Enmerkar, according to the Sumerian king list, was the builder of Uruk, and was said to have reigned for "420 years". The Sumerian king list is an ancient text in the Sumerian language listing kings of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties. ... For uses in the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkiens, see Uruk-hai, Erech (Middle-earth). ...

It adds that he brought the official kingship with him from the city of Eana, after his father Mesh-ki-ag-gasher, son of Utu, had "entered the sea and disappeared".

Enmerkar is also known from a few other Sumerian legends, most notably "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta". Here, he himself is called 'the son of Utu' (Utu was the Sumerian Sun god). In addition to founding Uruk, he is said here to have had a temple built at Eridu. Sumer (or Shumer, Sumeria, Shinar, native ki-en-gir) formed the southern part of Mesopotamia from the time of settlement by the Sumerians until the time of Babylonia. ... Aratta was an ancient state formation in Middle East. ... In Sumerian mythology, Utu is the offspring of Nanna and Ningal and is the god of the sun and of justice. ... Eridu (or Eridug) was an ancient city seven miles southwest of Ur. ...

David Rohl has claimed parallels between Enmerkar, (-KAR meaning "hunter"), founder of Uruk, and Nimrod the Hunter, founder of Erech (the Biblical name for Uruk) according to Genesis 10, and builder of the Tower of Babel in post-Biblical legends. Rohl has even suggested that Eridu near Ur was the original site of Babel, and that the incomplete ziggurat found there, by far the oldest and largest of its kind, are none other than the ruins of the Biblical tower. David Rohl is an Egyptologist who has put forth several controversial theories concerning the chronology of Ancient Egypt and Palestine. ... For other things named Nimrod, see the disambiguation page Nimrod. ... The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity in order to reach the heavens. ... Ur was an ancient city in southern Mesopotamia, originally located near the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers on the Persian Gulf and close to Eridu. ... This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. ... A zig·gu·rat (zĭg`ə-răt) is a temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley and Persia, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding storeys. ...

External link:

• Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (English translation from Sumerian) (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1823.htm)