CHIEFLY FROM NIPPUR. 269 



ter, while doubtless derived from the well-known Sumerian form, was invented and 

 employed by a Semitic nation. Furthermore, I call attention to the important fact 

 that Lugalzaggisi, who was surely a Semite, 1 shows his nationality in various ways, 

 such as the use of certain phrases, which look very suspicious in an ancient Sumerian 

 inscription, 2 and especially in his use of the ideogram da-ur, doubtless of Semitic 

 origin (= ddru), for " eternal." 3 There is only one ancient place in Northern Meso- 

 potamia which could have been rendered as " the city of the bow " ideographically by 

 the Sumerians, namely Harran, with which jM BAjS th is doubtless identical. For 

 according to Arabic writers, especially Alblruni (ed. Sachau, p. 204), 4 the ground-plot 

 of Harran resembled that of the moon (i. e., the crescent or half-moon), and Sachau, 

 who gave us the first accurate sketch of this city, finds it very natural that " Arabic 

 writers could conceive the idea of comparing it with the form of the half-moon." 5 

 Excellent, however, as this Arabic description is, and valuable as it proves for our final 

 location of '"BAN''', the ancient Babylonian ideographic rendering as " city of the 

 bow " was a more faithful description of the peculiar way in which Harran was built 

 than any other, as everybody can easily convince himself by throwing a glance upon 

 Sachau's plan in his Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien. This correct solution of a 

 vexed problem becomes of fundamental importance for our whole conception of the 

 history of the ancient East. First of all, I have furnished a better basis for Winckler's 

 ingenious theory of the original seat of the sharrut JcislisJiati. All that could be gath- 

 ered from later historical sources, beginning with the end of the second millennium 

 before Christ, "Winckler brought together to formulate a view which never found much 

 favor with Assyriologists and historians. 6 I opposed it myself 7 on the ground that his 

 reasons proved nothing for the ancient time, because Harran was never mentioned in 

 a text before the period just stated, and that in view of the total absence of a single 



•If he did not adopt a Sumerian name when ascending the throne of Kengi and of the "kingdom of the world," 

 which is very probable, the name of the king must be read something like Sh-irru-maliemuki-keni (emiiku is masc. 

 and fern, in the singular). But the name cannot be regarded as the prototype of Sargon I (= Sharru-kenu) , because, 

 aside from other reasons, this kind of abbreviation of a fuller name is without parallel in the history of Assyrian proper 

 names. They are abbreviated at the beginning or end, but not in the middle. Cassite names, etc., are foreign names. 



2 Cf., e. ff., " from the lower sea of the Tigris and Euphrates to the upper sea," "from the rising of the sun to the 

 setting of the sun " and others, which remind us forcibly of the phraseology of the latest Assyrian monarchs. 



3 Col. Ill, 36. da-ur ye-me, "he may pronounce (speak) forever !" 



4 Cf. also Mez, Oesehichle der Stadt Harran in Mesopotamien, p. 9. The remark of the Arabic writer is therefore 

 more than a " Treppenwitz," and is of great historical importance, showing us that not only the ancient Babylonians 

 but other peoples were struck by the remarkable form in which Harran was built. 



6 Sachau, Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien, p. 223. 



6 Cf. especially Winckler, Altorientalische Forschanyen I, pp. 75ff. ; III, pp. 201 ff. 



'Part I, pp. 23 f. I was supported in this, e. ff., by Jensen in Z. A. VIIi, pp. 228 ff. 

 A. P. S. — VOL. XVIII. 2 I. 



