The Footprints of Nimrod in
the Ancient World
K. G. Powderly Jr.
When names move from
language to language, certain
rules generally apply...



The hard consonants remain most stable
Followed by easily transformed “softer”
consonants, like N to M, R to D, F to V—or P, B
to V—or D, or close hards like D to T,
Vowels and the softest consonants, like H, are
like silly putty
Nimrod’s name takes many
forms, some as titles
Close association exists between the Sumerian
King of Uruk (Erech), Enmerkar and the Genesis
Nimrod, in which there are more historical
similarities than theoretical problems...
En-mer-kar has the same consonants (NMR) if you
consider that the “rolling R” had an RD effect that shows
up elsewhere in Genesis 10-11 (Rhodanim is sometimes
rendered Dodanim), then he also has the D
Kar is Sumerian for hunter, and may be a title
En and Nim (or Nin) are both words for lord in the priestly
or deified sense (the name Ninurta means both fish and
Lord Who Completes the Foundation—the first being the
name’s original meaning, the second what it later came to
mean. The Hebrew form of it came to mean Let Us Rebel.)

Ancient
Uruk—the
Erech of
Genesis 10
A statuette of
one of Uruk’s
kings (right)
Striking similarities between Nimrod and
Enmerkar...
Both are associated with the building of a “tower”
Both are in accounts (one Sumero-Akkadian, the
other Hebrew) that describe the confounding of
languages from a single original tongue
Both are described as “great hunters”
Both are described as having been the ruler of Uruk
(the Erech of Gen. 10) early in their careers
Both are described as military expansionists
Both are associated with the goddess Inanna / Ishtar
by Sumero-Akkadian myth and by Hebrew legends

Was the great warrior-hunter god Ninurta
a deified Enmerkar / Nimrod?
There are also some problems that
require adequate examination...
Enmerkar is the 2nd King of Uruk in a 2nd postFlood dynasty preceded by a long 1st Dynasty
Archeology seems to show evidence of lengthly
occupation of Mesopotamia before Enmerkar
Archaeological evidence seems to suggest a
fairly wide human dispersion by Enmerkar’s time
While it is impossible to harmonize all of the
documentary evidence—much of it being
polytheist historic revisionism—there is a need
for more robust YE Creationist historical models
for this period

There are lines of inquiry that may help
explain these problems in the future...
On the dynastic question, there are no hero epics of
the 1st Dynasty, even though one king in it—Etanna—
was said by the list to have been “taken into heaven”
Hero epics begin suddenly, and prolifically with
Meshkiagashar, Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, Dumuzi and
Gilgamesh—the first 5 kings of the 2nd Uruk Dynasty
st and 2nd Dynasties
Some scholars suggest the 1
were contemporary with each other because the 1st
Dynasty names are mostly Akkadian, while the 2nd
Dynasty names are Sumerian, which greatly shortens
the portrayed time between the Flood and Enmerkar

More on Nimrod and Enmerkar...
The fact that Genesis 10 does not list Nimrod with
Cush’s 5 other sons in verse 7, but only after
Raamah’s son’s (Cush’s grandsons), in a special
parenthetical verse, allows for the possibility that
Nimrod was a grandson or great grandson of Cush
 Enmerkar’s father, Meshkiagasher, is also quite
possibly a Sumerian representation of Cush
It is important to remember that the inspired
original autograph of Genesis gives us true truth,
but not often exhaustive detailed explanation—we
need to be conscious of the assumptions we carry
to the text even as we seek to interpret it
straightforwardly

Genesis on Nimrod
Gen 10:7 And the sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah, and
Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha. And Raamah's sons were
Sheba and Dedan.
Gen 10:8 And Cush fathered Nimrod; he began to be a mighty
one in the land.
Gen 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before Jehovah; so it is said,
Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before Jehovah.
Gen 10:10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and
Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
Gen 10:11 From that land he went forth to Assyria and built
Nineveh, and Rehoboth the city, and Calah,
Gen 10:12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, which is a
great city.
The Other Cities of Nimrod
Akkad as a city is undiscovered, but it is likely a region
name rather than a city. Calneh has not been identified
Rehoboth means room or
space—likely the expanded
part of Nineveh. Resen is an
outpost on the road to Kalhu
Ziggurat at Nineveh
Kalhu (Calah in Genesis)
Babel or Bab-ilu means “Gate of God” in Akkadian—the
earliest known Semitic Language. It was virtually synonymous to the
Temple of Etemenanki, “The Foundation of Heaven and Earth”
Nun-Ki Ziggurat at Eridu
“The more the gods become like men, the
easier it is for men to believe the gods.
When both have only human appetites, then
rogues may worship rogues...” Miller 1977
The Sumerian term Etemenanki
was used to describe both the
ziggurat temple at Eridu and
the later great Babylonian
temple of Marduk. This might
mean the original Babel is at
Eridu, Sumer’s 1st city, instead
of Babylon—or it may be that
the reconstructed Babylon
totally excavated the original
away, but that would be most
untypical because all
Mesopotamians built over and
included their older temples
when they expanded
As for the archaeological suggestions of long
post-Flood human habitation and dispersal...
The questions should be studied by YEC archaeologists in
detail, though tentative possibilities are...
That what are often taken for hundreds or more years of
previous habitation may actually represent rebuilding and
remodeling over a much shorter time...
Especially with immediate post-Flood longevity and rapid
population growth
Some human expanse beyond Mesopotamia is not
unthinkable—refusal to “scatter abroad” could have been
driven by Nimrod’s propaganda magnifying dangers to
small clans that had already moved away, and it is not clear
that lack of dispersal was the heart of the revolt anyway

