The excavations on the site of Nippur and its temple have illustrated the gradual increase in the size of a Sumerian city, and the manner in which the temple of the city-god retained its position as the central and most important building. The diggings, however, have thrown little light upon the form the temple assumed during periods anterior to the Dynasty of Ur. In fact, we do not yet know the form or arrangement of an early Sumerian temple; for on early sites such as Fâra, Surghul, and Bismâya, the remains of no important building were uncovered, while the scanty remains of Ningirsu's temple at Tello date from the comparatively late period of Ur-Bau and Gudea. On the latter site, however, a number of earlier constructions have been discovered, and, although they are not of a purely religious character, they may well have been employed in connection with the temple service. Apart from private dwellings, they are the only buildings of the early Sumerians that have as yet been recovered, and they forcibly illustrate the primitive character of the cities of this time.
The group of oldest constructions at Tello was discovered in the mound known as K, which rises to a height of seventeen metres above the plain. It is the largest and highest after the Palace Tell, to the south-east of which it lies at a distance of about two hundred metres.[3] Here, during his later excavations on the site, M. de Sarzec came upon the remains of a regular agricultural establishment, which throw an interesting light upon certain passages in the early foundation-inscriptions referring to constructions of a practical rather than of a purely religious character. It is true the titles of these buildings are often difficult to explain, but the mention of different classes of plantations in connection with them proves that they were mainly intended for agricultural purposes. Their titles are most frequently met with in Entemena's records, but Ur-Ninâ refers by name to the principal storehouse, and the excavations have shown that before his time this portion of the city had already acquired its later character. Here was situated the administrative centre of the sacred properties attached to the temples, and possibly also those of the patesi himself. It is true that the name of Ningirsu's great storehouse does not occur upon bricks or records found in the ancient structures upon Tell K, but it is quite possible that this was not a name for a single edifice, but was a general title for the whole complex of buildings, courts and outhouses employed in connection with the preparation and storage of produce from the city's lands and plantations.
SOUTH-EASTERN FACADE OF A BUILDING AT TELLO, ERECTED BY UR-NINA, KING OF SHIRPURLA.—Déc. en Chald., pl. 54.
At a depth of only two and a half metres from the surface of the tell M. de Sarzec came upon a building of the period of Gudea, of which only the angle of a wall remained. But, unlike the great Palace Tell, where the lowest diggings revealed nothing earlier than the reign of Ur-Bau, a deepening of his trenches here resulted in the recovery of buildings dating from the earliest periods in the history of the city. In accordance with the practice of the country, as each new building had been erected on the site, the foundations of the one it had displaced were left intact and carefully preserved within the new platform, in order to raise the building still higher above the plain and form a solid substructure for its support. To this practice we owe the preservation, in a comparatively complete form, of the foundations of earlier structures in the mound. At no great depth beneath Gudea's building were unearthed the remains of Ur-Ninâ's storehouse. Comparatively small in size, it is oriented by its angles, the two shorter sides facing north-west and south-east, and the two longer ones south-west and north-east, in accordance with the normal Sumerian system.[4] It was built of kiln-baked bricks, not square and flat like those of Gudea or of Sargon and Narâm-Sin, but oblong and plano-convex, and each bore the mark of a right thumb imprinted in the middle of its convex side. A few of the bricks that were found bear Ur-Ninâ's name in linear characters, and record his construction of the "House of Girsu," while one of them refers to the temple of Ningirsu. These may not have been in their original positions, but there is little doubt that the storehouse dates from Ur-Ninâ's reign, and it may well have been employed in connection with the temple of the city-god.
Built upon a platform composed of three layers of bricks set in bitumen, the walls of the building were still preserved to the height of a few feet. It is to be noted that on none of the sides is there a trace of any doorway or entrance, and it is probable that access was obtained from the outside by ladders of wood, or stairways of unburnt brick, reaching to the upper story. At D and E on the plan are traces of what may have been either steps or buttresses, but these do not belong to the original building and were added at a later time. The absence of any entrance certainly proves that the building was employed as a storehouse.[5] Within the building are two chambers, the one square (A), the other of a more oblong shape (B). They were separated by a transverse passage or corridor (C), which also ran round inside the outer walls, thus giving the interior chamber additional security. The double walls were well calculated to protect the interior from damp or heat, and would render it more difficult for pillagers to effect an entrance. Both in the chambers and the passages a coating of bitumen was spread upon the floor and walls. Here grain, oil, and fermented drink could have been stored in quantity, and the building may also have served as a magazine for arms and tools, and for the more precious kinds of building material.