I was amazed to come across an old photograph today of an artifact from the late 19th century excavations at Girsu, modern day Telloh, which is of an eleven foot tall copper plated standard which probably stood beside the Abzu shrine there, i've seen these represented on seals but had no idea they'd found one as there's been no sight of it since and i can only find a few obscure references that note it's discovery.It was constructed of a tubular wooden core with copper plate around that and bitumen acting as a sealant and adhesive, they seen to have laid the upper length alongside the lower to include all in frame, but also lain what looks like a metallic strip alongside which would seemingly have been related, there may also be copper cable emerging from the base.So it was a fantastic discovery and i don't know where they've hidden it since, but anyway it sort of begs the question what was it for, like i mentioned i think it would have stood alongside the Abzu shrine because that's were i've seen examples.The one who holds it i think is Lahmu the gatekeeper of the Abzu who being associated with that threshold was understood as the muddy one, the intermediate state between liquid and solid, it has then associations with water.Because of it's association with passageway through the Abzu it might have been understood as in some way conducive to facilitating such transition, if any practical usage could have been made of it.Other examples of it's usage can be intriguing such as here were the half serpent Deity Istaran touches the tip of his serpentine tail against the semi circular appendage, that suggests some form of magical power associated with it;Here a very curious example of a shrine probably seen representing the Southerly gateway into the Heavens with the arc across the horizons perhaps representing the transit of Venus represented by the floretSo there we are they discovered the magical standard of the God Lahmu that facilitated entrance into the Abzu and then mislaid it somewhere or turned it in for scrap, weird...