Kufale-based Chronology


 * 1596 AM - Tower of Babel is begun.

(Note: R.H. Charles was normally careful to calculate the AM date from Jubilees correctly, but here, for some reason, he has made an error and miscalculated it to 1645 AM, adding an extra Jubilee when he should not have.)

Neither Genesis nor Jubilees ascribes this feat to the character of Nimrod, but plenty of other ancient texts do; the account by Josephus is typical.

I am convinced that "Nimrod" is the same king as the Enmerkar of Sumerian texts, who built a ziggurat in Eridu (the original 'Babel'.) He was also remembered in some histories as Euechoios, Euechoros, etc.

When the new city of Babel was built by Sargon the Great much later, they took Marduk as their patron deity, possibly a remembrance of the same name. This suggests a possibility that while the king's Sumerian name is transcribed as Enmerkar, it may have been pronounced something like Enmerdkar or Enmerdukar.

So on this basis, I assume that Enmerdkar created post-flood government with himself as king in this same year, 1596 AM, which year is 2357 BC according to my earlier calculation.

Reign of Enmerdkar
The sources for this reign are not just Sumerian. The "Kitab al-Magall" (KM) claims to be written by St. Clement, based largely on information passed on from Jesus to Peter, in the form of a scroll that was supposedly given to the infant Jesus by the Magi. Two other books, the "Cave of Treasures" (CT) and the "Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan" (AE) have slightly divergent details, but a careful study will reveal that the information in all three must be from the same original source. I will call these 3 the "Magi Scroll Family of texts". (MSF)

The Sumerian Kinglist (SKL) states that Enmerkar ruled for 420 (or 900) years. The "Magi Scroll Family" all agree that Nimrod's reign was 69 years, which is much more realistic. 69 years would bring it from 1596 AM until 1665 AM (2357-2288 BC).

We know from Jubilees that the Tower building went on 43 years until the peoples were scattered - 1596-1639 AM. (2357-2314 BC). My assumption, based on the texts, is that Enmerdkar continued to reign in Uruk, for another 26 years after that.

KM states that Nimrod built the other cities when Peleg was 50, although CT makes it when Reu was 50. When Peleg was 50 fits better with the Jubilees chronology, for that would be 1617 AM (2336 BC) - during the time the tower was still being built. I identify these three cities he built near the Euphrates as: Uruk in southern Mesopotamia, Akkad in middle Mesopotamia, and Harran in northern Mesopotamia. In the Bible, Harran has become "Calneh", which interpreters are not agreed about, but Jerome spells it Chalanne, and MSF specifically identifies Harran.

Around the same time, Asshur built some cities along the Tigris. Nineveh is mentioned as one of them in Genesis 10. The other names seem to have become corrupted and are less certain. However, the SKL has a clue. The ancestor of the standard versions of SKL we have, was heavily edited and distorted, for the benefit of a Kishite point of view. That is why Kish was moved to the "first" dynasty after the flood, before Uruk. The founder of this dynasty is called Gushur (where the G represents a sound that is not certain in Sumerian, but was similar to G, or even a glottal stop.)  Here I recognize the name of Asshur son of Shem, and thus identify Kish along with Nineveh as one of his cities, which became corrupted to "Calah" in Genesis 10.. The third city he built is undoubtedly the one that bears his name, Asshur. But in the Bible this became "Resen". I would thus emend the verse to: "Nineveh, the square city; Kish; and Asshur between Nineveh and Kish, that is, the capital city."

In 1639 AM (2314 BC by my count), as Jubilees tells us, the Tower project failed and all the peoples - whether black, white, yellow, or some mixture of these - began to scatter to their various allotments. The confusion of languages is also alluded to in the Sumerian Enmerkar sagas. The countries immediately around Sumer at this time are all named there. Shubur (Shuwur) = Asshur (upper Tigris). Martu (Amurru) = Amorites (descendants of Canaan, W. of Euphrates). Aratta is surely the old country around Mt. Ararat. Hamazi is East of the Tigris, between Shubur and Elam, and is described as 'many-tongued' - probably including several tribes mixed between Madai and Asshur's offspring. Lullubi is mentioned as part of this area, and Susa, Anshan, parts of Elam are mentioned.

Magog and Gomer took up either side of the Don River. Other Japhethites (Yawan, Tubal, Tiras, Meshech) moved into Asia Minor and beyond. Asia Minor was also to be contested by offspring of Shem (Lud - Luwia) and Ham (Heth - Khatti). Some of the legends of Cronus refer to this time. Aside from Africa, the Hamites (black) did not just occupy Canaan at first, but a strip of land extending to the Halys and probably all the way up to Colchis in Georgia, said to have a darker-skinned population even in Classical times. The area around Harran was already settled by Aram's offspring. After the Tower failed at Eridu, most of these people became out of the reach of Enmerdkar's central government at Uruk.

The Enmerkar sagas mainly concentrate on his early political dealings with his main rival, Aratta (the later Urartu). We can make educated guesses about some more events of his reign. At one point, it is stated that 50 years into his reign, the Martu people swarmed Sumer and Akkad, necessitating his building of a wall in the desert to protect Uruk. By my scheme, that event can be dated to 1646 AM = 2307 BC, or seven years after the Tower failed.

The sagas suggest that his post-Tower political rivalry with Aratta continued for some time; at one point it says he sent Aratta a diplomatic message after ten years of this. In another place, it mentions much later that Hamazi had been "destroyed" and that an agent fled from there to the court at Aratta. By the end of Enmerkar's reign, he takes a large army to seige Aratta for one year. Putting it all together, I infer (educated best guess) that about ten years after the Tower failed (1649 AM / 2304 BC) Enmerdkar  began to take action to deal with Aratta, including suppressing Hamazi that was sympahetic to Aratta. Since I placed the end of his reign at 1665 AM / 2288 BC, the seige of Aratta thus began in 1664 AM / 2289 BC. The tablet is broken, so that we don't know exactly how the siege turned out. But one of his commanders, Lugalbanda, seems to have had something to do with it, and he is also named as the next king at Uruk.

So to sum up, here is my tentative expanded timeline for this section:


 * 1596 AM - Enmerdkar becomes king, begins tower at Babel (Eridu)


 * 1597 AM - Peleg marries Lomna


 * 1600 AM - Reu born


 * ca. 1617 AM - Enmerdkar builds Uruk, Akkad & Harran. Asshur builds Niniveh, Kish, Asshur.


 * 1639 AM - Tower fails, peoples scattered


 * 1646 AM - Martu encroach in Sumer, Akkad, Enmerdkar builds wall in desert.


 * 1649 AM - Enmerkar subjects Hamazi during rivalry with Aratta


 * 1657 AM - Noah dies (possibly having long since moved to Crimea area)


 * 1664 AM - Enmerkar begins seige of Aratta


 * 1665 AM - Lugalbanda succeeds Enmerkar as King of Uruk.