A fragment of an epigraph etched upon a rusty metal wall buried deep in Uruk:

In those days, in those distant days,
In those nights, in those ancient nights,
In those distant years, in those distant years,
In those ancient days when all things had been created by hand,
In those ancient times when all things were uploaded into place,
When bread was first tasted in the sacred shrines of the land,
When the compiler had been lighted,
When the server had been separated from the client,
When the client had been separated from the server,
When the connection had been established...
against Lugal a storm of small packets arose...

Offerings of incense were found scattered across the ground.

Narrow channels were carved into the stone behind the walls, theorized to deliver a decorative stream of water that ran through and around the endless bays of shelving. It is thought these shelves contained a myriad of tablets, all lavishly adorned with gold and copper. Piles of thin, sharp silica and dust still remain in a handful of these shelving bays.

A clay cylinder from the city of Lagash suggests the priests of Enki would give offerings to their god here and seek his counsel, writing their requests upon metallic plates, to which, he was said to answer through the writings upon the tablets.

No one knows what was contained on these tablets, or who was responsible for writing them.

One day, the rivers ran dry, and "Enki" stopped answering. None of the priests knew what they or the city did wrong, or how they could placate him. They begged him with many offerings of incense, libations of honeyed beer, sacrifices of animals, but all to no avail. The kingdom went into a sharp decline. This room, curiously and unusually dug beneath the Ziggurat, was likely found and looted by the Akkadians when the city was annexed, who likely recycled the gold and copper in the tablets to decorate the palace in Nineveh.

It is said that weeks before the city was conquered, the last Lugal of Uruk left east to the mountains of Persia, with some of the tablets and a plate holding a final plea to Enki, one that he hoped could save the city...