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Updated: June 18, 2025
Its twelve books answered to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the eleventh accordingly contains the episode of the Deluge. Gilgames was the son of a royal mother, whose son was fated to slay his grandfather, and who was consequently confined in a tower. But an eagle carried him to a place of safety, and when he grew up he delivered Erech from its foes, and made it the seat of his kingdom.
From the evidence at present available it may be concluded that the functions of these women bore no resemblance to that of the sacred prostitutes devoted to the service of the goddess Ishtar in the city of Erech. They seem to have occupied a position of great influence and independence in the community, and their duties and privileges were defined and safeguarded by special legislation.
E-anna, 'the lofty house, was the name of Ishtar's famous temple at Erech. The mention of this temple in one of the creation narratives and the part played by Ishtar of Erech in the Gilgamesh epic are sufficient indications of the significance of this structure.
A little to the west of Lagas was Larsa, the modern Senkereh, famous for its ancient temple of the Sun-god, a few miles to the north-west of which stood Erech, now Warka, dedicated to the Sky-god Anu and his daughter Istar. Northward of Nippur was Bab-ili or Babylon, "the Gate of God," a Semitic translation of its original Sumerian name, Ka-Dimirra.
Those of the dominant country were, for the most part, identical with the towns already described as belonging to the ancient Chaldaea, Besides Babylon itself, there flourished in the Babylonian period the cities of Borsippa, Duraba, Sippara or Sepharvaim, Opis, Psittace, Cutha, Orchoe or Erech, and Diridotis or Teredon.
Thus we have no guarantee that the other cities referred to by name in the text, Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, are mentioned in any significant connexion with each other. Of the actual cause of Creation the text appears to give two versions also, one in its present form impersonal, and the other carried out by a god.
The center of action in the first tablets of the series and in the oldest portions of the epic is the ancient city Uruk, or Erech, in southern Babylonia, invariably spoken of as Uruk supûri, that is, the 'walled' or fortified Uruk. A special significance attaches to this epithet. It was the characteristic of every ancient town, for reasons which Ihering has brilliantly set forth, to be walled.
The fact that in the later Sumerian account their creation is related between that of mankind and the building of Nippur and Erech cannot be cited in support of this suggestion, in view of the absence of those cities from our text and of the process of editing to which the later version has been subjected, with a consequent disarrangement of its episodes.
He is here duly entered in the list, where we read that "Etana, the shepherd who ascended to heaven, who subdued all lands", ruled in the city of Kish for 635 years. The god Lugal-banda is another hero of legend. He is here recorded to have reigned in Erech for 1,200 years.
This goddess, however, is known not only from this legend; she has many forms, and passed through various fortunes. The Istar of Erech herself lures Tammuz to his destruction. In early times Istar is also the evening star, the bright companion of the moon. Her leading character, however, seems to be that of a goddess of love. Fertility depends on her; she goes under the earth to find her lover.
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