Joey Michilli
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Eridu

Eridu is known as the first and oldest  Sumerian city and  capital of the Early Dynastic Period. According to Sumerian tradition,  the city was founded by and belonged to the god Enki, the god of wisdom, Eridu was considered an Earth Navel.The site of Eridu was discovered by J. E. Taylor in 1854, in a ruin then called by the natives AbuShahrein; located a few miles south-south-west of Moghair, ancient Ur, nearly in the centre of the dry bed of an inland sea. Eridu was once a thriving Sumerian sea-port, and was inhabited for over 2,000 years.The ruins, in which Taylor conducted brief excavations, consist of a platform of fine sand enclosed by a sandstone wall, 20 ft. high. The corners orientated toward the cardinal points, on the N.W. part of which was a pyramidal tower of two stages, constructed of sun-dried brick, cased with a wall of kiln-burned brick, the whole still standing to a height of about 70 ft. above the platform. The summit of the first stage was reached by a staircase on the S.E. side, 15 ft. wide and 70 ft. long, constructed of polished marble slabs, fastened with copper bolts, flanked at the foot by two curious columns. An inclined road led up to the second stage on the N.W. side. