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262 All the textual evidence suggests that Enlil and Ninurta were away from Mesopotamia when Naram-Sin attacked Nippur. But the hordes that swept down from the mountains upon Akkad were "the hordes of Enlil," and they were in all probability guided into the great Mesopotamian plain by Ninurta. The Sumerian King Lists call the land from which the invaders came Gutium, a land in the mountains northeast of Mesopotamia. In the Legend of Naram-Sin they are called Umman-Manda (possi- bly "Hordes of Far/Strong Brothers"), who came from "camps in the dwelling of Enlil" situated "in the mountainland whose city the gods had built."" Verses in the text suggest that they were descendants of soldiers who had accompanied Enmerkar on_ his distant travels, who "slew their host" and were punished by Utu/Shamash to remain in exile. Now tribes great in number, led by seven chieftain brothers, they were commanded by Enlil to overrun Mesopotamia and "hurl themselves against the people who in Nippur had killed." For a while feeble successors to Naram-Sin attempted to main- tain a central rule as the hordes began to overrun city after city. The confused situation is described in the Sumerian King Lists with the statement: "Who was king? Who was not king? Was Irgigi king? Was Nanum king? Was Imi king? Was Elulu king?" In the end the Gutians seized control of the whole of Sumer and Akkad; "Kingship by the hordes of Gutium was carried off." For ninety-one years and forty days the Gutians held sway over Mesopotamia. No new capital is named for them, and it appears that Lagash—the only Sumerian city to escape despoiling by the in- vaders—served as their headquarters. From his seat in Lagash Ninurta undertook the slow process of restoring the country's agri- culture and primarily the irrigation system that collapsed following the Erra/Marduk incident. It was a chapter in Sumerian history that nea a | De Oe 2 2G ee The focal point of that era was Lagash, a city whose beginnings were as a "sacred precinct" (the Girsu) for Ninurta and his Divine Black Bird. But as the turmoil of human and divine ambitions grew, Ninurta decided to convert Lagash into a major Sumerian center, the principal abode for himself and his spouse Bau/Guia (Fig. 85), where his ideas of law and order and his ideals of moral- ity and justice could be practiced. To assist in these tasks Ninurta appointed in Lagash human viceroys and charged them with the ad- ministration and defense of the city-state. THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN can best be called the Era of Ninurta.