As a matter of course, if the goddess bears a name identical with that of a city, it cannot be the Assyrian city which is meant in the old Babylonian inscriptions, but some other place bearing the same name.

Such a place actually occurs in the inscriptions of Gudea.

It is, in fact, one of the three towns that combined with Shirpurla to create the great capitol bearing the latter name; and Jensen[71] has called attention to a passage in one of Gudea's inscriptions in which the goddess is brought into direct association with the town, so that it would appear that Nina is the patron of Nina, in the same way that Nin-girsu is the protector of Girsu.

In keeping with this we find the mention of the goddess limited to the rulers of Lagash.

Several of them--En-anna-tuma, Entemena, and Gudea--declare themselves to have been chosen by her.