Stele of the Vultures: Lagash defeats Umma
The oldest war monument: a phalanx and vultures over the dead
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Around 2450 BC King Eannatum of Lagash defeated neighbouring Umma in a long feud over border fields and set up a stele to celebrate. It shows a phalanx of helmeted soldiers and vultures tearing at the dead; the oldest known war monument, its fragments are in the Louvre.