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57 ior, laws of justice—of adherence, the Code said, to the laws that Enlil and Nannar and Shamash had wanted the king to enforce and the people to live by. The nature of the laws, a list of do’s and don’ts, can be judged by Ur-Nammu’s claim that due to those laws of jus- tice, “the orphan did not fall prey to the wealthy, the widow did not fall prey to the powerful, the man with one sheep was not delivered to the man with one ox... justice was estab- lished in the land.” In that he emulated—sometimes using the exact same phrases—a previous Sumerian king, Uruka- gina of Lagash, who three hundred years earlier had promul- gated a law code by which social, legal, and religious reforms were instituted (among them the establishment of women’s safehouses under the patronage of the goddess Bau, Ninurta’s spouse). These, it ought to be pointed out, were the very same principles of justice and morality that the biblical prophets demanded of kings and people in the next millennium. As the era of Ur IH began, there was obviously a deliber- ate attempt to return Sumer (now Sumer & Akkad) to its olden days of glory, prosperity, and morality and peace—the times that preceded the latest confrontation with Marduk. The inscriptions, the monuments, and the archaeological evidence attest that Ur-Nammu’s reign, which began in 2113 B.C.E., witnessed extensive public works, restoration of river navigation, and the rebuilding and protection of the country’s highways: “He made the highways run from the lower lands to the upper lands,” an inscription stated. Greater trade and com- merce followed. There was a surge in arts, crafts, schools, and other improvements in social and economic life (including the introduction of more accurate weights and measures). Treaties with neighboring rulers to the east and northeast spread the prosperity and well-being. The great gods, especially Enlil and Ninlil, were honored with renovated and magnified temples, and for the first time in Sumer’s history, the priesthood of Ur was combined with that of Nippur, leading a religious revival. All scholars agree that in virtually every way the Ur III period begun by Ur-Nammu attained new heights in the Sumerian civilization. That conclusion only increased the puzzlement caused by a beautifully crafted box that was Of Gods and Demigods