Near East Kingdoms

Nina / Sirara (City?) (Sumer)

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The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture.

It developed out of the end of the Pottery Neolithic across the Fertile Crescent, a period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices spread far and wide across the Near East and beyond. Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement, initially in the form of pastoralists but soon as farmers too.

By the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer was divided into approximately a dozen independent city states which used local canals and boundary stones to mark their borders. Many of the smaller cities emerged in two broad waves, in the mid-third millennium BC and at the start of the second millennium BC.

The use of the name Nina was not confined to a city, and Nina may not have been a city at all. Sumerian usage is confused, or at least is less specific than is desirable. Nina was a goddess (the goddess of oracles), the temple of Nina was located in Lagash and in a quarter of the city which was known as Nina, and the canal of Nina was a boundary marker.

By the time Ur's 'Third Dynasty' unified southern Mesopotamia there was a Sirara, a temple complex in Lagash. But that may also have been - or instead was - a city which was mentioned in The Royal Chronicle of Lagash. It has been suggested that this city was also known as Nina or Nimin which, based on available references, would most likely have made it a seaport.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City, Gwendolyn Leick (Penguin Books, 2001), from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC, Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from The Archaeology of Mesopotamia, S Lloyd (Revised Ed, London, 1984), from History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), and from External Links: Ancient Worlds, and Evolution of Sumerian kingship (Ancient World Magazine), and Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project (Published between 2003-2021, part of the Babylonian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology), and the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.)

c.2500 BC

Sumerians continue to control southern Mesopotamia during the 'Early Dynastic' period. The major city states are: Adab, Akkad, Bad-tibira, Borsippa, Eridu, Girsu, Isin, Kish, Lagash, Larsa, Mari, Nippur, Shuruppak, Ur, and Uruk.

This figurine of a woman was dated by archaeologists at about 2500 BC, having been uncovered in the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash

The minor cities and city states may or may not include Nina (see introduction), about the time at which the scribes of Abu Salabikh bear Semitic names. Sumer is now a multi-lingual region, with at least two major languages being spoken in the form of Sumerian and Semitic (sometimes labelled proto-Akkadian, with that later being a dominant form of non-Sumerian).

Semitic predominates in northern Sumer and in northern Mesopotamia beyond that - such as at Ashur and Nineveh - as this is the route of entry into Sumer itself for Semitic-speakers.

Its use is most notable in early Akkadians, while Sumerian still dominates in the south and Amorites are already penetrating into north-western Mesopotamia to assume gradual control of small cities such as Terqa.

Some of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became the complex Sumerian network of cities and canals (click or tap on map to view full sized)

c.2430 BC

Lugalure of Uruk helps Eannatum to defeat his arch-rivals at Umma after the latter launch an attack on Lagash. Umma is reduced to a tributary state with the defeat of its ruler, Enakalle.

As a way of resolving the ongoing conflict there, Eannatum extends the channel of the Inun-canal into the Gu'edena, dividing the fields in two and giving one side of the division to Umma. At the canal he inscribes the stele of the vultures to mark the event, and he also restores the stele of Mesalim.

The stele of the vultures describes the violent treatment which is meted out to his enemies while he claims the coveted (and quite possibly worshipped) title, 'king of Kish'. At the boundary-line of Ningirsu (patron god of Lagash), Eannatum built shrines ('sanctuaries') for Enlil, Ninhursag, Ningirsu, and Utu.

An aerial photo which reveals the mass of holes and pits which have been dug by robbers in the heavily-looted archaeological site of Umma, Tell Jokha in Iraq in 2003

The conflict continues, however, and is recorded in detail. Through harvesting (presumably on Gu-edena), 'the men of Umma had eaten one storehouse-full of the grain of Nina [goddess of oracles], the grain of Ningirsu', so Eannatum penalises them. They have to purchase '144,000 gur, a great storehouse full [of grain, as repayment]'. The taking of this grain is not to be repeated in the future.

c.2425 BC

Urlumma of Umma drains the boundary canals of Ningirsu and of Nina, and destroys the protective shrines and the steles. Described as being 'as puffed up as the mountains', he crosses the boundary canal of Ningirsu, forcing Enannatum of Lagash to offer battle at Ugigga, in the fields near Girsu.

Urlumma is utterly defeated by the king's nephew, Entemena, and flees, only to be killed at Umma. Then Enannatum establishes a vassal ruler at Umma in the form of the priest Ili, head of the temple of Zabalam and priest of Ininni of Esh in Girsu.

This alabaster tablet contains a cuneiform building inscription along with the name of En-metena (Entemena), ruler of Lagash in the twenty-fourth century BC and overlord of Zabalam where this tablet was discovered