(Texts: All Artifacts, Color Coding, & Writings in Bold Type With Italics Inside Parenthesis, are Added by Editor R. Brown, not the Authors, Translators, or Publishers!)
(gods in blue … mixed-breed demigods in teal)
Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, protégé of the gods Nabû and Marduk, I:
(giant god Marduk orders his king to renovate the gods houses)
When the god Marduk, the great lord, issued his important order to me
to provide for cult centers (and) renovate shrines, at that time,
(with regard to) Sippar, the exalted, beloved cult center of the god Šamaš (Utu) and the goddess Aya,
the Euphrates River withdrew from it and (its) waters had become too distant to draw (water from it).
(earliest cities of the earliest advanced civilization; Nabopolasser Cylinder text)
As for me, Nabopolassar, the humble (and) respectful one who reveres the gods,
I had the Euphrates River dug to Sippar and (thereby) I firmly established
an abundance of pure water for the god Šamaš, my lord.
I firmly secured the bank of that river with bitumen and baked bricks
(Ninsun, semi-divine king,& Samas / Utu)
and (thereby) provided the god Šamaš, my lord, with a secure embankment.