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Updated: May 9, 2025
'Zakar, signifying, probably, 'heroic, appears to have been worshipped in Nippur, where a wall known as the 'wall of Zakar' was built by Samsu-iluna.
We shall see how this combination of En-lil, or Bel, with Marduk reflects political changes that took place in the Euphrates Valley; and it is a direct consequence of this later association of the old Bel of Nippur with the chief god of Babylon, that the original traits of the former become obscured in the historical and religious texts.
The cone, I venture to think, is merely the conventionalized shape of a votive object originally intended to be stuck into some part of a sacred building. The large quantity of cones that have been found at Lagash, Nippur, and elsewhere is an indication of their popular use.
Hitherto Nippur has been supposed to have been the world's oldest city; but the excavations made not only prove that it rose upon the ruins of others, but affords some knowledge of a long line of kings who lived so long ago that their very names were forgotten before the flight of the Israelites from Egypt, or even the building of the Tower of Babel. "What is the story of this buried past?
This is nothing less than a portion of the tomb of Ur-Gur; see, the inscription: 'The tomb of Ur-Gur, the powerful champion, King of Ur, King of Shumer and Akkad, builder of the wall of Nippur to Bel, the king of the lands. This was written nearly five thousand years ago; what is the aeroplane, a thing of yesterday, in comparison with this glorious relic of antiquity?"
We must distinguish, then, in the case of En-lil, at least four phases: 1. His original rôle as a local deity; The extension of his power to the grade of a great 'lord' over a large district; Dissociation from local origins to become the supreme lord of the lower world; and The transfer of his name and powers as god of Nippur to Marduk, the god of Babylon.
The nearest considerable town is Dîwânîyah, on the left bank of the Hillah branch of the Euphrates, twenty miles to the south-west; but some four miles to the south of the ruins is the village of Sûq el-'Afej, on the eastern edge of the 'Afej marshes, which begin to the south of Nippur and stretch away westward.
The early clay figurines found at Nippur and on other sites, representing a goddess suckling a child and clasping one of her breasts, may well be regarded as representing Ninkharsagga and not Ninlil. Her sanctuaries were at Kesh and Adab, both in the south, and this fact sufficiently explains her comparative want of influence in Akkad, where the Semitic Ishtar took her place.
In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer to another early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by its first interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the Deluge legend. That suggestion has not been substantiated, though we shall see that the contents of the document are of a very interesting character.
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.
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