mportant part in early Babylonian history. The primitive
seaport of the country, Eridu, the seat of the worship of Ea the
culture-god, was a little south of Ur (at _Abu Shahrain_ or _Now[=a]wis_ on
the west side of the Euphrates). It is now about 130 m. distant from the
sea; as about 46 m. of land have been formed by the silting up of the shore
since the foundation of Spasinus Charax (_Muhamrah_) in the time of
Alexander the Great, or some 115 ft. a year, the city would have been in
existence at least 6000 years ago. The marshes in the south like the
adjoining desert were frequented by Aramaic tribes; of these the most
famous were the Kald[=a] or Chaldaeans who under Merodach-baladan made
themselves masters of Babylon and gave their name in later days to the
whole population of the country. The combined stream of the Euphrates and
Tigris as it flowed through the marshes was known to the Babylonians as the
_n[=a]r marrati_, "the salt river" (cp. Jer. l. 21), a name originally
applied to the Persian Gulf.

The alluvial plain of Babylonia was called Edin, the Eden of Gen. ii.,
though the name was properly restricted to "the plain" on the western bank
of the river where the Bedouins pastured the flocks of their Babylonian
masters. This "bank" or _kisad_, together with the corresponding western
bank of the Tigris (according to Hommel the modern Shatt el-Hai), gave its
name to the land of Chesed, whence the _Kasdim_ of the Old Testament. In
the early inscriptions of Lagash the whole district is known as Gu-Edinna,
the Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic _Kisad Edini_. The coast-land was
similarly known as Gu-[=a]bba (Semitic _Kisad tamtim_), the "bank of the
sea." A more comprehensive name of southern Babylonia was Kengi, "the
land," or Kengi Sumer, "the land of Sumer," for which Sumer alone came
afterwards to be used. Sumer has been supposed to be the original of the
Biblical Shinar; but Shinar represented northern rather than southern
Babylonia, and was probably the Sankhar of the Tell el-Amarna tablets (but
see SUMER). Opposed to Kengi and Sumer were Urra (Uri) and Akkad or
northern Babylonia. The original meaning of _Urra_ was perhaps "clayey
soil," but it came to signify "the upper country" or "highlands," _kengi_
being "the lowlands." In Semitic times _Urra_ was pronounced _Uri_ and
confounded with _uru_, "city"; as a geographical term, however, it was
replaced by Akkadu (Akkad), the Semitic form of Agad[=e]--written Akkat