E-ninnu

Eninnu, E-ninnu ( house 50 , fifties house ) is the name of a temple of the god Ningirsu ( lord of Girsu ) in the residential city of Girsu of the Sumerian state of Lagaš .

Numerous Ensis from Girsu / Lagaš built the Eninnu Temple , the city's most important sanctuary. It was destroyed during the clashes with the city-state of Umma and the defeat of Lagaš against Umma under Lugal-Zagesi .

During the reign of Gudea , the second ensi of the second dynasty of Lagaš, the temple was rebuilt and expanded. In the famous temple hymn of the so-called Cylinder A and Cylinder B , which is one of the most important testimonies of Sumerian literature, it is described how the god Enlil encourages the god Ningirsu to have a temple built in Girsu. He then appears to Gudea in his sleep, gives him the construction plan and instructs him to build the temple. After Gudea had his dream interpreted, as usual, he immediately began to build this temple. Finally, there is the festive inauguration with the blessing of the temple, Ningirsus and Gudeas by Enlil.

The temple of Eninnu is probably identical to the palace of Gudea , which was excavated under the direction of the French Ernest de Sarzec from 1877 to 1900 and then by Gaston Cros from 1903 to 1905 and again in 1909, Henri de Genouillac from 1929 to 1931 and André Parrot from 1931 to 1933 has been. The spacious complex consisted of 52 individual systems and was larger than the Eanna temple district in Uruk . Inside, the famous diorite statues of Gudea were found, as well as the no less well-known vulture stele of Eanatum , a relief plate of the Ur-Nansche , two cylinders with inscriptions (the above-mentioned temple hymn of cylinders A and B) and thousands of cuneiform tablets .

In the 2nd millennium BC The complex was massively redesigned by the Aramaic king Adad-nadin-ahhe . The temple and the history of its origins were known up until the time of Hammurabi . Both the temple and its builder Gudea were mentioned in the Codex Hammurapi .