ABSTRACT
The Gutian invasion marked the collapse of the Akkadian empire, but the Gutians were driven out, and, under a Third Dynasty of Ur, a renaissance of Sumerian culture ensued. Ur-Nammu appears first in an inscription of Utuhegal, found at Ur, as governor of Ur and apparently involved in work on the sacred area of the city called Ekishshirgal. As in the time of Urukagina, various officials were making excessive exactions of those subject to them, and Ur-Nammu acted to establish equity or justice in the land. After the pattern of Naram-Sin, all the last kings of Ur, from Shulgi to Ibbi-Sin, claimed to be “divine” and to rule the “four quarters.” At Ur adjacent to the royal cemetery already described, he built with bricks bearing his own stamp a mausoleum, probably for his father, Ur-Nammu. In the excavation of Ur, every building of the Third Dynasty bore the marks of violent overthrow.
