ERECH (in Sumerian Uruk, Greek Orchoe, modern Warka), an ancient city in Mesopotamia in 31° 3o' N., 46° E., on the west bank of the old bed of the Euphrates, now Shatt-ek-Kar, whose course runs some miles to the east. The city was partially ex cavated by Loftus in 1850 and 1854 and was recently visited by Weld who reported that it was almost inaccessible, so that it still awaits a modern excavator. The outer walls are about six miles in circumference, and enclose an area of about eleven hundred acres. Within this area there are three great mounds and numer ous smaller ones. The temple of E-Anna, "the house of heaven," apparently the earlier name of the city and the principal shrine, stood on the bank of the river in the eastern part of the town. The walls here were built by Ur-Engur and are of huge size and still more or less intact. They are built of bricks with a course every four feet of reed mats, from which the Arabic name of Buwaniya is derived. The base of the ziggurat, or temple tower, is 200 ft. square, and stood together with the temple at the western corner of the great platform, which was built with its angles facing the cardinal points. It was here that Loftus uncovered a kind of mosaic made of painted cone heads and cone shaped pots, with narrow tips and shallow cavities. The walls are built of cones or pots with the heads outwards. To the west of the temple sep arated by a ravine in the centre of the city is the huge mound of Wuswas, which it has been suggested may have been the site of the palace of the Pre-Sargonic kings and patesis (prince-priests). A large number of valuable religious texts from the temple library have been discovered dating from as late as B.C. They show the religious ideas of the priestly school at Erech. The town was strongly nationalist during the struggles against the Elamites at the end of the third millennium B.C., in strong contrast to its neighbour Larsa which had an Elamite dynasty, probably to hold Erech in check. The city continued to exist in Persian and later times and became like some of the modern Holy Cities a centre for the burial of the dead, but the ancient ruins which have as yet only been superficially examined are probably some of the most important in Mesopotamia.