It is clear that Elam under Dungi's administration formed a rich source of supply for those material products, in the lavish display of which the later rulers of Sumer loved to indulge. Her quarries, mines, and forests were laid under contribution, and her cities were despoiled of their accumulated wealth in the course of the numerous military expeditions by which her provinces were overrun. From the spoil of his campaigns Dungi was enabled to enrich the temples of his own land, and by appropriating the products of the country he obtained an abundance of metal, stone and wood for the construction and adornment of his buildings. Large bodies of public slaves supplied the necessary labour, and their ranks were constantly recruited from among the captives taken in battle, and from towns and villages which were suspected of participation in revolts. He was thus enabled to continue, on an even more elaborate scale, the rebuilding of the ancient temples of his country, which had been inaugurated by his father, Ur-Engur.
Among the cities of Akkad we know that at Cutha he rebuilt E-meslam, the great temple of Nergal, the city-god, but it is from Sumer that the principal evidence of his building activity has come. The late tradition that he greatly favoured the city of Eridu is supported by a votive text in the British Museum, which records his restoration of Enki's temple in that city; moreover, under Dungi, the chief priest of Eridu enjoyed a position of great favour and influence. Another city in the south, in which he undertook large building-operations, was Erech; here he restored E-anna, the temple of the goddess Ninni, and built a great wall, probably in connection with the city's system of defence. We know few details concerning the condition of these cities, but the wealth enjoyed by the temples of Lagash may be regarded as typical of the other great Sumerian religious centres during Dungi's reign. Among the baked clay tablets from Tello which date from this period are extensive lists of cattle, sheep, and asses, owned by the temples, and detailed tablets of accounts concerning the administration of the rich temple lands. It is interesting to note that these documents, which from the nature of their clay and the beauty of their writing are among the finest specimens yet recovered in Babylonia,[19] were found by M. de Sarzec in the original archive-chambers in which they had been stored by the Sumerian priests. Though they had apparently been disturbed at some later period, the majority were still arranged in layers, placed one upon the other, upon benches of earth which ran along both sides of narrow subterranean galleries.[20]
In spite of Dungi's devotion to the ancient Sumerian cult of Enki in the south, he did not neglect Nippur, though he seems to have introduced some novelties in the relations he maintained with this central shrine of Babylonia. In the fifteenth year of his reign he appears to have emphasized the political connection between Nippur and the capital, and six years later he dedicated a local sanctuary to the Moon-god at the former city, in which he installed a statue of Nannar, the city-god of Ur. Enlil and his consort Ninlil were not deposed from their place at the head of the Sumerian pantheon; the Moon-god, as the patron deity of the suzerain city, was merely provided with a local centre of worship beside E-kur, the great temple of his father. Indeed, under Dungi's successors Enlil enjoyed a position of enhanced importance; but it is possible that with Nannar the same process of evolution was at this time beginning to take place, which at a later period characterized the rise in importance of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon. But the short duration of the Dynasty of Ur did not give time for the development of the process beyond its initial stages. At Nippur Dungi also built a temple in honour of the goddess Damgalnunna, and we possess a cylinder-seal which Ur-nabbad,[21] a patesi of Nippur, dedicated to Nusku, Enlil's chief minister, on behalf of Dungi's life. Ur-nabbad describes himself as the son of Lugal-ezendug, to whom he also assigns the title of patesi of Nippur. It is probable that at Nippur the office of patesi continued to be hereditary, in spite of political changes, a privilege it doubtless enjoyed in virtue of its peculiarly sacred character.
In his capital at Ur it was but natural that Dungi should still further enlarge the great temple which Ur-Engur had erected in honour of the Moon-god, and it was probably in Ur also that he built a temple in honour of Ninib, whose cult he particularly favoured. He also erected two royal palaces there, one of them, E-kharsag, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and the other, E-khalbi, three years later. In Ur, too, we obtain evidence of an important administrative reform, by the recovery of three weights for half a maneh, two manehs, and twelve manehs respectively. The inscription upon one of these states that it had been tested and passed as of full weight in the sealing-house dedicated to Nannar. Dungi, in fact, introduced a uniform standard of weights for use in at least the Babylonian portion of his empire; and he sought to render his enactments with regard to them effective, by establishing an offical testing-house at Ur, which was probably attached to the temple of the Moon-god and conducted under the direction of the central priesthood. Here the original standards were preserved, and all local standards that were intended for use in other cities had no doubt to be attested by the official inscription of the king. It may be added that, in addition to the weights of his own period that have been recovered, a copy of one has survived, which was made after his standard in the Neo-Babylonian period.[22]
A considerable part of our knowledge of Dungi's reign has been derived from the tablets found at Tello, and from them we also obtain indirect evidence of the uniform character of his system of administration. As he introduced a fixed standard of weight for use throughout Babylonia, so he applied a single system of time-reckoning, in place of the local systems of dating, which had, until the reign of his father, prevailed in the different cities since the fall of the Dynasty of Akkad. The official title for each year was fixed in Ur, and was then published in each city of his empire, where it was adopted as the correct formula. This change had already been begun by Ur-Engur, who had probably introduced the central system into each city over which he obtained control; with Dungi we may infer that it became universal, not only throughout Sumer and Akkad, but also in the outlying provinces of his empire. In the provincial cities the scribes frequently added to the date-formula the name of their local patesi, who was in office at the time, and from such notes upon the Tello tablets we obtain the names of four patesis of Lagash who were Dungi's contemporaries during the last twenty years he occupied the throne. Similarly on tablets found at Jôkha[23] we learn that in the forty-fourth year of Dungi's reign Ur-nesu was patesi of the city of Umma; while a seal-impression on another tablet from Tello supplies the name of Ur-Pasag, who was patesi of the city of Dungi-Babbar. The sealings upon tablets of the period afford some indication of the decrease in influence attaching to the office of patesi, which resulted from the centralization of authority in Ur. Subordinate officials could employ Dungi's name, not that of their local patesi, upon their seals of office, proving that, like the patesi himself, they held their appointments direct from the king.
