ACCAD (Inz,..1; Sept. 'Apxci8), one of the four cities in `the land of Shinar' or Babylonia, which are said to have been built by Nimrod, or rather to have been 'the beginning of his kingdom' (Gen. x. so). Their situation has been much disputed. tElian (De Animal. xvi. 42) mentions that in the district of Sittacene was a river called 'Afryciaqs, which is so near the name 'Apxci3 which the LXX. give to this city, that Bochart was induced to fix Accad upon that river (Phakg. iv. 17). It seems that several of the ancient translators found in their Hebrew MSS. Achar (-inN) instead of Accad (Ephraem Syrus, Pseudo-Jonathan, Targutn Hienos., Jerome, Abulfaragi, etc.) ; and the ease with which the similar letters and might be interchanged in copying, leaves it doubtful which was the real name. Achar was the ancient name of Nisibis ; and hence the Targumists give Nisibis or Nisibin (1'2"S.)) for A ccad, and they continued to be identified by the Jewish literati in the times of Jerome. But the Jewish literati have always been deplorable geographers, and their unsup ported conclusions are worth very little. Nisibis is unquestionably too remote northward to be associ ated with Babel, Erech, and Calneh, 'in the land of Shinar.' These towns could not have been very distant from each other ; and when to the analogy of names we can add that of situation and of tradition, a strong claim to identity is established. These circumstances unite at a place in the ancient Sittacene, to w1•.ch Bochart had been led by other analogies. The probability that the original name was Achar having been established, the attention is naturally drawn to the remarkable pile of ancient buildings called Akksr-hoof, in Sittacene, and which the Turks know as Akker-i-Nintrood and A kkeri-Babil. The late Col. Taylor, formerly British resident at Baghdad, who gave much atten tion to the subject, was the first to make out this identification, and to collect evidence in support of it ; and to his unpublished communications the writer and other recent travellers are indebted for their statements on the subject. The Babylonian
Talmud might be expected to mention the site ; and it occurs accordingly under the name of It occurs also in Maimonides Chaz. Tract. Madre, fol. 25, as quoted by Hyde), who says, `Abraham xl. annos flatus cognovit creatorem suum ;' and immediately adds, Extat Aggada tres annos natus.' Akker-koof is about nine miles west of the Tigris, at the spot where that river makes its nearest approach to the Euphrates. The heap of ruins to which the name of Nimrod's Hill— Tell-i-Ninzrood, is more especially appropriated, consists of a mound surmounted by a mass of brick-work, which looks like either a tower or an irregular pyramid, accord ing to the point from which it is viewed. It is about 400 feet in circumference at the bottom, and rises to the height of 125 feet above the sloping elevation on which it stands. The mound, which seems to form the foundation of the pile, is a mass of rubbish accumulated by the decay of the super structure. In the ruin itself, the layers of sun dried bricks, of which it is composed, can be traced very distinctly. They are cemented together by lime or bitumen, and are divided into courses varying from 12 to 20 feet in height, and are sepa rated by layers of reeds, as is usual in the more ancient remains of this primitive region. Travellers have been perplexed to make out the use of this remarkable monument, and various strange con jectures have been hazarded. The embankments of canals and reservoirs, and the remnants of brick-work and pottery occupying the place all around, evince that the Tel stood in an important city ; and, as its construction announces it to be a Babylonian relic, the greater probability is that it was one of those pyramidal structures erected upon high places, which were consecrated to the heavenly bodies, and served at once as the temples and the observatories of those remote times. Such build ings were common to all Babylonian towns ; and those which remain appear to have been constructed more or less on the model of that in the metro politan city of Babylon.—J. K.