rukagina the men
of Gishkhu once more emerge from their temporary obscurity, they appear
as the authors of deeds of rapine and bloodshed committed on a scale
that was rare even in that primitive age.

In the earlier stages of their rivalry Gishkhu had always been defeated,
or at any rate checked, in her actual conflicts with Shirpurla. When
taking the aggressive the men of Gishkhu seem generally to have confined
themselves to the seizure of territory, such as the district of Gu-edin,
which was situated on the western bank of the Shaft el-Hai and divided
from their own lands only by the frontier-ditch. If they ever actually
crossed the Shaft el-Hai and raided the lands on its eastern bank, they
never ventured to attack the city of Shirpurla itself. And, although
their raids were attended with some success in their initial stages, the
ruling patesis of Shirpurla were always strong enough to check them; and
on most occasions they carried the war into the territory of Gishkhu,
with the result that they readjusted the boundary on their own terms.
But it would appear that all these primitive Chalaean cities were subject
to alternate periods of expansion and defeat, and Shirpurla was not an
exception to the rule. It was probably not due so much to Urukagina's
personal qualities or defects as a leader that Shirpurla suffered
the greatest reverse in her history during his reign, but rather to
Gishkhu's gradual increase in power at a time when Shirpurla herself
remained inactive, possibly lulled into a false sense of security by the
memory of her victories in the past. Whatever may have been the cause of
Gishkhu's final triumph, it is certain that it took place in Urukagina's
reign, and that for many years afterwards the hegemony of Southern
Babylonia remained in her hands, while Shirpurla for a long period
passed completely out of existence as an independent or semi-independent
state.

The evidence of the catastrophe that befell Shirpurla at this period is
furnished by a small clay tablet recently found at Telloh during Captain
Cros's excavations on that site. The document on which the facts in
question are recorded had no official character, and in all probability
it had not been stored in any library or record chamber. The actual spot
at Telloh where it was found was to the north of the mound in which
the most ancient buildings have been recovered, and at the depth of two
metres below the surface. No other tablets appear to h