A standard list of cities found on clay sealings led to the proposal that there was a Early Dynastic I period "Kengir League" of cities centered around Nippur which encompassed a joint trading system with an underlying religious basis (centered on the chief god Enlil), similar in nature to the later bala taxation system.
[2] It has been proposed that the seals were part of a progression, a cultic journey, of the main female deity's cult statue from Uruk through the other cities of Southern Mesopotamia.
[4] Subsequently another, illicitly excavated, tablet was identified as coming from Tell Uqair (ancient Urum) bearing the same seal at those from Jemdet Nasr.
[6] It has been proposed that the system represented by these seals supported the cult of a Uruk III female deity, possible Inanna, similarly to the role of Enlil in the later Kengir League.
[10] It has been proposed that there was a Early Dynastic I period Kengir League (Kengir is proposed for an ancient term for Nippur) of cities centered around Nippur which encompassed a joint trading system with an underlying religious basis (centered on the chief god Enlil), similar in nature to the later bala taxation system.
The initial basis for positing a league of cities was a group of clay sealings, mostly from doors but including a few from containers, found at ancient Ur in the 1920s.
The Elba tablet reads "Uruk, Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Shurappak, Gissa, Elam, Dilmun, ... a number of yet identified cites".