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197 At that time "there was not yet kingship in the land; the rule was held by the gods." But the Great Council resolved to change that and to grant kingship to mankind. All the Sumerian sources agree that the first royal city was Kish. The men who were appointed by Enlil to be kings were called LU.GAL. "Mighty Man." We find the same record in the Old Testament (Genesis chapter 10): when mankind was establishing its kingdoms: Kish begot Nimrod; He was the first to be a Mighty Man in the Land... And the beginning of his kingship: Babel and Erech and Akkad, all in the land of Shin'ar [Sumer]. While the biblical text names the first three capitals as Kish, Babylon, and Erech, the Sumerian King Lists assert that Kingship moved from Kish to Erech and then to Ur, omitting any mention of Babylon. The apparent discrepancy has a reason: We believe it has to do with the incident of the Towerof Babel (Babylon), which the Old Testament records in no small detail. It was an incident, we believe, that had to do with Marduk's insistence that he, rather than Nannar, should possess Sumer's next capital. The time was clearly during the resettlement of the plain of Sumer(the biblical Shin‘ar), when new urban centers were being built: And as they travelled from the east, they found a valley in the Land of Shin'ar and settled there. And they said unto one another: "Let us make bricks, and burn them by fire"; and the brick served them as stone, and the bitumen served them as mortar. It was then that the scheme which caused the incident was sug- gested by an unnamed instigator: "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower whose head shall reach the heavens." "And Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower which the humans were building"; and he said to unnamed colleagues: "This is just the beginning of their undertakings; from now on. any- thing that they shall scheme to do shall no longer be impossible for them." And Yahweh said to his colleagues: "Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so that they would not understand each Peace on Earth