Gu-Edin

Location of Gu-Edin, between Umma and Lagash in Sumer.

Gu-Edin (also transcribed "Gu'edena" or "Guedena") was a fertile plain in Sumer, in modern-day Iraq. It lay between Umma and Lagash, and claims made on it by each side were a cause of the Umma-Lagash war.Template:Sfn Argument over the territory continued for around 150 years.Template:Sfn

Early historyEdit

File:Sumerian Cuneiform Stone Cone. Cone of Enmetena, king of Lagash.jpg

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According to a peace between Umma and Lagash mediated by Mesilim, king of Kish had determined where the boundary lay and the terms of use of a canal used to irrigate the land. The terms of that agreement were recorded on a stone monument called a stele, but Umma continued to feel that Lagash were unfairly advantaged by it.Template:Sfn

Reign of EannatumEdit

It is recorded on the Stele of the Vultures that Gu-Edin was pillaged by a later (énsi) of Umma, who ruled that city on behalf of its god Shara, and whose name, according to the Cone of Enmetena,Template:Efn was Ush. Gu-Edin had been claimed by the énsi of Lagash, Eannatum – author of the Stele of Vultures – as the property of Lagash's god, Ninĝirsu, and the pillaging precipitated a war between the two cities.Template:Sfn

Eannatum attacked back and Umma was heavily defeated.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn By the time peace was re-established, Ush was either dead or deposed.

TreatyEdit

A peace treaty was agreed between his successor, Enakalli, and Eannatum which established Gu-Edin as the property of Ninĝirsu.Template:Sfn A deep canal was dug to mark the freshly agreed border and two stone monuments were put in place: the Stele of Mesilim, which had been there before, and a newly carved one.Template:Sfn Leonard William King, writing in 1910, suggested that the second stele may have had much the same text as the Stele of the Vultures, but that the latter would not have been on the boundary itself.Template:Sfn

The treaty, which was sealed with oaths and the erection of temples, also included the establishment of an 'ownerless' tract of land intended as a buffer, and treated any barley Umma grew in that area of Gu-Edin to which it had access as a loan from Lagash, with resulting interest.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn That area of land, then, could be used by Umma but only by paying rent. However, Umma did not reliably pay up.Template:Sfn

Later eventsEdit

File:Lamentation about the ruin of Lagash, Uru-Ka-gina period, circa 2350 BCE Tello, ancient Girsu.jpg

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Gu-Edin was invaded by Umma at least twice during the reign of Eannatum's son, Entemena: once by Ur-Lumma and once by his successor Illi. The first attack was defeated soundly, according to Entemena's account, and the second was not lastingly successful.<ref name="CDLI" />

Lagash finally fell to Lugalzagesi, king of Umma, circa 2350 BCE, ending the First Dynasty of Lagash. Tablets of lamentation have been found, recording the fall of Lagash to Lugalzagesi, during the rule of Urukagina.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Lugalzagesi went on to conquer the whole of Sumer, until he was himself vanquished by Sargon of Akkad.