r 5500
B.C. Ur, a little to the north-west, with its temple of the Moon-god,
was a colony of Eridu.

In the plain itself many cities were erected, which rose around the
temples of the gods. In the north was Nippur, now Niffer, whose great
temple of Mul-lil or El-lil, the Lord of the Ghost-world, was a centre
of Babylonian religion for unnumbered centuries. After the Semitic
conquest Mul-lil came to be addressed as Bel or "Lord," and when the
rise of Babylon caused the worship of its patron-deity Bel-Merodach to
spread throughout the country, the Bel of Nippur became known as the
"older Bel." Nippur was watered by the canal Kabaru, the Chebar of
Ezekiel, and to the south of it was the city of Lagas, now Tello, where
French excavators have brought to light an early seat of Sumerian power.
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. It was a double
city, built on either side of the Euphrates, and adjoining its suburb of
Borsippa, once an independent town. Babylon seems to have been a colony
of Eridu, and its god, Bel-Merodach, called by the Sumerians "Asari who
does good to man," was held to be the son of Ea, the culture-god of
Eridu. E-Saggil, the great temple of Bel-Merodach, rose in the midst of
Babylon; the temple of Nebo, his "prophet" and interpreter, rose hard by
in Borsippa. Its ruins are now known as the Birs-i-Nimrud, in which
travellers have seen the Tower of Babel.

In the neighbourhood of Babylon were Kish (_El-Hymar_) and Kutha
(_Tel-Ibrahim_); somewhat to the north of it, and on the banks of the
Euphrates, was Sippara or Sepharvaim, whose temple, dedicated to the
Sun-god, has been found in the mounds of Abu-Habba. Sippara was the
northern fortress of the Babylonian plain; it stood where the Tigris and
Euphrates approached most nearly one another, and where, therefore, the
plain itself came practically to an end. Upi or Opis, on the Tigris,
still farther to the north, lay outside the boundaries of primaeval
Chaldaea.

East of Babylonia were the mountains of Elam, inhabited by non-Semitic
tribes. Among them were the Kassi or Kossaeeans, who maintained a rude
independence in their mountain fastnesses, a