6. Down on the ground Nunki was Eridu: ... Eridhu, or Eri-duga, the Holy City, Nunki, or Nunpe, one of the oldest cities in the world, even in ancient Babylonia, was that kingdom's flourishing port on the Persian Gulf, but, by the enchroachments of the delta, its site is now one hundred miles inland. In its vicinity the Babylonias located their sacred Tree of Life ... 
Up in the sky Nunki
ought still to be like a port;
no silt accumulates in Heaven:
The orientation in the map copied from my astronomy book is different from that in the map from Wikipedia. The blue map has its 18h line horizontally drawn, but it is easy to recognize the curved tail of Scorpius and the curve of the Corona Australis stars. From the former stars we can move straight up and find the stars at the curve of Corona Australis. The bright star above N in CORONA is Ascella and the still brighter star to its right and somewhat below is Nunki. Indeed it looks as if it was on the border between the Milky Way and the background. If the Milky Way is regarded as a kind of river then Nunki is on a peninsula. |
