A History of Sumer and Akkad

A HISTORY OF SUMER AND AKKAD

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Leonard King

CHIOS CLASSICS

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Copyright © 2015 by Leonard King

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY - THE LANDS OF SUMER AND AKKAD

CHAPTER II. THE SITES OF EARLY CITIES AND THE RACIAL CHARACTER OF THEIR INHABITANTS

CHAPTER III. THE AGE AND PRINCIPAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION

CHAPTER IV. THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS IN SUMER; THE DAWN OF HISTORY AND THE RISE OF LAGASH

THE TREATY OF MESALIM (c. 2500 B.C.)

THE CONE OF ENTEMENA (2450-2375 BC)

CHAPTER V. WARS OF THE CITY-STATES; EANNATUM AND THE STELE OF THE VULTURES

CHAPTER VI. THE CLOSE OF UR-NINA’S DYNASTY, THE REFORMS OF URUKAGINA, AND THE FALL OF LAGASH

CHAPTER VII. EARLY RULERS OF SUMER AND KINGS OF KISH

The Obelisk of Manishtusu

CHAPTER VIII. THE EMPIRE OF AKKAD AND ITS RELATION TO KISH

CHAPTER IX. THE LATER RULERS OF LAGASH

CHAPTER X. THE DYNASTY OF UR AND THE KINGDOM OF SUMER AND AKKAD

CHAPTER XI. THE EARLIER RULERS OF ELAM, THE DYNASTY OF ISIN, AND THE RISE OF BABYLON

CHAPTER XII. THE CULTURAL INFLUENCE OF SUMER IN EGYPT, ASIA AND THE WEST

A History of Sumer and Akkad

By Leonard W. King

PREFACE

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THE EXCAVATIONS CARRIED OUT IN Babylonia and Assyria during the last few years have added immensely to our knowledge of the early history of those countries, and have revolutionized many of the ideas current with regard to the age and character of Babylonian civilization. In the present volume, which deals with the history of Sumer and Akkad, an attempt is made to present this new material in a connected form, and to furnish the reader with the results obtained by recent discovery and research, so far as they affect the earliest historical periods. An account is here given of the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia, and of the early city-states which were formed from time to time in the lands of Sumer and Akkad, the two great divisions into which Babylonia was at that period divided. The primitive sculpture and other archaeological remains, discovered upon early Babylonian sites, enable us to form a fairly complete picture of the races which in those remote ages inhabited the country. By their help it is possible to realize how the primitive conditions of life were gradually modified, and how from rude beginnings there was developed the comparatively advanced civilization, which was inherited by the later Babylonians and Assyrians and exerted a remarkable influence upon other races of the ancient world.

In the course of this history points are noted at which early contact with other lands took place, and it has been found possible in the historic period to trace the paths by which Sumerian culture was carried beyond the limits of Babylonia. Even in prehistoric times it is probable that the great trade routes of the later epoch were already open to traffic, and cultural connections may well have taken place at a time when political contact cannot be historically proved. This fact must be borne in mind in any treatment of the early relations of Babylonia with Egypt. As a result of recent excavation and research it has been found necessary to modify the view that Egyptian culture in its earlier stages was strongly influenced by that of Babylonia. But certain parallels are too striking to be the result of coincidence, and, although the southern Sumerian sites have yielded traces of no prehistoric culture as early as that of the Neolithic and predynastic Egyptians, yet the Egyptian evidence suggests that some contact may have taken place between the prehistoric peoples of North Africa and Western Asia.

Far closer were the ties which connected Sumer with Elam, the great centre of civilization which lay upon her eastern border, and recent excavations in Persia have disclosed the extent to which each civilization was of independent development. It was only after the Semitic conquest that Sumerian culture had a marked effect on that of Elam, and Semitic influence persisted in the country even under Sumerian domination. It was also through the Semitic inhabitants of

northern Babylonia that cultural elements from both Sumer and Elam passed beyond the Taurus, and, after being assimilated by the Hittites, reached the western and south-western coasts of Asia Minor. An attempt has therefore been made to estimate, in the light of recent discoveries, the manner in which Babylonian culture affiscted the early civilizations of Egypt, Asia, and the West. Whether through direct or indirect channels, the cultural influence of Sumer and Akkad was felt in varying degrees throughout an area extending from Elam to the Aegean.

