Anyway, to get back on topic-an article by David Rohl on the Tower of Babel-
here talks about how there were two nun.ki cities-one translated into Babylon and the other to the first city in the world-Eridu, which is also known as nun-ki.
quote:
Before we get to the heart of the puzzle surrounding the identity of Babel, we need to understand something about the relationship between the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. The classic tongue of ancient Mesopotamia was Sumerian. In later periods, when Akkadian dominated the region, some ancient names were still written in Sumerian, even though they had perfectly good Akkadian alternatives. Sumerian was the 'Medieval Latin of Mesopotamia'. In Akkadian literature numerous archaic names were written in what scholars call Sumerian logograms. Thus the city of Babylon in Moses' source tablet would have been written as Nun.ki ('Mighty Place'), the Sumerian name of the city. Moses would naturally have understood Nun.ki to represent Babylon and, in so doing, the city of Nun.ki became biblical Babel in the Genesis narrative.
[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-10-2002]
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