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Updated: May 18, 2025
The native princes of southern Babylonia resisted it, and the Elamites harried the country with fire and sword. In B.C. 2280 Kudur-Nankhundi, the Elamite king, sacked Erech and carried away the image of its goddess, and not long afterwards we find another Elamite king, Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, claiming lordship over the whole of Chaldsea.
"And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, "And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city." These statements have been confirmed by the architectural and other remains found in Mesopotamia.
Prominent among such names are E-Sagila, 'the lofty house, the famous temple and temple area at Babylon; E-makh, 'the great house, a chapel to Nin-kharsag, situated perhaps within E-Sagila; E-gal-makh, 'the great palace, an old temple in Ur; E-anna, 'the heavenly house, that is, the house reaching up to heaven, which is the name of the temple of Ishtar or Nanâ at Erech; E-lgi-e-nir-kidur-makh, 'the tower of the great dwelling' sacred to Ninni at Kish.
Our second version thus turns out to be, like the first, an adaptation of old traditions to new conditions. Babylon and Marduk are designedly introduced. In the original form Nippur, Eridu, and Erech alone figured, and presumably, therefore, only the deities of these three places. Among them the work of creation was in some way parceled out.
However this may be, a city so ancient and so well fortified must have played a most important part in old Babylonian history, second only in importance, if not equal, to Nippur. The continued influence of the Ishtar or Nanâ cult of Erech also illustrates the significance of the place. It is natural, therefore, to find traditions surviving of the history of the place.
Bel and Merodach were in a peculiar way the gods of Babylon, Nebo of Borsippa, Nergal of Cutha, the Moon of Ur or Hur, Beltis of Niffer, Hea or Hoa of Hit, Ana of Erech, the Sun of Sippara. Without being exclusively honored at a single site, the deities in question held the foremost place each in his own town.
At all events, the occurrence of Aruru in this second 'creation' story points to her as belonging to the district of which Erech was the center. In this way, each one of the three most ancient sacred towns of Babylonia would have its 'creator, Bel in Nippur, Ea in Eridu, and Aruru in Erech.
Nimrod, the founder, has the testimony of Scripture that he was "a mighty one in the earth;" "a mighty hunter;" the establisher of a "kingdom," when kingdoms had scarcely begun to be known; the builder of four great and famous cities, "Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar," or Mesopotamia.
He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.
The names of the zikkurats at Erech and Borsippa, 'the house of seven zones' and 'the house of the seven divisions of heaven and earth, respectively, while conveying, as we saw, cosmological conceptions of a more specific character, may still be reckoned in the class of names that embody the leading purpose of the tower in Babylonia, as may also a name like E-temen-an-ki, 'the foundation stone of heaven and earth, assigned to the zikkurat to Marduk in Babylonia.
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