ERECH (e'rek), (Heb, eh' rek), cities which formed the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom in the plain of Shinar iGen. x:to).
It is not said that he built these cities, but that he established his power over them; from which we may conclude that they previously existed. Bo chart seeks the name in the Aracca or Amelia of the old geographers, which was on the Tigris. upon the borders of Babylonia and Susiana ( Ptolemy, vi :3 . Ammian. Marcell. xxxiii :6, 26). This was probably the same city which Herodotus (i:185: :119) calls Arderikka. i. c., Great Erech• The site of this ancient city has been recently identified by archeological research at Nippur. It was a very Important city—the capital, in fact, of the mythical hero-king Gilgames. The ruins found on its site show the remains of elegant buildings with fluted walls, sometimes decorated with patterns formed with the circular ends of various colored cones im bedded in mortar, bricks bearing archaic Accadian and Babylonian inscriptions, etc. Remains of canals traverse the mass of hillocks (whicl in some parts are nearly ninety feet high) and the country around the city, showing that it must have been well drained in ancient times. Those por tions of the walls of the city which can be traced seem to have been in the form of an irregular cir cle about forty feet high, and show that its average circumference was about six miles. The house; of the people are supposed to have extended be yond the walls. (I. A. Pinches, Hastings' Bib. Diet.) It was the place of worship of the goddess Nana of the Sumerians, with whom the Semitic inhabitants identified their goddess Ishtar. The temple dedicated to the goddess and called E Anna (house of heaven) was built by Ur-Gur and Dungi and often restored.
It now forms the ruin of El-Buwarije, while the general mass of ruins is called Warka, which has unhappily not been dug up. The city had inde
pendence at an early period, and is coupled by Hebrew tradition with the earliest centers of the land, and Babylonian records go far to prove that this is correct. It was, however, much more than a mere center of power. It was a seat of learning and must have had a library at a very early period. Many books in the library of Assur-bani-pal. and especially religious hymns, bear colophons which show that they were copied from originals at Uruk. Strabo adds to this fact the statement that at Orchoe there was a school of Chaldeans, that is in his use of the word "astrologists." This would indicate that culture was still resident in this city, though it had vanished from other more ancient centers. The political, literary, and reli gious history of the city all make it of so great in terest and importance that it is especially a mat ter for regret that it has never been properly excavated. (Rogers, /list. of Bob. and ,Issyr, vol. I, p. 280.) Among the inscribed and stamped bricks found in Erech are many of the time of the historical kings—Dungi, Ur-Bau, Gudca, Sin-ga'sid, Merod achbaladan L. etc. Tablets of the reigns of Nahopolassar, Nebuchadrezzar, Nabonidus, Cyrus, Darius. and sonic of the Seleucidx, have been ex cavated in the site. In the ruins of the town and the country around, a large number of glazed earthenware coffins and other receptacles, used no doubt for the burial of the dead. mostly of the Parthian period, have been found, showing that part of the town and its neighborhood must have been used as a necropolis. (lIastings' Bib. Diet.).