After the reign of Entemena we have little information with regard to the relations between Gishkhu and Shirpurla, though it is probable that the effects of his decisive victory continued to exercise a moderating influence on Gishkhu’s desire for expansion and secured a period of peaceful development for Shirpurla without the continual fear of encroachments on the part of her turbulent neighbour.  We may assume that this period of tranquillity continued during the reigns of Enannadu II, Enlitarzi, and Lugal-anda, but, when in the reign of Urukagina the men of Gishkhu once more emerge from their temporary obscurity, they appear as the authors of deeds of rapine and bloodshed committed on a scale that was rare even in that primitive age.

In the earlier stages of their rivalry Gishkhu had always been defeated, or at any rate checked, in her actual conflicts with Shirpurla.  When taking the aggressive the men of Gishkhu seem generally to have confined themselves to the seizure of territory, such as the district of Gu-edin, which was situated on the western bank of the Shaft el-Hai and divided from their own lands only by the frontier-ditch.  If they ever actually crossed the Shaft el-Hai and raided the lands on its eastern bank, they never ventured to attack the city of Shirpurla itself.  And, although their raids were attended with some success in their initial stages, the ruling patesis of Shirpurla were always strong enough to check them; and on most occasions they carried the war into the territory of Gishkhu, with the result that they readjusted the boundary on their own terms.  But it would appear that all these primitive Chalaean cities were subject to alternate periods of expansion and defeat, and Shirpurla was not an exception to the rule.  It was probably not due so much to Urukagina’s personal qualities or defects as a leader that Shirpurla suffered the greatest reverse in her history during his reign, but rather to Gishkhu’s gradual increase in power at a time when Shirpurla herself remained inactive, possibly lulled into a false sense of security by the memory of her victories in the past.  Whatever may have been the cause of Gishkhu’s final triumph, it is certain that it took place in Urukagina’s reign, and that for many years afterwards the hegemony of Southern Babylonia remained in her hands, while Shirpurla for a long period passed completely out of existence as an independent or semi-independent state.

The evidence of the catastrophe that befell Shirpurla at this period is furnished by a small clay tablet recently found at Telloh during Captain Cros’s excavations on that site.  The document on which the facts in question are recorded had no official character, and in all probability it had not been stored in any library or record chamber.  The actual spot at Telloh where it was found was to the north of the mound in which the most ancient buildings have been recovered, and at the depth of two metres below