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55 were several more rulers down the line, both in Uruk and in Ur, who bore the title “Mesh” or “Mes”.) In Egypt, too, some Pharaohs claimed divine parentage. Many in the 18th and 19th Dynasties adopted theophoric names with a prefix or suffix MSS (rendered Mes, Mose, Meses), meaning “Issue of” this or that god—such as the names Ah-mes or Ra-mses (RA-MeSeS—‘issue of,” offspring of, the god Ra). The famed queen Hatshepsut, who though a female seized the title and privileges of a Pharaoh, claimed that right by virtue of being a demigod—the great god Amon, she claimed in inscriptions and depictions in her immense temple at Deir el Bahri, “took the form of his majesty the king,” the husband of her queen-mother, “had intercourse with her,” and caused Hatshepsut to be born as his semidi- vine daughter. Canaanite texts included the tale of Keret, a king who was the son of the god El. An interesting variant on such demigod-as-king practices was the case of Eannatum, a Sumerian king in Ninurta’s Lagash during the early “heroic” times. An inscription by the king on a well-known monument of his (the “Stela of the Vultures”) attributes his demigod status to artificial insemi- nation by Ninurta (the Lord of the Girsu, the sacred pre- cinct), and to help from Inanna/Ishtar and Ninmah (here called by her epithet Ninharsag): The Lord Ningirsu, warrior of Enlil, implanted the semen of Enlil for Eannatum in the womb of [... ]. Inanna accompanied his [birth], named him “Worthy in the Eanna temple,” set him on the sacred lap of Ninharsag. Ninharsag offered him her sacred breast. Ningirsu rejoiced over Eannatum— semen implanted in the womb by Ningirsu. While the reference to the “semen of Enlil” leaves unclear whether Ninurta/Ningirsu’s own semen is here considered “semen of Enlil” because he was Enlil’s firstborn, or actually used Enlil’s semen for the insemination (which is doubtful), Of Gods and Demigods