he tells us he used in making a great mace-head. From the mountains of Melukhkha he brought ushû-wood, which he employed in the construction of the temple, and he fetched gold-dust from the mountain of Khakhu and with it he gilded a mace-head carved with the heads of three lions. In Gubin, the mountain of khuluppu-wood, he felled khuluppu-trees; from Madga he obtained asphalt, which he used in making the platform of E-ninnû; and from the mountain of Barshib he brought down blocks of nalua-stone, which he loaded into great boats and so carried them to Lagash in order to strengthen the base of the temple.
The above list of places makes it clear that Gudea obtained his wood and stone from mountains on the coast of Syria and in Arabia, and his copper from mines in Elam. On the first of his cylinders he also states that the Elamite came from Elam and the man of Susa from Susa, presumably to take part as skilled craftsmen in the construction of the temple. In this account he does not mention the names of so many places as in the statue-inscription, but he adds some picturesque details with regard to the difficulties of transport he encountered. Thus he records that into the mountain of cedars, where no man before had penetrated, he cut a road for bringing down the cedars and beams of other precious woods. He also made roads into the mountains where he quarried stone, and, in addition to gold and copper, he states that he obtained silver also in the mountains. The stone he transported by water, and he adds that the ships bringing bitumen and plaster from Madga were loaded as though they were barges carrying grain.
A third passage in Gudea's texts, referring to the transport of materials from a distance, occurs upon the colossal statue of himself which he erected in E-ninnû.[20] Here he states that Magan, Melukhkha, Gubi, and Dilmun collected wood, and that ships loaded with wood of all kinds came to the port of Lagash. Moreover, on eight out of his eleven statues he records that the diorite, from which he fashioned them, was brought from Magan. In his search for building materials, he asserts that he journeyed from the lower country to the upper country; and, when summarizing the area over which he and his agents ranged, he adopts an ancient formula, and states that Ningirsu, his beloved king, opened the ways for him from the Upper to the Lower Sea, that is to say, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.
The enumeration of these distant countries, and Gudea's boastful reference to the Upper and the Lower Sea, might, perhaps, at first sight be regarded as constituting a claim to an empire as extensive as that of Shar-Gani-sharri and Narâm-Sin. But it is a remarkable fact that, with the exception of Lagash and her constituent townships, Gudea's texts make no allusion to cities or districts situated within the limits of Sumer and Akkad. Even the names of neighbouring great towns, such as Ur, Erech, and Larsa, are not once cited, and it can only be inferred that they enjoyed with Lagash an equal measure of independence. But if Gudea's authority did not extend over neighbouring cities and districts within his own country, we can hardly conclude that he exercised an effective control over more distant regions. In fact, we must treat his references to foreign lands as evidence of commercial, not of political, expansion.
BRICK PILLAR AT TELLO, OF THE TIME OF GUDEA, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.—Déc. en Chald., pl. 53.
Gudea's reign may be regarded as marking a revival of Sumerian prosperity, consequent on the decay of Semitic influence and power in the north. The fact that he was able to import his wood and stone from Syria, and float it unmolested down the Euphrates, argues a considerable weakening of the northern cities. Whether Akkad, or some other city, still claimed a nominal suzerainty over the southern districts it is impossible to say, but it is at least clear that in the reign of Gudea no such claim was either recognized or enforced. We may suppose that Lagash and the other great cities in the south, relieved from the burden of Semitic domination, enjoyed a period of peace and tranquillity, which each city employed for the development of her material resources. The city of Ur was soon to bring this state of affairs to a close, by claiming the hegemony among the southern cities and founding the kingdom of Sumer and Akkad by force of arms. But during Gudea's reign Ur appears to have made no movement, and Lagash and the other great cities of the land may be pictured as maintaining commercial relations with each other, unhampered by the striving of any one of them for political supremacy.