The first king of this dynasty was Ur-Nina (servant of Nina). The dynasty of Urukagina must have been reduced to mere nothingness by the kings of Kish, so that Ur-Nina found it easy to take possession of the throne. He must have been of an old family, for he mentions the name of his father and grandfather, who have the title neither of patesi nor of king. He, like his predecessor seems to have been great in peace. He built temples and various storehouses. A passage in his inscriptions where he records the building of the “wall of Shirpurla,” suggests that the old enemy, Kish, was still troublesome, so that he found it necessary to fortify his capital against the deadly enemies from the north.
The son of Ur-Nina, who succeeded him upon the throne of Shirpurla, was Akurgal. As yet no inscriptions of this monarch have been found. All that is known about him is gathered either from the inscriptions of his son (Eannatum) or from those of his father (Ur-Nina). In these inscriptions eight sons of Ur-Nina are mentioned. If we classify them according to their height, and take this as a basis for determining their age, we would get the following result:
UR-NINA
(1) Lid-da, (2) Mu-ri-kur-ta, (3) A-ni-kur-ra, (4) Lugal-shir,
(5) A-kur-gal, (6) Nun-pad, (7) E-ud-bu, (8) Nina-ku-tur-a.
It is remarkable that the first-born, Lidda, is mentioned in only one inscription. Did he never succeed his father upon the throne of Shirpurla? Did Akurgal, his fifth son, in preference to all the others, inherit the royal sceptre, and thus become the immediate successor of Ur-Nina? Interesting as these questions are, we are yet, with the means on hand, unable to decide them. This much only we know, that both Eannatum and Enannatum I, call themselves, “son of Akurgal.” Another interesting fact is that Eannatum, in his “Stèle des Vautours,” calls his father lugal (“king”) of Shirpurla, while in his other inscriptions he only terms him “patesi of Shirpurla.” Not very much can be concluded from this, because even Ur-Nina is styled by Eannatum “patesi of Shirpurla.” The translation of this latter passage, is not yet certain. Ur-Nina’s successor, however,—either Lidda or Akurgal,—may have lost the title “king” in consequence of an unsuccessful war. Eannatum, on the other hand, being more successful, resumes again for a short time the title “king” after his victory over Kish. This latter fact is very important. Eannatum expressly tells us that Innanna gave him the nam-lugal Kish-ki, “the kingship of Kish,” while as ruler of Shirpurla he was only patesi. The state of affairs then was as follows:
Ur-Nina, a usurper, was able to constitute himself king of Shirpurla in consequence of the weakness of the patesis of Shirpurla who preceded him, they having been reduced by the kings of Kish to complete powerlessness. Ur-Nina’s successors, however, were not able to retain the title of their father. Was it internal disharmony between the sons of Ur-Nina which caused this? They lost the title “king,” and had to accept that of patesi. Undoubtedly they were forced to do this by one of the successors of Mesilim, i.e. by a king of Kish. Eannatum—a great hero—was able to overcome the old enemy Kish. He even was so fortunate as to add to his old title, “patesi of Shirpurla,” that of “king” (sc. of “Kish”) and by a stretch of this latter title he may have also called himself “king of Shirpurla.” The successors of Eannatum called themselves, and are called without exception “patesis of Shirpurla.”
[ca. 4200 B.C.]
After these preliminary remarks about the titles of the different members of the dynasty of Ur-Nina, we now turn our attention to Eannatum (i.e. “The house of heaven is stable”), the son of Akurgal himself. Whether he reigned contemporaneously with his brother Enannatum I or not, we cannot tell. The fact that the sons of Enannatum I succeeded upon the throne of Shirpurla makes it reasonable to suppose that Eannatum preceded Enannatum I. This latter ruler seems to have played only a minor rôle in early Babylonia history. Only two of his inscriptions have so far come down to us. Eannatum, his brother, on the contrary, is the greatest of the whole dynasty. The deeds of this monarch have been preserved to us on different monuments, among which the “Stèle des Vautours” is the most important. In order to obtain a full conception of his time we must compare this “Stèle” with the so-called “Cone” of Entemena. Those monuments in connection with the Galet A, give us the following interesting piece of history:
The god of Shirpurla (Ningirsu) and the god of Gishban, at the instigation of Enlil (god of Nippur), agree to settle the boundaries between their respective territories (Cone i, 1-7). Mesilim, king of Kish,—a contemporary of Lugalshuggur, patesi of Shirpurla,—in the quality of lord paramount of Shirpurla, corroborates the result of this “settling of boundaries,” and erects a statue on the junction of the two territories, to mark out the boundaries of the territory of Shirpurla on the one side and of Gishban on the other (Cone i, 8-12). Ush, however, a certain ambitious patesi of Gishban, is not satisfied with this decision. He takes away the statue which Mesilim had erected, and then invades Shirpurla, undoubtedly to extend his territory beyond the boundary previously fixed (13-21). A war between Shirpurla and Gishban ensues.