The few secure pieces of evidence for Zuzu, king of Akšak come from entries in a pair of inscriptions of Eanatum, king of Lagaš (Frayne 2008: 147-148):

This small passage has been translated differently by various editors in the past, especially concerning the fate of king Zuzu, depending on the interpretation of the reference of the verb ha-lam “to destroy”:

These events are reported in a shorter version, without the mentioning of Zuzu in another inscription (Frayne 2008: 151), the translations do not differ:

Concerning the reference for the verb ha-lam, Steinkeller legitimately asks (1993: 118 fn. 20): “is the object Zuzu or Akšak?.”

In the first inscription (RIME 1.9.3.5 [P222400]) further circumstances are described (Frayne 2008: 148-9):

Although this course of events is not narrated continuously in the inscription, but interspersed with other exploits, this episode is generally reconstructed in this way:

This narrative seems to be quite straightforward. But Steinkeller (1993, 118 fn. 20) again has a point by describing it: “The vague language of the passage make it most unlikely that he followed Zuzu all the way to Akshak. It seems certain that, had Eanatum taken Akshak, he would have stated it in quite unequivocal terms.”

Some observations further emphasize this point. Besides the passages above, ha-lam is attested ten times in the Lagaš-I-corpus, including one damaged, unclear context (Behrens and Steible 1983, the sigla of the inscriptions are from Frayne 2008):

Unfortunately, the attestations for the verb do not clarify the situation. Its distribution shows, that it can be used indiscriminately with animate and inanimate objects. No constraints concerning one class of nouns is detectable and therefore its object can be animate (Zuzu) or inanimate (Akšak). This use of ha-lam differs from the use of hul, which is used in the royal inscriptions only as a verb to describe the destructions of places (Behrens and Steible 1983: 163). The semantic range of ha-lam is wider and it is therefore quite nondescript.

Another verb used in the inscriptions is gaz. “to beat/crush” (Behrens and Steible 1983: 134-135). The verb alone has a meaning “crush/kill” (Behrens and Steible 1983: 134-135). The sigla of the inscriptions are from Frayne 2008):

Used with the terminative, the verb has a meaning “to beat back, repel” (Behrens and Steible 1983: 134-135, the sigla of the inscriptions are from Frayne 2008), with the terminative depicting the local endpoint of the action (Balke 2006: 198 nr. 366):

This last passage is sometimes translated differently. Some editors believe that it means that Urlumma was killed in the middle of Ĝiša(Umma) by Enmetena. If that were true, the passage concerning Zuzu could also be seen under this aspect, because it is the same grammatical construction. The argument for this interpretation is, that only a few lines later in the inscription (iii 28-37), Il, his nephew, gains the rulership of Ĝiša(Umma), and this should only be possible if Urlumma had been killed. That the death of his precursor was a necessary requirement for Il's ascension is a modern interpretation with no definite evidence. On the contrary, Lambert (1965: 83) already showed that the verb form used in iii 37 (šu e-ma-ti) is reflexive, and must therefore be translated as: “he took the rulership for himself,” which implies that another person claimed the throne. Neither the death nor the survival of Urlumma can be proven without doubt (Steiner 1986: 242).

Another argument against the translation of gaz + terminative as "to kill" is the parallel construction of the passages RIME 1.9.3.1 (P222399), viii 2-3 and RIME 1.9.5.1, iii 17-18:

The passage RIME 1.9.3.1 (P222399), viii 2-3 is without doubt to be translated as “he will be killed in the middle of Ĝiša (Umma).” If the passage RIME 1.9.5.1, iii 17-18 would mean the same, why is it not constructed in the same manner (gaz + locative)? The construction of gaz + terminative must therefore be translated differently.

More important for the Fate of Zuzu are the only two attested passages (Behrens and Steible 1983: 351-352), where a foreign ruler is definitely killed by a sovereign of Lagaš:

Not only the clarity of the phraseology is noteworthy, it occurs only in the two inscriptions that mention the above quoted episode with the coalition of Akšak. It is also always mentioned before the events of the Akšak-expedition. The reasons for this fixed order of events is not clear (Cooper 1983: 25). Eanatum explicitly says that he destroyed a city (hul) and killed its ruler (ug₇). It seems that the afterwards occurring ha-lam was chosen purposely (instead of gaz and ug₇), to describe the events concerning Zuzu and Akšak in the most ambiguous way that still sounded like a victory.

It is thus highly probable that Zuzu, king of Akšak survived his military enterprise. We do not know if he was identical with Puzuzu, who vanquished hamazi, as Steinkeller (2013: 149) suggests. King Zuzu may have been beaten back and his city destroyed, but Akšak played an active role in ED IIIb-politics after Eanatum, again in combination with Kiš . Our notion of his demise is based on Lagašite rhetoric, which itself is composed of the most nondescript terms. Thus I propose the following translation: