Eannatum, Sumerian king of Lagash, presiding at funeral rites on the battlefield. The Sumerian buried their own dead to ensure their safe arrival in the underworld. It was their custom to collect the dead on the battlefield and arrange them in a shallow trench, head to feet and feet to head alternately. After the pouring of libations and the sacrifice of an ox, they were covered in earth. From Hutchinson's History of the Nations, published 1915.