nd the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof
(_Micah_, v, 6).

It will be observed that the Sumero-Babylonians are Cushites or
Hamites, and therefore regarded as racially akin to the
proto-Egyptians of the Mediterranean race--an interesting confirmation
of recent ethnological conclusions.

Nimrod, the king of Babel (Babylon), in Shinar (Sumer), was, it would
appear, a deified monarch who became ultimately identified with the
national god of Babylonia. Professor Pinches has shown[298] that his
name is a rendering of that of Merodach. In Sumerian Merodach was
called Amaruduk or Amarudu, and in the Assyro-Babylonian language
Marduk. By a process familiar to philologists the suffix "uk" was
dropped and the rendering became Marad. The Hebrews added "ni" =
"ni-marad", assimilating the name "to a certain extent to the 'niphal
forms' of the Hebrew verbs and making a change", says Pinches, "in
conformity with the genius of the Hebrew language".

Asshur, who went out of Nimrod's country to build Nineveh, was a son
of Shem--a Semite, and so far as is known it was after the Semites
achieved political supremacy in Akkad that the Assyrian colonies were
formed. Asshur may have been a subject ruler who was deified and
became the god of the city of Asshur, which probably gave its name to
Assyria.

According to Herodotus, Nineveh was founded by King Ninus and Queen
Semiramis. This lady was reputed to be the daughter of Derceto, the
fish goddess, whom Pliny identified with Atargatis. Semiramis was
actually an Assyrian queen of revered memory. She was deified and took
the place of a goddess, apparently Nina, the prototype of Derceto.
This Nina, perhaps a form of Damkina, wife of Ea, was the great mother
of the Sumerian city of Nina, and there, and also at Lagash, received
offerings of fish. She was one of the many goddesses of maternity
absorbed by Ishtar. The Greek Ninus is regarded as a male form of her
name; like Atargatis, she may have become a bisexual deity, if she was
not always accompanied by a shadowy male form. Nineveh (Ninua) was
probably founded or conquered by colonists from Nina or Lagash, and
called after the fish goddess.

All the deities of Assyria were imported from Babylonia except, as
some hold, Ashur, the national god.[299] The theory that Ashur was
identical with the Aryo-Indian Asura and the Persian Ahura is not
generally accepted. One theory is that he was an eponymous hero who
became the city god of As