At all events, all three expressions,
"Erech of the plazas," "Erech walled" and "Erech land," are to be
regarded as synonymous. The position once held by Erech follows also
from its ideographic designation (Br?nnow No. 4796) by the sign "house"
with a "gunufied" extension, which conveys the idea of Unu = _subtu_,
or "dwelling" _par excellence_. The pronunciation Unug or Unuk (see
the gloss _u-nu-uk_, VR 23, 8a), composed of _unu_, "dwelling," and
_ki_, "place," is hardly to be regarded as older than Uruk, which is
to be resolved into _uru_, "city," and _ki_, "place," but rather as
a play upon the name, both Unu + ki and Uru + ki conveying the same
idea of _the_ city or _the_ dwelling place _par excellence_. As the
seat of the second oldest dynasty according to Babylonian traditions
(see Poebel's list in _Historical and Grammatical Texts_ No. 2),
Erech no doubt was regarded as having been at one time "the city,"
i.e., the capital of the entire Euphrates Valley.
Line 31. A difficult line for which Langdon proposes the translation:
"Another axe seemed his visage"!!--which may be picturesque, but
hardly a description befitting a hero. How can a man's face seem
to be an axe? Langdon attaches _s?-ni_ in the sense of "second"
to the preceding word "axe," whereas _san? bunusu_, "change of his
countenance" or "his countenance being changed," is to be taken as
a phrase to convey the idea of "being disturbed," "displeased" or
"angry.
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