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190 vase that bears the image of the Tibu bird of Ninurta has been found in the ruins of the Girsu of Lagash (Fig. 61c). Repeating the details of the dream-vision one by one in the manner reported by Gudea, the oracle goddess proceeded to tell the king what it meant. The first god to appear, she said, was Ninurta/Ningirsu, announcing to Gudea that he was chosen to build the new temple: "For thee to build his temple he commanded." Its name was to be E.NINNU—"House of Fifty"—to signify that Ninurta has the claim to Enid's rank of fifty and thus the only one below Anu, whose rank was sixty. The sighting of the heliacal rising of Jupiter "is the god Ningishzidda," meant to show the king the exact point in the skies to which the temple's observatories should be oriented, indicating precisely where the Sun will rise on the day of the New Year. The female who appeared in the vision, carrying on her head the image of a temple-structure, was the goddess Nisaba; with her stylus that she grasped in one hand and the celestial map that she held in the other hand, "to build the temple in accordance with the Holy Planet she instructed thee." And the second male, Nanshe explained, was the god Nindub; "to thee the plan of the temple he gave." She also explained to Gudea the meaning of the other objects that he had seen. The carrying basket signified Gu- dea's role in the construction; the mold and "destiny brick" indicated the size and shape of the bricks to be used, molded of clay; the Tibu bird that "brilliantly shines day and night" meant that, throughout the construction, "no good sleep shall come to thee." If that did not mar Gudea's joy at being selected for the sacred task, the interpretation of the freight- Ass symbolism should have: it meant that, like a beast of burden, Gudea shall toil in the temple's building . . . Back in Lagash Gudea contemplated the words of the ora- cle goddess and studied the divine tablet that had materialized on his lap. The more he thought about the varied instructions, the more he was baffled, especially so regarding the astro- nomical orientation and timing. He sought to understand the secrets of temple construction by going into the existing tem- ple "day by day, and again at sleeping time." Still perplexed, he went into the temple's Holy of Holies and appealed to DIVINE ENCOUNTERS