At Nippur was located Bêl’s great temple which was commonly called E-kur, house of the mountain, a name particularly descriptive of the shrine of Bêl resting on the top of the mountain-like _ziggurrat_. Sargon I. calls himself the builder of Bêl’s temple at Nippur, and Narâm-Sin, the son of Sargon, also calls himself the builder of Bêl’s temple. Sargon’s language, which we take from a door-socket found at Nippur, is: “Šargani-šar-âli, son of Itti-Bêl, the mighty king of Agade, builder of E-kur, temple of Bêl in Nippur”.[14] The language of Narâm-Sin from a brick stamp found at Nippur is: “Narâm-Sin, builder of the temple of Bêl”.[15] Neither Sargon nor his son meant that he was the original builder of E-kur. They were simply repairers of the temple, like many other kings. Many kings down to the last king of the last empire took much pride in rebuilding temples. There must have been a temple at Nippur when En-šag-kušanna presented the spoil of Kîš to Bêl. Excavations at Nippur show that, as there are great deposits of debris above the temple pavements made by Sargon and his son, so beneath these pavements there is a further great layer of debris, proving that the founding of E-kur must reach far back into the darkness of pre-historic antiquity. Sargon’s bricks were the first to bear a stamp which we may consider to imply a date, but they were not the first bricks laid. The _ziggurrat_ which Ur-Gur, an early king of Ur, built is the first of which we have definite knowledge. We know something of the pavement that Sargon I. and Narâm-Sin built, but of the character of the buildings that might have rested on this pavement we have no information. Ur-Gur leveled the ground and built a new platform, 8 feet high and 100 by 170 feet in area with a _ziggurrat_ consisting of three stages. Some of the facings of his structure were made of burnt brick, bearing the inscription of Ur-Gur (see N. II, 124). The greatest temple Nippur ever had was built by an Assyrian king; viz., Ašurbânipal. The structure covered a larger surface than any before it. The walls, instead of being plain, were ornamented with square half columns. The lower terrace was faced with baked brick, stamped with an inscription in which the _ziggurrat_ is dedicated to Bêl, the lord of the lands, by Ašurbânipal, the mighty king, the king of the four quarters of the earth, the builder of E-kur (see N. II, 126).