cluding even Nippur and Erech, are Marduk's work.

The Anunnaki[791] he[792] created together
And bestowed glorious epithets upon the glorious city, the seat dear
to their heart.

The 'glorious city' is Eridu, though the compiler would have us apply it
to Babylon.

With the founding of Eridu, a limit was fixed for the 'deep.' The rest
of the dry land is formed according to the theory of the writer by the
extension of this place.

Marduk constructed an enclosure around the waters,
He made dust and heaped it up within the enclosure.[793]

The _naivete_ of the conception justifies us in regarding it as of
popular origin, incorporated by the theologians into their system.

But this land is created primarily for the benefit of the gods.

That the gods might dwell in the place dear to their heart.

Naturally not all of the gods are meant,--perhaps only the
Anunnaki,--for the great gods dwell in heaven. The creation of mankind
is next described, and is boldly ascribed to Marduk.

Mankind he created.[794]

In the following line, however, we come across a trace again of an older
tradition, which has been embodied in the narrative in a rather awkward
manner. Associated with Marduk in the creation of mankind is a goddess
Aruru.

The goddess Aruru created the seed of men together with him.[795]

We encounter this goddess Aruru in the Gilgamesh epic,[796] where she is
represented as creating a human being,--Eabani; and, curiously enough,
she creates him in agreement with the Biblical tradition, out of a lump
of clay. It has already been pointed out that according to one tradition
Ea is the creator of mankind,[797] and the conjecture has also been
advanced that at Nippur, Bel was so regarded. In Aruru we have evidently
a figure to whom another tradition, that arose in some district,
ascribed the honor of having created mankind. The Gilgamesh story is
connected with the city of Erech, and it is probable that the tale--at
least in part--originated there. It becomes plausible, therefore, to
trace the tradition ascribing the creation of man to Aruru to the same
place. A passage in the Deluge story, which forms an episode of the
Gilgamesh epic, adds some force to this conjecture. After the dreadful
deluge has come, Ishtar breaks out in wild lament that mankind, her
offspring, has perished: "What I created, where is it?"[798] She is
called 'the mistress of the gods,'[799] and if Jensen is correct in an
inge