In view of the after effects of this early civilization, it is of importance to determine the region of the world from which the Sumerian race reached the Euphrates. Until recently it was only possible to form a theory on the subject from evidence furnished by the Sumerians themselves. But explorations in Turkestan, the results of which have now been fully published, enable us to conclude with some confidence that the original home of the Sumerian race is to be sought beyond the mountains to the east of the Babylonian plain. The excavations conducted at Anau near Askhabad by the second Pumpelly Expedition have revealed traces of prehistoric cultures in that region, which present some striking parallels to other early cultures west of the Iranian plateau. Moreover, the physiographical evidence collected by the first Pumpelly Expedition affords an adequate explanation of the racial unrest in Central Asia, which probably gave rise to the Sumerian immigration and to other subsequent migrations from the East.

It has long been suspected that a marked change in natural conditions must have taken place during historic times throughout considerable areas in Central Asia. The present comparatively arid condition of Mongolia, for example, is in striking contrast to what it must have been in the era preceding the Mongolian invasion of Western Asia in the thirteenth century, and travellers who have followed the route of Alexander’s army, on its return from India through Afghanistan and Persia, have noted the difference in the character of the country at the present day. Evidence of a similar change in natural conditions has now been collected in Russian Turkestan, and the process is also illustrated as a result of the explorations conducted by Dr. Stein, on behalf of the Indian Government, on the borders of the Taklamakan Desert and in the oases of Khotan. It is clear that all these districts, at different periods, were far better watered and more densely populated than they are today, and that changes in climatic conditions have reacted on the character of the country in such a way as to cause racial migrations. Moreover, there are indications that the general trend to aridity has not been uniform, and that cycles of greater aridity have been followed by periods when the country was capable of supporting a considerable population. These recent observations have an important bearing on the Sumerian problem, and they have therefore been treated in some detail in Appendix I.

The physical effects of such climatic changes would naturally be more marked in mid-continental regions than in districts nearer the coast, and the immigration of Semitic nomads into Syria and Northern Babylonia may possibly have been caused by similar periods of aridity in Central Arabia. However this may be, it is certain that the early Semites reached the Euphrates by way of the Syrian coast, and founded their first Babylonian settlements in Akkad. It is still undecided whether they or the Sumerians were in earliest occupation of Babylonia. The racial character of the Sumerian gods can best be explained on the supposition that the earliest cult-centres in the country were Semitic; but the absence of Semitic idiom from the earliest Sumerian inscriptions is equally valid evidence against the theory. The point will probably not be settled until excavations have been undertaken at such North Babylonian sites as El-Ohemir and Tell Ibrahim.

That the Sumerians played the more important part in originating and moulding Babylonian culture is certain. In government, law, literature and art the Semites merely borrowed from their Sumerian teachers, and, although in some respects they improved upon their models, in each case the original impulse came from the Sumerian race. Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, for example, which had so marked an influence on the Mosaic legislation, is now proved to have been of Sumerian origin; and recent research has shown that the later religious and mythological literature of Babylonia and Assyria, by which that of the Hebrews was also so strongly affected, was largely derived from Sumerian sources.

The early history of Sumer and Akkad is dominated by the racial conflict between Semites and Sumerians, in the course of which the latter were gradually worsted. The foundation of the Babylonian monarchy marks the close of the political career of the Sumerians as a race, although, as we have seen, their cultural achievements long survived them in the later civilizations of Western Asia. The designs upon the cover of this volume may be taken as symbolizing the dual character of the early population of the country. The panel on the face of the cover represents two Semitic heroes, or mythological beings, watering the humped oxen or buffaloes of the Babylonian plain, and is taken from the seal of Ibni-Sharru, a scribe in the service of the early Akkadian king Shar-Gani-sharri. The panel on the back of the binding is from the Stele of the Vultures and portrays the army of Eannatum trampling on the dead bodies of its foes. The shaven faces of the Sumerian warriors are in striking contrast to the heavily bearded Semitic type upon the seal.

A word should, perhaps, be said on two further subjects—the early chronology and the rendering of Sumerian proper names. The general effect of recent research has been to reduce the very early dates, which were formerly in vogue. But there is a distinct danger of the reaction going too far, and it is necessary to mark clearly the points at which evidence gives place to conjecture. It must be admitted that all dates anterior to the foundation of the Babylonian monarchy are necessarily approximate, and while we are withoutdefinite points of contact between the earlier and later chronology of Babylonia, it is advisable, as far as possible, to think in periods. In the Chronological Table of early kings and rulers, which is printed as Appendix II, a scheme of chronology has been attempted; and the grounds upon which it is based are summarized in the third chapter, in which the age of the Sumerian civilization is discussed.

The transliteration of many of the Sumerian proper names is also provisional. This is largely due to the polyphonous character of the Sumerian signs; but there is also no doubt that the Sumerians themselves frequently employed an ideographic system of expression. The ancient name of the city, the site of which is marked by the mounds of Tello, is an instance in point. The name is written in Sumerian as Shirpurla, with the addition of the determinative for place, and it was formerly assumed that the name was pronounced as Shirpurla by the Sumerians. But there is little doubt that, though written in that way, it was actually pronounced as Lagash, even in the Sumerian period. Similarly the name of its near neighbour and ancient rival, now marked by the mounds of Jokha, was until recently rendered as it is written, Gishkhu or Gishukh; but we now know from a bilingual list that the name was actually pronounced as Umma.

The reader will readily understand that in the case of less famous cities, whose names have not yet been found in the later syllabaries and billingual texts, the phonetic readings may eventually have to be discarded. When the renderings adopted are definitely provisional, a note has been added to that effect.

I take this opportunity of thanking Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge for permission to publish photographs of objects illustrating the early history of Sumer and Akkad, which are preserved in the British Museum. My thanks are also due to Monsieur Ernest Leroux, of Paris, for kindly allowing me to make use of illustrations from works published by him, which have a bearing on the excavations at Tello and the development of Sumerian art; to Mr. Raphael Pumpelly and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, for permission to reproduce illustrations from the official records of the second Pumpelly Expedition; and to the editor of Nature for kindly allowing me to have cliches made from blocks originally prepared for an article on Transcaspian Archaeology, which I contributed to that journal. With my colleague, Mr. H. R. Hall, I have discussed more than one of the problems connected with the early relations of Egypt and Babylonia; and Monsieur F. Thureau-Dangin, Conservateur-adjoint of the Museums of the Louvre, has readily furnished me with information concerning doubtful readings upon historical monuments, both in the Louvre itself, and in the Imperial Ottoman Museum during his recent visit to Constantinople. I should add that the plans and drawings in the volume are the work of Mr. P. C. Carr, who has spared no pains in his attempt to reproduce with accuracy the character of the originals.

L. W. KING

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY - THE LANDS OF SUMER AND AKKAD

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THE STUDY OF ORIGINS MAY undoubtedly be regarded as the most striking characteristic of recent archaeological research. There is a peculiar fascination in tracking any highly developed civilization to its source, and in watching its growth from the rude and tentative efforts of a primitive people to the more elaborate achievements of a later day. And it is owing to recent excavation that we are now in a position to elucidate the early history of the three principal civilizations of the ancient world. The origins of Greek civilization may now be traced beyond the Mycenean epoch, through the different stages of Aegean culture back into the Neolithic age. In Egypt, excavations have not only yielded remains of the early dynastic kings who lived before the pyramid-builders, but they have revealed the existence of Neolithic Egyptians dating from a period long anterior to the earliest written records that have been recovered. Finally, excavations in Babylonia have enabled us to trace the civilization of Assyria and Babylon back to an earlier and more primitive race, which in the remote past occupied the lower plains of the Tigris and Euphrates; while the more recent digging in Persia and Turkestan has thrown light upon other primitive inhabitants of Western Asia, and has raised problems with regard to their cultural connections with the West which were undreamed of a few years ago.

It will thus be noted that recent excavation and research have furnished the archaeologist with material by means of which he may traee back the history of culture to the Neolithic period, both in the region of the Mediterranean and along the valley of the Nile. That the same achievement cannot be placed to the credit of the excavator of Babylonian sites is not entirely due to defects in the scope or method of his work, but may largely be traced to the character of the country in which the excavations have been carried out. Babylonia is an alluvial country, subject to constant inundation, and the remains and settlements of the Neolithic period were doubtless in many places swept away, and all trace of them destroyed by natural causes. With the advent of the Sumerians began the practice of building cities upon artificial mounds, which preserved the structure of the buildings against flood, and rendered them easier of defence against a foe.It is through excavation in these mounds that the earliest remains of the Sumerians have been recovered; but the still earlier traces of Neolithic times, which at some period may have existed on those very sites, must often have been removed by flood before the mounds were built. The Neolithic and pre- historic remains discovered during the French excavations in the graves of Mussian and at Susa, and by the Pumpelly expedition in the two Kurgans near Anau, do not find their equivalents in the mounds of Babylonia so far as these have yet been examined.

In this respect the climate and soil of Babylonia present a striking contrast to those of ancient Egypt. In the latter country the shallow graves of Neolithic man, covered by but a few inches of soil, have remained intact and undisturbed at the foot of the desert hills; while in the upper plateaus along the Nile valley the flints of Palaeolithic man have lain upon the surface of the sand from Palaeolithic times until the present day. But what has happened in so rainless a country as Egypt could never have taken place in Mesopotamia. It is true that a few palaeoliths have been found on the surface of the Syrian desert, but in the alluvial plains of Southern Chaldaea, as in the Egyptian Delta itself, few certain traces of prehistoric man have been forthcoming. Even in the early mat-burials and sarcophagi at Fara numerous copper objects and some cylinder-seals have been found, while other cylinders, sealings, and even inscribed tablets, discovered in the same and neighbouring strata, prove that their owners were of the same race as the Sumerians of history, though probably of a rather earlier date.

Although the earliest Sumerian settlements in Southern Babylonia are to be set back in a comparatively remote period, the race by which they were founded appears at that time to have already attained to a high level of culture. We find them building houses for themselves and temples for their gods of burnt and unburnt brick. They are rich in sheep and cattle, and they have increased the natural fertility of their country by means of a regular system of canals and irrigation-channels. It is true that at this time their sculpture shared the rude character of their pottery, but their main achievement, the invention of a system of writing by means of lines and wedges, is in itself sufficient indication of their comparatively advanced state of civilization. Derived originally from picture-characters, the signs themselves, even in the earliest and most primitive inscriptions as yet recovered, have already lost to a great extent their pictorial character, while we find them employed not only as ideograms to express ideas, but also phonetically for syllables. The use of this complicated system of writing by the early Sumerians presupposes an extremely long period of previous development. This may well have taken place in their original home, before they entered the Babylonian plain. In any case, we must set back in the remote past the beginnings of this ancient people, and we may probably picture their first settlement in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf some centuries before the period to whicli we may assign the earliest of their remains that have actually come down to us.

In view of the important rule played by this early race in the history and development of civilization in Western Asia, it is of interest to recall the fact that not many years atro the very existence of the Sumerians was disputed by a large body of those who occupied themselves with the study of the history and languages of Babylonia. What was known as the Sumerian controversy engaged the attention of writers on these subjects, and divided them into two opposing schools. At that time not many actual remains of the Sumerians themselves had been recovered, and the arguments in favour of the existence of an early non-Semitic race in Babylonia were in the main drawn from a number of Sumerian texts and compositions which had been found in the palace of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, at Nineveh. A considerable number of the tablets recovered from the royal library were inscribed with a series of compositions, written, it is true, in the cuneiform script, but not in the Semitic language of the Assyrians and Babylonians. To many of these compositions Assyrian translations had been added by the scribes who drew them up, and upon other tablets were found lists of the words employed in the compositions, together with their Assyrian equivalents. The late Sir Henry Rawlinson rightly concluded that these strange texts were written in the language of some race who had inhabited Babylonia before the Semites, while he explained the lists of words as early dictionaries compiled by the Assyrian scribes to help them in their studies of this ancient tongue. The early race he christened the Akkadians, and although we now know that this name would more correctly describe the early Semitic immigrants who occupied Northern Babylonia, in all other respects his inference was justified. He correctly assigned the non-Semitic compositions that had been recovered to the early non-Semitic population of Babylonia, who are now known by the name of the Sumerians.

Sir Henry Rawlinson’s view was shared by M. Oppert, Professor Schrader, Professor Sayce, and many others, and, in fact, it held the field until a theory was propounded by M. Halévy to the effect that Sumerian was not a language in the legitimate sense of the term. The contention of M. Halévy was that the Sumerian compositions were not written in the language of an earlier race, but represented a cabalistic method of writing, invented and employed by the Baby- lonian priesthood. In his opinion the texts were Semitic compositions, though written according to a secret system or code, and they could only have been read by a priest who had the key and had studied the jealously guarded formulae. On this hypothesis it followed that the Babylonians and Assyrians were never preceded by a non-Semitic race in Babylonia, and all Babylonian civilization was consequently to be traced to a Semitic origin. The attractions which such a view would have for those mterested in ascribing so great an achievement to a Semitic source are obvious, and, in spite of its general improbability. M. Halevy won over many converts to his theory, among others Professor Delitzsch and a considerable number of the younger school of German critics.

It may be noted that the principal support for the theory was derived from an examination of the phonetic values of the Sumerian signs. Many of these, it was correctly pointed out, were obviously derived from Semitic equivalents, and M. Halévy and his followers forthwith inferred that the whole language was an artificial invention of the Babylonian priests. Why the priests should have taken the trouble to invent so complicated a method of writing was not clear, and no adequate reason could be assigned for such a course. On the contrary, it was shown that the subject-matter of the Sumerian compositions was not of a nature to justify or suggest the necessity of recording tliem by means of a secret method of writing. A study of the Sumerian texts with the help of the Assyrian translations made it obvious that they merely consisted of incantations, hymns, and prayers, precisely similar to other compositions written in the common tongue of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and thus capable of being read and understood by any scribe acquainted with the ordinary Assyrian or Babylonian character.

M. Halevy’s theory appeared still less probable when applied to such of the early Sumerian texts as had been recovered at that time by Loftus and Taylor in Southern Babylonia. For these were shown to be short building-inscriptions, votive texts, and foundation-records, and, as they were obviously intended to record and commemorate for future ages the events to which they referred, it was unlikely that they should have been drawn up in a cryptographic style of writing which would have been undecipherable without a key. Yet the fact that very few Sumerian documents of the early period had been found, while the great majority of the texts recovered were known only from tablets of the seventh centmy BC, rendered it possible for the upholders of the pan-Semitic theory to make out a case. In fact, it was not until the renewal of excavations in Babylonia that fresh evidence was obtained which put an end to the Sumerian controversy, and settled the problem once for all in accordance with the view of Sir Henry Rawlinson and of the more conservative writers.

That Babylonian civilization and culture originated with the Sumerians is no longer in dispute; the point upon which difference of opinion now centres concerns the period at which Sumerians and Semites first came into contact. But before we embark on the discussion of this problem, it will be well to give some account of the physical conditions of the lands which invited the immigration of these early races and formed the theatre of their subsequent history. The lands of Sumer and Akkad were situated in the lower valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and corresponded approximately to the country known by classical writers as Babylonia. On the west and south their boundaries are definitely marked by the Arabian desert and the Persian Gulf which, in the earliest period of Sumerian history, extended as far northward as the neighbour- hood of the city of Eridu. On the east it is probable that the Tigris originally formed their natural boundary, but this was a direction in which expansion was possible, and their early conflicts with Elam were doubtless provoked by attempts to gain possession of the districts to the east of the river. The frontier in this direction undoubtedly underwent many fluctuations under the rule of the early city-states, but in the later periods, apart from the conquest of Elam, the true area of Sumerian and Semitic authority may be regarded as extending to the lower slopes of the Elamite hills. In the north a political division appears to have corresponded then, as in later times, to the difference in geological structure. A line drawn from a point a little below Samarra on the Tigris before its junction with the Adhem to Hît on the Euphrates marks the division between the slightly elevated and undulating plain and the dead level of the alluvium, and this may be regarded as representing the true boundary of Akkad on the north. The area thus occupied by the two countries was of no very great extent, and it was even less than would appear from a modern map of the Tigris and Euphrates valley. For not only was the head of the Persian Gulf some hundred and twenty, or hundred and thirty, miles distant from the present coast-line, but the ancient course of the Euphrates below Babylon lay considerably to the east of its modern bed.

In general character the lands of Sumer and Akkad consist of a flat alluvial plain, and form a contrast to the northern half of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, known to the Greeks as Mesopotamia and Assyria. These latter regions, both in elevation and geological structure, resemble the Syro-Arabian desert, and it is only in the neighbourhood of the two great streams and their tributaries that cultivation can be carried out on any extensive scale. Here the country at a little distance from the rivers becomes a stony plain, serving only as pasture-land when covered with vegetation after the rains of winter and the early spring. In Sumer and Akkad, on the other hand, the rivers play a far more important part. The larger portion of the country itself is directly due to their action, having been formed by the deposit which they have carried down into the waters of the Gulf. Through this alluvial plain of their own formation the rivers take a winding course, constantly changing their direction in consequence of the silting up of their beds and the falling in of the bajiks during the annual floods.

Of these two rivers the Tigris, owing to its higher and stronger banks, has undergone less change than the Euphrates. It is true that during the Middle Ages its present channel below Kut el-Amara was entirely disused, its waters flowing by the Shatt el-Hai into the Great Swamp which extended from Kufa on the Euphrates to the neighbourhood of Kurna, covering an area fifty miles across and nearly two hundred miles in length. But in the Sassanian period the Great Swamp, the formation of which was due to neglect of the system of irrigation under the early caliphs, did not exist, and the river followed its present channel. It is thus probable that during the earlier periods of Babylonian history the main body of water passed this way mto the Gulf, but the Shatt el-Hai may have represented a second and less important branch of the stream.

The change in the course of the Euphrates has been far more marked, the position of its original bed being indicated by the mounds covering the sites of early cities, wich extend through the country along the practically dry beds of the Shatt en-Nil and the Shatt el-Kar, considerably to the east of its present channel. The mounds of Abu Habba, Tell Ibrahim, El-Ohemir and Niffer, marking the sites of the important cities of Sippar, Cutha, Kish and Nippur, all lie to the east of the river, the last two on the ancient bed of the Shatt en-Nil. Similarly, the course of the Shatt el-Kar, which formed an extension of the Shatt en-Nil below Suk el-Afej passes the mounds of Abu Hatab (Kisurra), Fara (Shuruppak) and Hammam. Warka (Erech) stands on a further continuation of the Shatt en-Nil, while still more to the eastward are the mounds of Bismaya and Jokha, representing the cities of Adab and Umma. Senkera, the site of Larsa, also lies considerably to the east of the present stream, and the only city besides Babylon which now stands comparatively near the present bed of the Euphrates is Ur. The positions of the ancient cities would alone be sufficient proof that, since the early periods of Babylonian history, the Euphrates has considerably changed its course.

Abundant evidence that this was the case is furnished by the contemporary inscriptions that have been recovered. The very name of the Euphrates was expressed by an ideogram signifying the River of Sippar, from which we may infer that Sippar originally stood upon its banks. A Babylonian contract of the period of the First Dynasty is dated in the year in which Samsu-iluna constructed the wall of Kish on the bank of the Euphrates, proving that either the main stream from Sippar, or a branch from Babylon, flowed by El-Ohemir. Still further south the river at Nippur, marked as at El-Ohemir by the dry bed of the Shatt en-Nil, is termed the Euphrates of Nippur, or simply the Euphrates on contract-tablets found upon the site. Moreover, the city of Shurippak or Shuruppak, the native town of Ut-napishtim, is described by him in the Gilgamesh epic as lying on the bank of the Euphrates; and Hammurabi, in one of his letters to Sin-idinnam, bids him clear out the stream of the Euphrates from Larsa as far as Ur. These references in the early texts cover practically the whole course of the ancient bed of the Euphrates, and leave but a few points open to conjecture.

In the north it is clear that at an early period a second branch broke away from the Euphrates at a point about half-way between Sippar and the modern town of Faluja, and, after flowing along the present bed of the river as far as Babylon, rejoined the main stream of the Euphrates either at, or more probably below, the city of Kish. It was the extension of these western channels which afterwards drained the earlier bed, and we may conjecture that its waters were diverted back to the Euphrates at this early period by artificial means. The tendency of the river was always to break away westward, and the latest branch of the stream, still further to the west, left the river above Babylon at Musayyib. The fact that Birs, the site of Borsippa, stands upon its