Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
The Gilgamesh story is connected with the city of Erech, and it is probable that the tale at least in part originated there. It becomes plausible, therefore, to trace the tradition ascribing the creation of man to Aruru to the same place. A passage in the Deluge story, which forms an episode of the Gilgamesh epic, adds some force to this conjecture.
At any rate it is a son of Kudur-Mabug and not of the Elamite sovereign who receives a principality in Babylonia. But Ellasar is clearly the Larsa of the cuneiform inscriptions, perhaps with the word al, "city," prefixed. Larsa, the modern Senkereh, was in Southern Babylonia, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, not far from Erech, and to the north of Ur.
The general interests of mankind are nothing to the Chaldaean priests, who see in the story of the Tower simply a local etymology, and in the Deluge an event which made the Babylonians the sole possessors of primeval wisdom. "The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."
The center of power was now in Erech, now in Ur, or Babylon, or some other city, whose king ruled supreme over numerous vassal kings. Another great builder was Gudea, king of Shirpurla. His kingdom included not only the whole of Babylonia proper, but also Assyria, and probably even the "West Land" as far as the Mediterranean.
The northern rulers were anxious at all times to reconcile the southern population to Assyrian control, and it was no doubt gratifying to the south to find Tiglathpileser II., upon entering the ancient centers like Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, Borsippa, Cuthah, Kish, Dilbat, and Erech, proceeding to the temples in those places in order to offer his sacrifices.
For when the hegemony passed from the first Post-diluvian "kingdom" to the second, it went not to Erech but to the shrine Eanna, which gave its name to the second "kingdom"; and the city itself was apparently not founded before the reign of Enmerkar, the second occupant of the throne, who is the first to be given the title "King of Erech". This conclusion with regard to Erech incidentally disposes of the arguments for Nippur's Antediluvian rank in primitive Sumerian tradition, which have been founded on the order of the cities mentioned at the beginning of the later Sumerian myth of Creation.
There is yet another passage in the same chapter of Genesis which takes us back to the Patriarchal Age of Palestine. It is the reference to Nimrod, the son of Cush, the beginning of whose kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar, and who was so familiar a figure in the West that a proverb was current there concerning his prowess in the chase.
This is the first reference to Erech in the text; and Enmerkar's father was high priest as well as king. i.e. Tammuz. i.e. Gilgamesh. The name of the father of Gilgamesh is rather strangely expressed by the single sign for the vowel a and must apparently be read as A. As there is a small break in the text at the end of this line, Dr.
The portents taken through observation of the position of Ishtar or Venus in the heavens were of especial value. Phrases introduced to illustrate the power, not the function, of Ishtar. The liver as the seat of the emotions. I.e., house of heaven. Name of Ishtar's temple at Erech. I.e., court of the universe. Name of one of Ishtar's temples.
But the numbered sequence of the cities would be difficult to reconcile with the earlier creation of other cities in the text, and the mention of Eridu as the first city to be created would be quite in accord with its great age and peculiarly sacred character as a cult-centre. Moreover the evidence of the Sumerian Dynastic List is definitely against any claim of Erech to Antediluvian existence.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking