Land of Nimrod (Part 2/2)

Digging up Ancient Sumeria

Mar 13, 2024

We can view the progression of Nimrod’s cities as a sort of city list, parallel with something like a kings list. If each king were to have their own city, or capital - or even each dynasty and empire - then this list should be in historical order of Mesopotamian power centers. Indeed, this is what we find.

First we are given Babel (Eridu) which as we previously established was the oldest major center of power in Mesopotamia. In Sumerian legends the city was founded by the god Enki (Ea) around the year 5400 BCE and stayed an important cultic center over millenniums. Eridu played a critical role during the Ubaid period of Mesopotamia before being left out of the Euphrates shifting path.

The next city listed is Erech which is almost certainly the city of Uruk which peaked during the Uruk period between 4000-2900 BCE, but still played a ritual role up until the 5th century BCE nearly 2500 years later. The central city had a population well over 40,0001 and boasted nearly 90,000 people in the suburban environment making it the world's largest city at the time.2 The very name for the modern country of Iraq stems from this cities name showing it’s lofty importance as one of the regions critical cities validating it’s placement on the list of Nimrod’s cities.

Interestingly Gilgamesh himself ruled from Uruk sometime between 2900-2700 BCE making him one of the later rulers of the city rather than founder. The founder of Uruk was the legendary Sumerian Meshkiangasher, but more than likely he was a fabrication meant to give royal heritage to his son Enmerkar and it is more probable the official founding predated any viable kingship from the city.

Other cities from this period are Ur and Kish depicted on the map showing the various relevant cities from the period; the former being known as the “Ur of the Chaldees” and location of Abraham’s biblical activity, as well as the latter Kish obviously harkening back to Cush. This Kish was not merely any city, but the center of the region's major dynasty vying for control of the region with the rulers of Uruk. Kish is actually the region's primary city of importance before Uruk rose to power and Gilgamesh himself fights one of the world's first major wars against King Aga of Kish resulting in the defeat of Aga and collapse of the Kishite hegemony.3

Unlike Eridu and Erech during the Ubaid and Uruk periods respectively, the city of Ur rose to prominence during the Early Dynasty Period of Mesopotamian history dating earliest to 2900 BCE through 2350 BCE. Ur was always an important city alongside Uruk, but simply was too close and culturally similar to warrant its own listing especially given its later mentions being more relevant for biblical contexts. With a population of 65,000 Ur was possibly the largest city in the world between 2030-1980 BCE putting it right at the time Abraham would theoretically have been living. This period is depicted on the following map, with differences in the various cities that were founded.

Confusingly from the name Ur and Uruk were actually two completely different cities, with their own associated lore. Ur was fully called “Urim” helping more easily differentiate the two cities. While one might think this Ur was not listed, and thus the bible was missing a key transition period this is actually not at all true. We will look at this city in its Abrahamic context later and how the story of the Tower of Babel wraps into these events, but essentially Nimrod was also the king who fought against Abraham at Ur implying Nimrod actually would have had Ur as a fifth listed city. In order of their foundation period, the list of cities would therefore become Eridu, Erech, Ur, Akkad, and Calneh giving us an even number of five often used to represent cities as in the example of the five philistine cities.

Akkad was always quite well known from the Akkadian Empire and their famous ruler Sargon of Akkad, contemporarily sourced and verified by numerous4 other5 records6 from the period7, but in a twist of fate we have yet to actually discover the location of Akkad. Situations like this are very helpful to process the issue within archeology that a lack of evidence means something never existed, since at times we simply do not know what we still haven’t found, and perhaps may never.

Akkad is not a case of “we simply can’t dig” or “we have something on top”, no the issue is more like a series of comedically competing locations for what should be an extremely well known capital city. Theories persist between near Eshnunna, near Sippar, somewhere around Kish, or Babylon - which are both next to each other - the incredibly broad ‘near the Tigris river’, and somewhere near the Diyala River. These locations are all about 30 kilometers from Baghdad showing just how similar some of these sites can become.

Thankfully Akkad is actually known from its own period generally dated to 2334–2154 BC which saw a series of shorter lived dynasties following its ascendancy leading up to the well known Old Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi around 1900 BCE and lasting over three hundred years.

Finally we come to Calneh, mysteriously lacking a direct linguistic connection to any known city. What is probable currently is that like both Ur, Eridu, Erech and Akkad as mentioned before, we simply have yet to dig up the proper city. All of the previously mentioned cities also were thought “mythological” until the late 1800s when records of their existence was first uncovered.

Some scholars believe that Calneh is a corruption and mistranslation of the term “all of them”8, however this theory strikes me as unlikely given the Judaic confidence that it represents a city. Given how closely Jewish sages analyzed slight grammatical and letter differences, such a mistake is highly improbable.

Other identifications, sometimes Jewish, incorrectly call this city “Ctesiphon” which was a much later Persian period city irrelevant until well after the bibles completion. False identifications with this city likely come from its emerging importance as a center during the Talmudic period.

However, it is the Talmud that properly corrects this error identifying Calneh as “Nofer Ninefi”.9 As per the Talmud’s identification, this city would most probably refer to the city of Nippur, known in modern Iraqi as Nuffar.10 Due to the way Hebrew represents F and P with nearly the same letter just missing a single dot, it’s likely this name morphed into Nofer Ninefi over time. The Ninefi part rings out similar to “Nineveh”, making this term something like Nippur-Nineveh. It’s possible that Nippur and Nineveh had some sort of relationship similar to Eridu-Babel, but without records we simply can’t be certain what Ninefi is meant to represent.

The Sumerian garden of eden was located in Nippur in the creation myth of Enlil and Ninlil. Within the story Enlil lives within a city-like garden supposedly located at Nippur, and deals with the romantic relationship between Enlil and Ninlil. Eventually they meet and conceive none other than the moon god “Sin” (how convenient of a name) upon which the story jumps to Enlil walking in the Ekur of Nippur where he is arrested by the other gods and thrown out of the Ekur.

The Ekur was an actual structure archeologists have uncovered on the mountain top outside Nippur, attesting to a relationship with this building and Ziggurat theology. This temple structure was quite critical in the Sumerian pantheon up until the time of the Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi around the 2nd millennium BCE where the religious and political center of influence was transferred to Babylon. Marduk becomes the new central lord of the pantheon, with most of Enlil’s attributes directly transferring over to Marduk.11

This myth essentially portrays Nippur as the ‘home of the gods’ almost like a mount olympus of sorts and has obvious parallels with the Garden of Eden story. Nippurs importance as a city of the gods, central to the creation myth of humanity, and being viewed in the ancient world as the “first city” helps certify why such a city might be placed among such a lofty list of cities. Its relevance up until the end of the Sumeria period also puts its provenance among the pre-dispersion Tower of Babel builders led by Nimrod.

If we are to view this list as a series of ancient kingships being passed down, then as the Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer shows the first Kingship was Hashem’s which ruled over the earth as it was for Adam in the Garden of Eden. The second kingship was at Eridu, called “The first Babylon” in a sense. The kingship is transferred to Erech (Uruk) for a third time, Ur(im) for a fourth, and then to Akkad for a fifth. Calneh comes sixth, with the final seventh kingship being transferred to Abraham through his covenant with God.

In the Medieval Midrash Sefer HaYashar we are given some tantalizing information regarding Nimrod and the cities that he founds “And these are the names of the cities which he built—four cities in all—and he called their ‎names according to the occurrences connected with the building of the tower. The first city he ‎called Babel, saying: There the Lord confused the speech of the whole earth. The second city ‎he called Aroch, saying: Thence the Lord had scattered me and my people. The third city he ‎called Ochad, saying: A great battle occurred in that place. And the fourth city he called Culnah, ‎saying: At that place my princes and warriors completely dispersed, and all rebelled against ‎me. And after Nimrod had built those cities in the land of Shinar, he and the rest of his people, ‎with their princes and heroes, dwelt in them, Nimrod making his home in Babel, where he established the seat of his government for ‎himself and all his officers.”

According to the text, the cities founding names are connected to the building of the tower of babel - explicitly showing they all existed prior to the Tower and likely contributed to its building. Sadly none of this info is that helpful for us, but might play a relevant role in understanding which cities he founded. If the Sefer HaYashar is to be believed, Nimrod directly founded these cities. Additionally the text also implies the seat of his government, or capital, was at Babel. We can’t be sure if the Sefer HaYashar means Eridu, or actually Babel this time given its later date of composition.

The Sefer HaYashar is actually an incredibly rich text with tons of information, the only problem is that it’s probably mostly non-canonical material that isn’t historically accurate even if there are accurate meanings behind what is being written.

In the Sefer HaYashar’s Book of Genesis Noach 7 we get the information that Cush “took unto himself a wife at that time in his old ‎age, and he begat a son, and he called his name Nimrod” showing that Nimrod was actually the youngest son of Cush. Later on the Sefer employs the language of Jacob and Benjamin, calling him the son of his old age, and favored son. As a result of this favor, Cush gifts Nimod with the “coats of skin which the Lord had made for Adam and Eve, when they were driven from the Garden of Eden.” again paralleling the coat given this time to Joseph - the other child of Rachel with Jacob.

The text goes on and says the garments passed into the possession of Enoch after the death of Adam and Eve, possibly explaining the cause of Enochs great mystical power. Enoch gives the garments to Methuselah, who gives them to Noah, who brings them on the ark. After leaving the ark Ham actually steals the garments unbeknown to Noah, or Ham’s brothers, hiding them for a later date. When Cush is born, Ham gifts them to him and they remain with Cush, again hidden from his brothers and even his own sons. It is only when Nimrod is finally birthed in Cush’s old age, the son he loves above all others, that he gifts them to Nimrod.

At twenty one years of age Nimrod first wears these garments - potentially alluding to the age at which he may have originally became king. Immediately upon wearing the garments, almost like a certain corrupt ring, Nimrod turns to idolatry and wickedness becoming a “mighty hunter upon the earth”, hunting animals, building altars, and offering those animals upon the alters to idols teaching them their evil ways not unlike similar themes seen with the earlier Enoch in his time before the flood.

Further on we are told of Nimrod’s actual son, Mardon, eerily similar to the name of the Babylonian patron deity Marduk. Implying this was in the time of Mardon, Nimrod’s son, the text next says that Terah, son of Nahor, was a chief of Nimrod’s army and very great both as a powerful man, but even in the eyes of the king. All the people of the land viewed him as such, and the princes all “loved and exalted him.”

Finally we are given some incredible details regarding Abraham not found elsewhere “And Terah took unto himself a wife ‎and her name was Amthelah the daughter of Carnebah, and she conceived and bare a son in ‎those days. And Terah was seventy years old when she bare him, and Terah called the name ‎of the son born unto him Abram, saying: In these days the king has raised and exalted me over ‎all the princes that are with him.” Who is Amthelah, the mother of Abraham? Who is her father, or possibly mother, Carnebah? Questions we must leave for another time.

Having dug into the archeology and textual references for the cities of Nimrod, we will next look at Assur. Thank you for reading, and please like and leave a comment if you have any additional points, theories, or criticism for what you’ve read so far!

Land of Nimrod (Part 2/2)

Digging up Ancient Sumeria

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