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99 Marduk’s ascent to supremacy. They were Pharaohs who bore theophoric names honoring Amon/Amen, so that both temples and kings were dedicated to Marduk/Ra as Amon, The Unseen, for Marduk, absenting himself from Egypt, se- lected Babylon in Mesopotamia to be his Eternal City. Both Marduk and Nabu survived the nuclear maelstrom unharmed. Although Nabu was personally targeted by Nergal/ Erra, he apparently hid on one of the Mediterranean islands and escaped harm. Subsequent texts indicate that he was given his own cult center in Mesopotamia called Borsippa, a new city situated near his father’s Babylon, but he continued to roam and be worshipped in his favorite Lands of the West. His veneration both there and in Mesopotamia is attested to by sacred places named in his honor—such as Mount Nebo near the Jordan River (where Moses later died)—and the theophoric royal names (such as Nabo-pol-assar, Nebo-chad- nezzar, and many others) by which famous kings of Babylon were called. And his name, as we have noted, became syn- onymous with “prophet” and prophecy throughout the an- cient Near East. Marduk himself, it will be recalled, was asking “Until Destiny Had Fifty Names FIGURE 39