query: instance_of abu 
supports: Babylon (or ; Aramaic: , "Babel", , "Bavel", , "Bbil") was a major city of ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods. Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c. 2300 BC. The Hittites were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. This empire reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Anatolia as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire and the empire of the Mitanni for control of the Near East. The Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. After c. 1180 BC, during the Bronze Age collapse, the Hittites splintered into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until the 8th century BC before succumbing to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, or 0.600 M) This means that every kilogram (roughly one litre by volume) of seawater has approximately of dissolved salts (predominantly sodium and chloride ions). Average density at the surface is 1.025 kg/l. Seawater is denser than both fresh water and pure water (density 1.0 kg/l at ) because the dissolved salts increase the mass by a larger proportion than the volume. The freezing point of seawater decreases as salt concentration increases. At typical salinity, it freezes at about . The coldest seawater ever recorded (in a liquid state) was in 2010, in a stream under an Antarctic glacier, and measured . Seawater pH is typically limited to a range between 7.5 and 8.4. However, there is no universally accepted reference pH-scale for seawater and the difference between measurements based on different reference scales may be up to 0.14 units. Eridu (Cuneiform: NUN.KI ; Sumerian: eridu; Akkadian: "irîtu" modern Arabic: Tell Abu Shahrain) is an archaeological site in southern Mesopotamia (modern Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq). Eridu was long considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia and is still today argued to be the oldest city in the world. Located 12 km southwest of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew around temples, almost in sight of one another. These buildings were made of mud brick and built on top of one another. With the temples growing upward and the village growing outward, a larger city was built. In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was originally the home of Enki, later known by the Akkadians as Ea, who was considered to have founded the city. His temple was called E-Abzu, as Enki was believed to live in Abzu, an aquifer from which all life was believed to stem. The Hurrians (cuneiform: ; transliteration: "u-ur-ri"), also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter, were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurro-Urartian language called Hurrian, and lived in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia. The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the multi-ethnic kingdom of Mitanni, the Mitanni perhaps being Indo-European speakers who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-European-speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a large population of Hurrians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in Hittite mythology. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples. Their remnants were subdued by a related people that formed the state of Urartu. According to a hypothesis by I.M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin, the Hurrian and Urartian languages shared a common ancestor and were related to the Northeast Caucasian languages. The present-day Armenians are an amalgam of the Indo-European groups with the Hurrians and Urartians. Sumer was the first urban civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq, during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze ages, and arguably the first civilization in the world with Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers were able to grow an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus of which enabled them to settle in one place. A lake is an area of variable size filled with water, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land, apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are also larger and deeper than ponds, though there are no official or scientific definitions. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which are usually flowing. Most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams. Enki (Sumerian: ) is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians. He was the deity of crafts ("gašam"); mischief; water, seawater, lakewater ("a", "aba", "ab"), intelligence ("gestú", literally "ear") and creation ("Nudimmud": "nu", likeness, "dim mud", make beer). He was associated with the southern band of constellations called "stars of Ea", but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, "the Field" (Square of Pegasus). Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for "40," occasionally referred to as his "sacred number." The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian "Nabu" (the son of Marduk) was in Sumerian times, identified with Enki. Mesopotamia ("[land] between rivers"; from Ancient Armenian  (Mijagetq); "bild ar-rfidayn" "miyn rodn"; "Beth Nahrain" "land of rivers") is a name for the area of the TigrisEuphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and IranIraq borders. Abu in Sumerian religion was a minor god of plants . He was one of the eight deities born to relieve the illness of Enki . Abu means `` father of plants and vegetation . '' Stephen Langdon has proposed that Abu may have been an early name of Tammuz , on the basis that Abu was identified as the consort of Inanna , and that the name Abu did not appear in texts later than the Third Dynasty of Ur . Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East. It existed as an independent state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC in the form of the Assur city-state, until its lapse between 612 BC and 599 BC, spanning the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age. The Sumerian religion influenced Mesopotamian mythology as a whole, surviving in the mythologies and religions of the Hurrians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and other culture groups. Marduk (Sumerian spelling in Akkadian: AMAR.UTU "solar calf"; Greek , "Mardochaios") was a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (18th century BC), he slowly started to rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium BC. In the city of Babylon, he resided in the temple Esagila. "Marduk" is the Babylonian form of his name. Nabu is the patron god of scribes, wisdom and literature, being worshipped by the Assyrian and Babylonian people. He was identified as the son of the great god Marduk by the Babylonians and as the son of Ashur by the Assyrians.
candidates: 12 age aquifer archaeological site area band city civilization class conflict cult culture cuneiform day deity empire fresh water generation glacier god governorate historical region home iran lake liquid literature mass may millennium mythology name official people plain population reference religion river salinity salt scale size stream surface the city transliteration valley village water writing
answer: deity