132 THEO. G. PINCHES, ESQ., NOTES UPON SOME OP THE 



tirmes, " he made like Eridu,* a glorious place." Then, after 

 two doubtful lines, mention is made, apparently, of certain 

 officials, who, as M. Amiaud has it, " during the execution of 



this work have worn garments of (?)." The next few 



lines are doubtful, but these I am inclined to translate 

 " (Whilst) the construction (?) was in hand,f the high place 

 of the city was not occupied, a funeral-pile was not set,! the 

 minister did not perform (?) a service (?),. (or) utter lamenta- 

 tion, (and) the mother of lamentation did not utter her 

 lamentation ; within the boundaries of Lagas no litigant has 

 taken a man to the place of swearing the oath, (and) no 

 pledger has taken the house of a man in pledge." 



The latter part of this passage, with its mention of lamen- 

 tation (there is no doubt as to the meaning here), gives the 

 clue to the true rendering of the beginning. We see from 

 this that the "high place" (^f >~£4j. ki-maga^) was the 

 spot to which the dead were carried, apparently to be 

 disposed of by fire. The word translated by Amiaud as 

 " corpse + earth " || I have rendered, in comformity with this, 

 "funereal pile," the characters ti_^ ^ seeming to me to 

 form a group by themselves, meaning, seemingly, a place 

 where fire was lighted, for this same group, with the prefix 

 for god (»->f- £1 ^ *[pT)' forms, as is well known, one of the 

 common ideograms for the moon-god Sin in > his special 

 character of " lightgiver " {Nannaru = Nannaros). 



The inscription then continues : — 



" For E-girsu, his king, whose glory shines forth, he 

 has built the temple E-ninnu. (" temple fifty") of the bright- 

 shining Zu-bird,1l (and) has restored its site. He has con- 

 structed within it his beloved holy place of cedar-wood." 



* In this case (as also in some others) I believe Eridu (" the good 

 city," also called, as here, " the city of the prince," Nun-ki) to be the 

 abude of the blessed in the world to come. 



t Amiaud has, "During all the time of (its construction)," a rendering 

 ■which may be regarded as very close. The text reads : Nam-sig "u-ba 

 mugalam, " Foundation (?) in hand being." 



I Amiaud translates : "In the cemetery of the city no ditch has been 

 excavated (?), no corpse has been interred," and this translation may be 

 regarded as giving the sense very well. 



§ More correctly " supreme place." 



|| The hue is « A J^T w^- J^T, which he seems to have analysed 

 " corpse 4- earth + not + placed" = "a corpse has not been interred." 



IT >->?- ^JPf- (££■— *fl aJ aT- The paragraph here translated 

 occurs on a large number of monuments, mostly small inscriptions. The 

 reading of the third character as /C£>- instead of /££ is based on one 