Of the patesis who held office in Lagash during Dungi's earlier years, the name of only one, a certain Galu-kazal, has been recovered. He dedicated a vase to Ningirsu for the preservation of Dungi's life,[24] and his daughter Khala-Lama presented a remarkable female statuette to the goddess Bau with the same object.[25] Of the later patesis we know that Galu-andul was in office during the thirty-ninth year of Dungi's reign, and that Ur-Lama I. ruled for at least seven years from his forty-second to his forty-eighth year. The patesiate of Alla, who was in office during his fiftieth year, was very short, for he was succeeded in the following year by Ur-Lama II., who survived Dungi and continued to rule in Lagash for three, and possibly four, years of Bûr-Sin's reign. Among the public works undertaken by Dungi in Lagash, we know that he rebuilt E-ninnû, Ningirsu's temple, the great temple dedicated to the goddess Ninâ, and E-salgilsa, the shrine of the goddess Ninmar in Girsu. Excavations upon other sites will doubtless reveal traces of the other buildings, which he erected in the course of his long reign of fifty-eight years. Indeed, the texts already recovered contain references to work on buildings, the sites of which are not yet identified, such as the restoration of Ubara, and the founding of Bad-mada, "The Wall (or Fortification) of the Land." As the latter was constructed in his forty-seventh year, after the principal epoch of his Elamite campaigns, it may have been a strongly fortified garrison-town upon the frontier, from which he could exercise control over his recently acquired provinces.
In view of Dungi's exceptionally long reign, it is probable that Bûr-Sin was already advanced in years when he succeeded his father upon the throne of Ur. However this may be, he reigned for only nine years, and Gimil-Sin, his son who succeeded him, for only seven years.[26] A longer reign was that of Ibi-Sin, Gimil-Sin's son and successor, who held his throne for a generation, but finally lost it and brought Ur-Engur's dynasty to an inglorious end. These last rulers of the Dynasty of Ur appear to have maintained the general lines of Dungi's policy, which they inherited from him along with his empire. The Elamite provinces required to be kept in check by the sending of military expeditions thither, but in Babylonia itself the rule of Ur was accepted without question, and her kings were free to devote themselves to the adornment of the great temples in the land. It is of interest to note that under Bûr-Sin and his son the importance of the central shrine of Nippur was fully recognized, and emphasis was laid on Enlil's position at the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Evidence of this may be seen in the additional titles, which these two rulers adopted in their foundation-inscriptions and votive texts that have come down to us. Bûr-Sin's regular titles of "King of Ur, king of the four quarters" are generally preceded by the phrase "whose name Enlil has pronounced in Nippur, who raised the head of Enlil's temple," while Gimil-Sin describes himself as "the beloved of Enlil," "whom Enlil has chosen as his heart's beloved," or "whom Enlil in his heart has chosen to be the shepherd of the land and of the four quarters." From inscriptions found at Nippur we know that Bûr-Sin added to the great temple of E-kur, and also built a storehouse for offerings of honey, butter and wine, while his third year was dated by the construction of a great throne in Enlil's honour. Gimil-Sin appears to have been equally active in his devotion to the shrine, for two years of his short reign derive their titles from the setting up of a great stele and the construction of a sacred boat, both in honour of Enlil and his consort.
The peculiar honour paid to Enlil does not appear to have affected the cult of the Moon-god, the patron deity of Ur, for both Bûr-Sin and Gimil-Sin rebuilt and added to the great temple of Sin, or Nannar, in their capital.[27] They also followed Dungi in his care for the shrine of Enki at Eridu; and there is evidence that Bûr-Sin rebuilt the temple of Ninni at Erech, while the last year of Gimil-Sin's reign was signalized by the rebuilding of the city-temple at Umma. It is thus clear that the later members of Ur-Engur's dynasty continued the rebuilding of the temples of Babylonia, which characterized his reign and that of Dungi. Another practice which they inherited was the deification of the reigning king. Not only did they assume the divine determinative before their names, but Bûr-Sin styles himself "the righteous god of his land," or "the righteous god, the sun of his land." He also set up a statue of himself, which he named "Bûr-Sin, the beloved of Ur," and placed it in the temple of the Moon-god under the protection of Nannar and Ningal. It would seem that it became the custom at this time for the reigning king to erect statues of himself in the great temples of the land, where regular offerings were made to them as to the statues of the gods themselves. Thus a tablet from Tello mentions certain offerings made at the Feast of the New Moon to statues of Gimil-Sin, which stood in the two principal temples of Lagash, those of Ningirsu and the goddess Bau.[28] It should be added that the tablet is dated in the fifth year of Gimil-Sin's reign. In view of Nannar's rank as god of the suzerain city, the Feasts of the New Moon were naturally regarded, even in the provincial cities, as of peculiar importance in the sacred calendar.