Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

240 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
to the exploration of this section of the ruins, at the same
time continuing his examination of the lower strata of Mound
A, as indicated above.
It was a comparatively easy task for the explorer to
determine the character of the latest accumulation which
covered the top of this tumulus. Upon a layer of crude
bricks he found part of a wall which constituted the last
remains of a building of the time of Gudea (2,700 b. a),
whose name was engraved on a door-socket and upon a
small copper figurine discovered in situ. Another figurine
of the type of the basket-bearers had a votive inscription
of Dungi, king of Ur, who belonged to the same general
epoch. But his greatest finds from this upper stratum of
Mound B were two exquisite round trays in veined onyx
and half-transparent alabaster, 1 which, with the fragment
of a third, bore the names of as many different patesis
of Lagash, Ur-Ninsun, otherwise unknown, Nammakhani,
the son-in-law and successor of Ur-Bau, and (Ga)lukani, a
vassal of Dungi.
As soon as De Sarzec commenced to deepen his trenches,
he came upon older walls constructed of entirely different
bricks laid in bitumen. Thev were baked and oblong, flat on
their lower and convex on their upper side, and without exception
had a mark of the right thumb in the centre of the
latter. A few of them bearing a legend of King Ur-Nina
in large linear writing, it seemed safe to assume that here
there were architectural remains which went back to the earliest
kings of Lagash. With great care and expectation De
Sarzec examined the whole building and its environment
in the course of the next twelve years. Everywhere at the
same level characterized by a
large pavement of bricks and
reached at an average depth of only thirteen feet from the
surface, he found inscribed stone tablets and door-sockets,
1
Now in the Museum of Archaeology at Constantinople, where with
other Babylonian antiquities they were catalogued by the present writer.