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318 "The Holy Inanna." Shu-Sin boasted, "the one endowed with as- tounding qualities, the First Daughter of Sin," granted him weap- ons with which to "engage in battle the enemy country which is disobedient." But all this was insufficient to hold together the Su- merian empire, and Shu-Sin soon turned to greater gods for suc- cor. Judging from the date formulas—annual inscriptions, for royal as well as commercial and social purposes, in which each succes- sive year of a king's reign was designated by the major event of that year—Shu-Sin, in the second year of his reign, sought the favors of Enki by constructing for that god a special boat that could navigate the high seas all the way to the Lower World. The third year of reign was also one of preoccupation with the pro-Enki alignment. Little else is known of this effort, which could have been a roundabout way of pacifying the followers of Marduk and Nabu; but the effort evidently failed, for the fourth and fifth years witnessed the building of a massive wall on the western frontier of Mesopotamia, specifically aimed at warding off incursions by the "Westerners." followers of Marduk. As the pressures from the west kept rising, Shu-Sin turned to the great gods of Nippur for forgiveness and salvation. The date for- mulas, confirmed by the archaeological excavations of the Ameri- can Expedition to Nippur, reveal that Shu-Sin undertook massive reconstruction works at Nippur's sacred precinct, on a scale un- known since the days of Ur-Nammu. The works culminated with the raising of a stela honoring Enlil and Ninlil, "a stela as no king had built before." Desparately Shu-Sin sought acceptance, confir- mation that he was "the king whom Enlil, in his heart, had chosen." But Enlil was not there to answer; only Ninlil, Enlil's spouse, who remained in Nippur, heard Shu-Sin's supplications. Responding with compassion, "so as to prolong the well-being of Shu-Sin, to extend the time of his crown," she gave him a "weapon which with radiance strikes down . . . whose awesome flash reaches the sky." A Shu-Sin text catalogued as "Collection B" suggests that in his efforts to reestablish the olden links with Nippur, Shu-Sin may have attempted a reconciliation with the Nippurites (such as the family of Terah) who had left Ur after the death of Ur-Nammu. The text states that after he made the region where Harran was situ- ated "tremble in awe of his weapons," a peace gesture was made: Shu-Sin sent there his own daughter as a bride (presumably to the region's chief or his son). She then returned to Sumer with an en- THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN