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199 Damkina." We well know that she was the mother of Marduk; so all the clues point to him as the instigator. But Damkina stood by his side: “With my son I rise ..." she said. The incomplete verse that follows has her stating that “his number"—his numerical rank-status?—was at issue. The legible portion of column III then deals with Enid's efforts to talk the rebellious group out of their plans. Taking himself up in a Whirlwind, "Nunamnir [Enlil] from the heaven to earth spoke; [but] by his path they did not go; violently they fronted against him." When Enlil "saw this, to earth he descended." But even his very presence on the site did not make a difference. We read in the last column that "When a stop he did not make of the gods," he had no choice but to resort to force: To their stronghold tower, in the night, a complete end he made. In his anger, a command he also poured out: To scatter abroad was his decision. He gave a command their counsels to confuse. ... their course he stopped. The ancient Mesopotamian scribe ended the tale of the Tower of Babel with a bitter memory: Because they "against the gods re- volted with violence, violently they wept for Babylon; very much " they wept." The biblical version also names Babel (Hebrew for Babylon) as the place where the incident had occurred. The name is significant, for in its original Akkadian—Bab-Ili—it meant "Gateway of the Gods," the place by which the gods were to enter and leave Sumer. It was there, the biblical narrative states, that the perpetrators planned to construct "a tower whose head shall reach unto the heav- a ee a a re ens." The words are identical to the actual name of the ziggurat (seven-stage pyramid) which was the dominant feature of ancient Bab- ylon (Fig. 64): E.SAG.ILA, "House Whose Head is Lofty." The biblical and the Mesopotamian texts—undoubtedly based on an original Sumerian chronicle—thus relate the same incident: Marduk's frustrated attempt to prevent the transfer of kingship from Kish to Erech and Ur—cities destined to be power centers of Nannar/Sin and his children—and to seize suzerainty for his own nar Peace on Earth