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171 and the the three portcullises removed. First to be tackled were the SU ("Vertical") Stone and the KA.SHUR.RA_ ("Awesome, Pure Which Opens") Stone. Then "the hero stepped up to the SAG.KAL Stone" ("Sturdy Stone Which Is In Front"). "He called out his full strength," shook it out of its grooves, cut the cords that were holding it, and "to the ground set its course." Now came the turn of the mineral stones and crystals posi- tioned atop the ramps in the Grand Gallery. As he walked down Ninurta stopped by each one of them to declare its fate. Were it not for breaks in the clay tablets on which the text was written, we would have had the names of all twenty-seven of them; as it is. only twenty-two names are legible. Several of them Ninurta ordered to be crushed or pulverized; others, which could be used in the new Mission Control Center, were ordered given to Shamash; and the rest were carried off to Mesopotamia, to be displayed in Ninurta's temple, in Nippur, and elsewhere as constant evidence of the great victory of the Enlilites over the oat lan Enki-gods. All this, Ninurta announced, he was doing not only for his sake but for future generations, too: "Let the fear of thee"—the Great Pyramid—"be removed from my descendants; let their peace be ordained." Finally there was the Apex Stone of the Pyramid, the UL ("High As The Sky") Stone: "Let the mother's offspring see it no more." he ordered. And, as the stone was sent crashing down, "let every- one distance himself," he shouted. The "Stones," which were "anathema" to Ninurta, were no more. The deed having been done, Ninurta's comrades urged him to leave the battleground and return home. AN DIM DIM.MA, "Like Anu Art Thou Made," they told him in praise; "The Radi- ant House where the cord-measuring begins, the House in the land which thou hast come to know—rejoice in having entered it." Now, return to thy home, where thy wife and son await thee: "In the city which thou lovest, in the abode of Nippur, may thy heart be at rest... may thy heart become appeased." The Second Pyramid War was over: but its ferocity and feats, and Ninurta's final victory at the pyramids of Giza, were remem- bered long thereafter in epic and song—and in a remarkable draw- ing on a cylinder seal, showing Ninurta's Divine Bird within a victory wreath, soaring in triumph above the two great pyramids (Fig. 51). The Pyramid Wars KA.SHUR.RA