Eannatum then turns to Ninkharsag, the goddess of the Sumerian city of Kesh, and in similar phrases invokes her wrath upon the men of Umma should they violate their oath. He states that in his wisdom he has presented two doves as offerings before Ninkharsag, and has performed other rites in her honour at Kesh, and turning again to the goddess, he exclaims, "As concerns my mother, Ninkharsag, who from among the men of Umma by his word or by his ... will go back upon the word (that has been given), and will dispute it in days to come? If at some future time they shall alter this word, may the great net of Ninkharsag, by whom they have sworn the oath, strike Umma down!" Enki, the god of the abyss of waters beneath the earth, is the next deity to be invoked, and before him Eannatum records that he presented certain fish as offerings; his net Eannatum has cast over the men of Umma, and should they cross the ditch, he prays that destruction may come upon Umma by its means. Enzu, the Moon-god of Ur, whom Eannatum describes as "the strong bull-calf of Enlil," is then addressed; four doves were set as offerings before him, and he is invoked to destroy Umma with his net, should the men of that city ever cross Ningirsu's boundary, or alter the course of the ditch, or carry away the stele of delimitation. Before Babbar, the Sun-god, in his city of Larsa, Eannatum states that he has offered bulls as offerings, and his great net, which he has cast over the men of Umma, is invoked in similar terms. Finally, Eannatum prays to Ninki, by whom the oath has also been taken, to punish any violation of the treaty by wiping the might of Umma from off the face of the earth.
The great stele of Eannatum, from the text upon which we have taken much of the description of his war with Umma, is the most striking example of early Sumerian art that has come down to us, and the sculptures upon it throw considerable light upon the customs and beliefs of this primitive race. The metaphor of the net, for example, which is employed by Eannatum throughout the curses he calls down upon Umma, in the event of any violation of the treaty, is strikingly illustrated by a scene sculptured upon two of the fragments of the stele which have been recovered. When complete, the stele consisted of a large slab of stone, curved at the top, and it was sculptured and inscribed upon both sides and also upon its edges. Up to the present time seven fragments of it have been recovered during the course of the excavations at Tello, of which six are in the Louvre and one is in the British Museum; these are usually distinguished by the symbols A to G.[12] Although the fragments thus recovered represent but a small proportion of the original monument, it is possible from a careful study of them to form a fairly complete idea of the scenes that were sculptured upon it. As we have already noted, the monument was a stele of victory set up by Eannatum, and the two faces of the slab are sculptured in low relief with scenes illustrating the victory, but differing considerably in character. On the face the representations are mythological and religious, while on the back they are historical. It might very naturally be supposed that the face of the stele would have been occupied by representations of Eannatum himself triumphing over his enemies, and, until the text upon the stele was thoroughly deciphered and explained, this was indeed the accepted opinion. But it is now clear that Eannatum devoted the front of the stele to representations of his gods, while the reverse of the monument was considered the appropriate place for the scenes depicting the patesi and his army carrying out the divine will. The arrangement of the reliefs upon the stone thus forcibly illustrates the belief of this early period that the god of the city was its real ruler, whose minister and servant the patesi was, not merely in metaphor, but in actual fact.
Upon the largest portion of the stele that has been recovered, formed of two fragments joined together,[13] we have the scene which illustrates Eannatum's metaphor of the net. Almost the whole of this portion of the monument is occupied with the figure of a god, which appears of colossal size if it is compared with those of the patesi and his soldiers upon the reverse of the stele. The god has flowing hair, bound with a double fillet, and, while cheeks and lips are shaved, a long beard falls in five undulating curls from the chin upon the breast. He is nude to the waist, around which he wears a close-fitting garment with two folds in front indicated by double lines. It was at first suggested that we should see in this figure a representation of some early hero, such as Gilgamesh, but there is no doubt that we should identify him with Ningirsu, the city-god of Lagash. For in his right hand the god holds the emblem of Lagash, the eagle with outspread wings, clawing the heads of two lions; and the stele itself, while indirectly perpetuating Eannatum's fame, was essentially intended to commemorate victories achieved by Ningirsu over his city's enemies. This fact will also explain the rest of the scene sculptured upon the lower fragment.
Fig. 46.—Part of the Stele of the Vultures, sculptured with a scene representing Ningirsu clubbing the enemies of Lagash (Shirpurla), whom he has caught in his net.—Fragments D and E, Obverse; Déc., pl. 4 bis.
For the god grasps in his right hand a heavy mace, which he lets fall upon a net in front of him containing captive foes, whose bodies may be seen between its broad meshes struggling and writhing within it. On the relief the cords of the net are symmetrically arranged, and it apparently rises as a solid structure to the level of the god's waist. It thus has the appearance of a cage with cross-bars and supports of wood or metal. But the rounded corners at the top indicate that we may regard it as a net formed of ropes and cordage. That it should rise stiffly before the god may be partly due to the imperfect knowledge of perspective characteristic of all early art, partly perhaps to the desire of the sculptor to allow the emblem of Lagash, grasped in the god's left hand, to rest upon it; unless indeed the emblem itself is a part of the net, by means of which the god is holding it up. In any case the proximity of the emblem to the net is not fortuitous. Within the net are the foes of Lagash, and with the mace in his right hand Ningirsu is represented as clubbing the head of one of them which projects from between the meshes.
The metaphor of the net, both of the fisherman and the fowler, is familiar in the poetical literature of the Hebrews, and it is interesting to note this very early example of its occurrence among the primitive Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia.[14] In the text engraved upon the Stele of the Vultures Eannatum, as we have already seen, seeks to guard the terms of his treaty by placing it under the protection of the nets of Enlil and of other deities. He states that he has cast upon the men of Umma the nets of the deities by whom he and they have sworn, and, in the event of any violation of their oath, he prays that the nets may destroy them and their city.[15] Thus the meshes of each net may in a sense be regarded as the words of the oath, by the utterance of which they have placed themselves within the power of the god whose name they have invoked. But the scene on the front of the stele is not to be regarded as directly referring to this portion of the text, nor is the colossal figure that of Enlil, the chief god of Babylonia. For his destruction of the men of Umma is merely invoked as a possible occurrence in the future, while the god on the stele is already engaged in clubbing captives he has caught; and, whether the net of Ningirsu was referred to in a missing portion of the text or not, the fact that the figure on the stele grasps the emblem of Lagash is sufficient indication that Ningirsu and not Enlil, nor any other deity, is intended. Thus the face of the stele illustrates the text of Eannatum as a whole, not merely the imprecatory formulæ attached to the treaty with Umma. It refers to the past victories of Ningirsu in his character as the city-god of Lagash.