Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

462 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
ject under consideration. I quote them in the king's own
language "
: E-gigunu, the ziggurrat of Nippur, the foundation
of which is placed in the breast of the ocean, the walls
of which had grown old, and which had fallen into decay —
I built that house with baked bricks and bitumen, and completed
its construction. With the art of the god of the bricks
I restored it and made it bright as the day. I raised its head
like a mountain and caused its
splendor to shine."
This inscription furnishes us a new name of the ziggurrat
of Nippur, E-gigunu, 1 " House of the tomb," the other two
names of the same building, with which we were familiar before,
being Imgarsag, " Mountain of the wind " or " Mt.
Airy," and E-sagash, " House of the decision." E-gigunu,
however, was not altogether unknown to us. There are
several cuneiform passages in which it appears in parallelism
with Ekur, " House of the mountain," the well-known
temple of Bel and Beltis at Nippur.' A 2
fourth name, to state
this distinctly here, occurs in another unpublished text inscribed
on a large vase of Gudea also belonging to the results
of our latest excavations at NufFar, namely, Dur-anki, " Link
of heaven and earth." How was it possible that the ziggurrat
of Nippur, which constitutes the most prominent part of
the whole temple complex, this high towering terrace, which
" connects heaven and earth," could appear to the Babylonians
as " the house of the tomb " at the same time ?
Most of the names of Babylonian
temples express a cosmic
idea.
According to the old Babylonian conception of the
gods and their relation to the world's edifice, En-lil or Bel of
Nippur is "the king of heaven and earth," or "the father"
and " king of the gods " and " the king of the lands," /. e. }
the earth. Bel's sphere of influence, therefore, is what we
1
A fifth (unknown) name seems to have stood in the mutilated passage,
ii R. 50, if the present sign of line 4, a, was copied correctly from the original.
2
Comp. Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, Strasburg, 1890, pp.
1 86, seq.