Sumer’s Revisionist Theo-history:
Enmerkar’s Grandson Gilgamesh Slays the
Flood-sending Monster “Hu-Wa-Wa”
Hu-Wa-Wa is described as a
humaniform monster (not a
dinosaur) who dwelt west of
Mesopotamia in the cedar forests
of what is now Lebanon. Sumer
still feared him
(This doesn’t mean that Nimrod
didn’t hunt dragons too)
Hu-Wa-Wa sent floods
Is Hu-Wa-Wa a post-Babel
mockery of Noah’s God Ya-HaWaH?
Sumerian depictions of
Hu-Wa-Wa
A Temporary Historical Backlash
or Son Nimrod Sacks Papa Cush
Shem temporarily gains an upper hand in Akkad and
exiles Nimrod with his father Cush, or...
Nimrod sacks Cush himself, and sends him, with his
other sons, and troublesome ancestors into exile by sea
Meshkiaggasher the father of Enmerkar “vanished into
the sea” according to the Sumerian accounts
Gilgamesh later finds the Sumero-Akkadian “Noah” on
Dilmun, on or near the Island of Bahrain
This “Noah” may be Ham, or possibly Noah, or Shem—
people politically troublesome to Nimrod’s revisionist
history and his claims as God-King, but who would even
be more troublesome as martyrs if executed

Advantages of the “Temporary
Semitic Backlash” Hypothesis:
It gives Shem and Japheth a window to bring enough short-lived
order to the post-Babel chaos to divide the lands to the 70 original
tribes of Genesis 10, as it is hard to imagine how they could do this
without holding Nimrod back in some way
The mythologies of Sumer, Canaan, and Egypt are defined by
central “mother-son” deities in which the “son” is in some sense
the return of a “father” either killed or in some other way lost—in
Egypt the myth takes the form of an “avenging son” of Osirus—
Horus “Aha” the Falcon
These myths differ as they spread—they are not “resurrected
gods”—Osirus remains in the underworld as its god, Sumer’s
Dumuzi (Tammuz) is returned from Underworld without dying at the
plea of his grieving wife Inanna (Akkadian Ishtar)
Like the reforms of Josiah in Judah, this temporary victory did not
have popular support—a “son of Nimrod” overthrew it quickly

The ‘Exodus’ of Cush and Nimrod
Dilmun
Ninurta = “fish” in Assyrian, while Narmer = “catfish” in
Egyptian
Earliest Pharaohnic Dynasty comes from Cush
Boat petroglyphs from southern Egypt—Invaders from
across the Red Sea into a “New Cush” colony
“This Falcon tribe (of Horus) had certainly originated in Elam (Susiana), as indicated
by the hero and lions on the Araq knife handle. They went down the Persian Gulf and
settled in ‘the horn of Africa.’ There they named the ‘Land of Punt,’ sacred to later
Egyptians as the source of the race. The Pun people founded the island fortress of
Ha-fun which commands the whole of the coast, and hence came the Punic or Phenic
peoples of classical antiquity. ... Those who went up the Red Sea formed the dynastic
invaders of Egypt entering by the Kuseir-Koptos road. Others went on to Syria and
founded Tyre, Sidon and Aradus, named after their home islands in the Persian Gulf.”
Legend―the Genesis of Civilisation, David Rohl, 1998, pp. 304-305
Rohl’s Migration Map
David Rohl is NOT a YE Creationist or
even a Supernaturalist, but he favors
a corrected Egyptian chronology that
fits the Old Testament much better
than Manetho’s “Long Chronology”
Boats were sacred to the pharaohs of the
Egyptian “Old Kingdom,” particularly the 1st
Dynasty though to that of Pyramid-builder Khufu
Unlike the
Egyptian-type
boats (left & right)
Earlier boats, like
earlier pyramids
had a much more
Sumerian style
The earlier Sumerian-styled square-hulled
boat in a Southern Egyptian petroglyph
Egypt’s earliest pyramid
The 1st Pharaoh, Horus-Aha (a.k.a. Menes), son of
Narmer, united Upper & Lower Egypt with a
Sumerian-styled “pear-shaped” mace
The Gebel el-Arak Knife, found in “Upper The “Narmer Pallette” shows Narmer
(Southern) Egypt,” has square-hull ships, executing his foes with a pear-shaped mace.
Sumerian dogs, and a “beast-master” clad Note the long-necked animals looping necks
in Sumerian hair-style and long coat
in a common Sumerian motif
The Footprints of Nimrod appear
on 2 levels: historical & mythical
In Egypt he shows mythically as Osirus, but historically as Narmer
Both myth systems should be read as hostile revisionist theohistory to the God of Noah
In Sumer he appears mythically as the war-god Ninurta, but
historically as Enmerkar
Osirus is “deceived” by his “evil” uncle/brother Set, killed, and
dismembered to prevent any “magical reanimation” (one wonders if
“Set” might not be a title of Shem as the appointed “Son of Seth”)
Osirus’ wife Isis hid their son Horus while she chased down the
separated pieces of Osirus’ corpse, sewed them back together
(except the phallus, which was eaten by fishes), and re-animated
him to become God of the Underworld—not a resurrected god who
made appearances “to over 500 people” in the world of the living
Egypt’s religious ritual is modeled on this entire account

Nimrod is the prototype “god-emperor”
As such, he has set the
mold for human
history—at least as far
back as extra-Biblical
sources can go. Only
the Bible goes “outside
the box” to give us the
freedom & clarity to
escape the abyss of
that tyranny
Osirus (green because he’s dead) and Isis blessing a falconheaded pharaoh entering the Underworld
Incurably religious Humanity—even in America—
has yet to outgrow this mold on its own