By the middle of the 3rd millennium BC there were, according to some estimates, twenty Sumerian city-states. Some of these cities rose to prominence at an early stage in Mesopotamia’s history. We’ve had an opportunity to look at several of them, such as Uruk, Ur, and Tuttul (Khafajah). The city-state of Lagash, on the other hand, does not appear to predate the Early Dynastic period. Lagash has been identified with the place known today as Tel el-Hiba. Rather confusingly ‘Lagash’ may also be used to refer to an entire region which encompassed the neighboring cities of Girsu (Tello) and Nina (Tel Surghal) as well. Lagash and its sister cities were welded together to form a single political entity, like Minneapolis-St. Paul. Lagash’s location on the Tigris River, near the Persian Gulf, made it a strategically important city comparable to Ur, which occupied a similar place on the Euphrates. However, the religious and cultural capital of the region was not Lagash (Tel el-Hiba) but Girsu (Tello) where the Frenchman, Ernest de Sarzec, working in the late 1800’s, uncovered the remnants of an impressive city.

what was at the time a completely unknown civilization—the Sumerians!

Adapted from Rey, For the Gods of Girsu: City-state formation in Ancient Sumer, Fig. 8.

Ernest de Sarzec

In 1872 Ernest de Sarzec was appointed French vice-consul to Bosrah, what was then a far-flung corner of the Ottoman empire, which was described by one traveler to the region as “one of the hottest and most unhealthy places in the whole Turkish empire.”¹Hilprecht 1904, 216 But de Sarzec was not looking for comfort. Having already spent time in Egypt and Ethiopia, he was well acquainted with the harsh climate of the region. Now forty years of age, he was keen to explore southern Iraq and the shores of the Persian Gulf in hopes of making some new discovery.

Nearly fifty years had passed since Emile Botta and Henry Layard dug the ruins of the Assyrian palaces in northern Iraq where they discovered the colossal bull-men and magnificent reliefs that shocked and amazed the world. Surprisingly, southern Iraq remained largely unexplored in the intervening years. Now with his appointment to Bozrah, de Sarzec saw an opportunity to remedy the situation. Thus M. de Sarzec would write in the preface of his book,

Excavations at Tello

De Sarzec would conduct excavations at Tello for eleven season, each averaging three to four months in length. These stretched over a period of thirty years from 1870 to 1900. De Sarzec immediately began to find cuneiform tablets. Their translation revealed the ancient name of the site to have been Girsu, the holy city of Ningirsu (“Lord of Girsu”), a storm and fertility god like Abu, whose temple was excavated at Tell Asmar. As you may recall, the largest statue discovered beneath the floor of the Square Temple at Tell Asmar was inscribed with an image of the lion-headed bird, Imdugud, whose flapping wings created the moisture-laden north wind. This creature, which figures so prominently in the iconography of ancient Sumer, was conceived of as the “attack animal” of Ningirsu, manifested by the thunder and lightening carried by the storm.

De Sarzec focused most of his energy on Tell K, where he found the Maison des Fruites (literally, “House of Fruit”). The building received its name from the fact that it was constructed with double walls coated with bitumen and lacked a doorway, features which de Sarzec and Heuzy interpreted as belonging to an underground storehouse. Such a building, they reasoned, would have been entered through its roof while its waterproof double-walls kept the contents of the building cool and dry.⁴Hilprecht 1904, 245-246 The building is now generally identified as the the temple of Ningirsu, named the Eninnu (“Temple of Fifty”), after the fifty powers which Enlil bestowed upon Ningirsu. The artifacts which de Sarzec recovered from the Eninnu gave the world its first glimpse of Sumerian civilization. Their exhibition at the Louvre created a sensation second only to the giant bull-men recovered by Botta thirty-eight years prior. For this reason de Sarzec has rightly been declared the “father of Sumerian archaeology.”⁵Hilprecht 1904, 226

Rulers of Lagash

During the latter half of the Early Dynastic period Lagash grew to become one of the largest and most powerful city-states in Sumer. It is surprising, therefore, to discover that none of its rulers are listed in the Sumerian King List (SKL). Rather than this being an indication of Lagash’s lack of importance, the reason for its exclusion probably has to do with political rivalries that existed during the period when the SKL assumed its final shape. It has nevertheless been possible to reconstruct a list of kings of Lagash from the large number of tablets and royal inscriptions discovered at Tello. One of the earliest of these is a large macehead that was discovered in the precincts of the Eninnu. It was inscribed:

The macehead names a king of Kish and a prince of Lagash. Unfortunately neither can be located within the broader framework of Mesopotamian history since neither are listed in the SKL and neither name has been found inscribed on other datable artifacts.

Mesilim claims to be a “king of Kish” but it unclear whether he actually ruled from there. Kish seems to have functioned like Camelot in the Arthurian legend cycle. According to the SKL it was where kingship descended from heaven after the Flood. Thereafter kings who rose to preeminence in Sumer laid claim to the title “king of Kish” even though they ruled from some other city. Thus Meskalamdug and Mesannepeda, kings of Ur, claimed to be kings of Kish on their seal inscriptions. The possibility cannot be ruled out, however, that Mesilim was indeed a king of Kish since this city did control Sumer during certain periods.

According to another inscription from Girsu, Mesilim brokered a peace treaty between Lagash and the neighboring city of Umma in a dispute over a particularly valuable piece of agricultural land named Gu-Edenna. Mesilim’s intervention seems to have purchased peace for his time but the conflict would flare up again and continue for many generations. The following table provides a general overview of the kings of Lagash and some of the important events which occurred during their reigns.