nious restoration of a defective text,[800] Aruru is given the same
epithet in a lexicographical tablet. The Ishtar occurring in the
Gilgamesh story is the old Ishtar of Erech. I venture to suggest,
therefore, that Aruru and Ishtar of Erech are one and the same
personage. Ishtar is, of course, as has been pointed out, merely a
generic name[801] for the 'great goddess' worshipped under many forms.
The more specific name by which Ishtar of Erech was known was Nana, but
Nana again is nothing but an epithet, meaning, as the Babylonians
themselves interpreted it, the 'lady' _par excellence_. Have we perhaps
in Aruru the real name of the old goddess of Erech? At all events, the
occurrence of Aruru in this second 'creation' story points to her as
belonging to the district of which Erech was the center. In this way,
each one of the three most ancient sacred towns of Babylonia would have
its 'creator,'--Bel in Nippur, Ea in Eridu, and Aruru in Erech. The
chief deity of Erech, it will be recalled, was always a goddess,--a
circumstance that supports the association of Aruru with that place.
Aruru being a goddess, it was not so easy to have Marduk take up her
role, as he supplanted Bel. Again, Erech and Babylon were not political
rivals to the degree that Nippur and Babylon were. Accordingly a
compromise was effected, as in the case of Marduk and Ea. Aruru is
associated with Marduk. She creates mankind with Marduk, and it would
seem to be a consequence of this association that the name of Marduk's
real consort, Sarpanitum, is playfully but with intent interpreted by
the Babylonian pedants as 'seed-producing.'[802]

Our second version thus turns out to be, like the first, an adaptation
of old traditions to new conditions. Babylon and Marduk are designedly
introduced. In the original form Nippur, Eridu, and Erech alone figured,
and presumably, therefore, only the deities of these three places. Among
them the work of creation was in some way parceled out. This
distribution may itself have been the result of a combination of
independent traditions. In any early combination, however, we may feel
certain that Marduk was not introduced.

After this incidental mention of Aruru, the narrative passes back
undisturbed to Marduk.

The animals of the field, the living creatures of the field he
created,
The Tigris and Euphrates he formed in their places, gave them good
names,
Soil (?), grass, the marsh, reed, and forest he crea