ERECH

(Eʹrech).

One of the four cities constituting the “beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom” in the land of Shinar. (Gen. 10:10) Erech is today represented by a cluster of mounds at the site called Warka by the Arabs and known as Uruk to the ancient Akkadians of Mesopotamia. It is situated about a hundred and ten miles (177 kilometers) SE of Babylon on the W bank of the old bed of the Euphrates (the Shattek-Kar), or some four miles (6.4 kilometers) E of the present course of that river. An ancient ziggurat has been uncovered here, along with many mounds and coffins that seem to indicate that Erech was once a burial ground of the Assyrian kings.

Inhabitants of Erech (“Archevites,” AV) were among those peoples transported to Samaria by Assyrian Emperor Asenappar.—Ezra 4:9, 10.