Gu'abba
Gu'abba (Gú-ab-baki), also Gu-abba and Guabba, was the name of a city but also in the Ur III period the name of the district around it. It was active in the Early Dynastic III through the Akkadian Empire and Ur III periods. It is known that there was a large harbor and shipyard (mar-sa), where "'big boats' (má-gal-gal) or 'Makkan boats' (má Má-ganki)" were built, that handled trade with the Persian Gulf entities not just for the Girsu province but for other parts of the Ur III Empire as well. These ships had a crew as large as 120 men. There were also regular shipments of sesame stalks reaped in Susa and received at Gu'abba. Susa is know to have had a harbor at that time. In the Ur III period a transportation and messenger resthouse was established in Gu'abba.
The city also had a palace, several temples, large granaries,and a large textile industry which mostly processed wool. There were over 4000 weavers employed at Gu'abba along with about 6000 support personnel. The weavers were of some status and were provided with meat and sesame oil. Texts from the Ur III period record that there was a "village of traveling merchants" from Meluhha in Gu'abba.
Nin-MAR.KI is the city goddess of Gu'abba. A year name of Ur-Baba, a ruler of the 2nd dynasty of Lagash who preceded Gudea was "Year in which the temple of Ninmarki in Gu'abba was built". The temple owned large segments of the land and industry in the city. There was also a shrine to the deified ruler Shulgi in the city. The city was mentioned in Sumerian temple hymns as "a house which extends over the midst of the sea". In the Sumerian literary composition Lament for Sumer and Ur it states:
"Enlil brought down Elam, the foe, from the mountain, He made Nanse, the princely daughter, to dwell in a strange city. He put Ninmar to the flames in the shrine Gu'abba, Its silver and lapis lazuli is carried off in big boats. The queen—her possessions destroyed completely—the holy Ninmar ..."
In a text of the Lagash ruler Gudea it states
"To Ninmar, pretty woman, first child of Nanše, his lady, did Gudea, governor of Lagash, her wall of Guabba, the corral, build; within her house he built for her."