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Emergent city-states

Kish must have played a major role almost from the beginning. After
2500, southern Babylonian rulers, such as Mesannepada of Ur and
Eannatum of Lagash, frequently called themselves king of Kish when
laying claim to sovereignty over northern Babylonia. This does not
agree with some recent histories in which Kish is represented as an
archaic "empire." It is more likely to have figured as representative
of the north, calling forth perhaps the same geographic connotation
later evoked by "the land of Akkad." Although the corpus of
inscriptions grows richer both in geographic distribution and in point
of chronology in the 27th and increasingly so in the 26th century, it
is still impossible to find the key to a plausible historical account,
and history cannot be written solely on the basis of archaeological
findings. Unless clarified by written documents, such findings contain
as many riddles as they seem to offer solutions. This applies even to
as spectacular a discovery as that of the royal tombs of Ur with their
hecatombs (large-scale sacrifices) of retainers who followed their
king and queen to the grave, not to mention the elaborate funerary
appointments with their inventory of tombs. It is only from about 2520
to the beginnings of the dynasty of Akkad that history can be written
within a framework, with the aid of reports about the city-state of
Lagash and its capital of Girsu and its relations with its neighbour
and rival, Umma.Sources for this are, on the one hand, an extensive
corpus of inscriptions relating to nine rulers, telling of the
buildings they constructed, of their institutions and wars, and, in
the case of UruKAgina, of their "social" measures. On the other hand,
there is the archive of some 1,200 tablets--[insofar as these have
been published]--from the temple of Baba, the city goddess of Girsu,
from the period of Lugalanda and UruKAgina (first half of the 24th
century).

For generations, Lagash and Umma contested the possession and
agricultural usufruct of the fertile region of Gu'edena. To begin
with, some two generations before Ur-Nanshe, Mesilim (another "king of
Kish") had intervened as arbiter and possibly overlord in dictating to
both states the course of the boundary between them, but this was not
effective for long. After a prolonged struggle, Eannatum forced the
ruler of Umma, by having him take an involved oath to six divinities,
to desist from crossing the old border, a dike. The text that relates
this event, with considerable literary elaboration, is found on the
Stele of Vultures. These battles, favouring now one side, now the
other, continued under Eannatum's successors, in particular Entemena,
until, under UruKAgina, great damage was done to the land of Lagash
and to its holy places. The enemy, Lugalzagesi, was vanquished in turn
by Sargon of Akkad.

The rivalry between Lagash and Umma, however, must not be considered
in isolation. Other cities, too, are occasionally named as enemies,
and the whole situation resembles the pattern of changing coalitions
and short-lived alliances between cities of more recent times. Kish,
Umma, and distant Mari on the middle Euphrates are listed together on
one occasion as early as the time of Eannatum. For the most part,
these battles were fought by infantry, although mention is also made
of war chariots drawn by onagers (wild asses).

The lords of Lagash rarely fail to call themselves by the title of
"ensi", of as yet undetermined derivation; "city ruler," or "prince,"
are only approximate translations. Only seldom do they call themselves
lugal, or "king," the title given the rulers of Umma in their own
inscriptions. In all likelihood, these were local titles that were
eventually converted, beginning perhaps with the kings of Akkad, into
a hierarchy in which the lugal took precedence over the ensi.

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References

1. file://localhost/www/jnocook.net/saturn/files/meso/citstate_files/ads.html
2. http://ln.doubleclick.net/adi/tr.ln/misc;h=web;sz=728x90;ord=75611896524006?
3. http://network.realmedia.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/lycosangelfire/ros/1x1/wp/ss/a/16142886 at Position3?
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5. http://www.angelfire.com/nt/Gilgamesh/history.html
6. http://www.angelfire.com/nt/Gilgamesh/content.html