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Guest: Annika

We've never been more back! We start off this new miniseries on Presargonic Lagash with a series of hymns to Nanshe, patron goddess of Ningen near the Gulf Coast and sister of Ningirsu, patron goddess of the kingdom of Lagash.

Then, we take a boat trip up the "Going-to-Ningen canal" from the coastal town of Gu-abba, past Nanshe's hometown of Ningen, to the major Early Dynastic city of Lagash and then to its administrative capital of Girsu, where we have thousands of texts from the Presargonic dynasty of Ur-Nanshe and the queens who ran the temple of Baba, both of whom we'll examine more in future episodes.

Then, we finish up as Nanshe's Sirara temple in Ningen appears to address some allegations of temple employees leaving work while on the clock, failing to clean the dough trough, eating from temple storerooms and lying about it, and so on. As my old history professor liked to say, the more things change...

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