=4.= In studying the early parts of Biblical history the student should be mindful that history and traditions as recorded by the Assyrians were borrowed, or, more truly speaking, derived, from the early records of the Babylonian and Chaldæan nations, as in some cases is stated upon Assyrian tablets. This fact we have illustrated, page 26. The original records were kept at the old Chaldæan city of Erech, 90 miles southeast of Babylon, at the present ruins of Warka. Assur-bani-pal, the Assyrian king, beside being a great warrior, was also one who encouraged literature and had an immense library, for those days, 10,000 tablets from which were removed to the British Museum. In his time, 668‒647 B. C., the ancient Chaldæan tongue was translated into Assyrian, and in this library at Nineveh was a lexicon of the Chaldæo-Turanian language with the meaning of the words put in Assyrian cuneiform.[41] This showed that so many years had passed that the ancient Chaldæan language was, at that time, nearly lost. =5. Those records=, both of the Chaldæan and of the later Assyrian ages, have not only been of great service to the student of ancient history, but they have added much to the explanation and corroboration of Biblical history, as we shall hereafter have occasion to show. =6.= The ruins of both Nineveh and Babylon bear some names which are =reminiscences of Nimrod=, but these seem to have been applied at some comparatively recent date. The chief structure bearing the name of Nimrod is the _Birs Nimrud_, or Tower of Nimrod, ten miles southwest of the modern town of Hillah, which is near the ruins of Babylon. The large mass of burned brick at this place seems to have been originally erected in the form of a steep pyramid some six hundred feet in height and of the same length at its base. It is extremely ancient, as its Assyrian name proves, which name, Saggatu, “the high temple,” is an old Accadian word. =7. Nebuchadnezzar=, B. C. 604‒562, one of the greatest builders among the Babylonian kings, says of himself that he builded additions to it, although Tiglath-pileser repaired it one hundred years before. It is now a bare hill of yellow sand and bricks a few miles west of the banks of the Euphrates, reaching a height of about 200 feet, a vast mass of brick-work jutting from the mound to a further height of 37 feet. It is very probable that these are the most ancient remains to be found in Babylonia, and in its form seems to have furnished a universal model for all succeeding temples and towers in that region.[42] CHAPTER V. THE HISTORY OF ABRAM AND HIS TIMES.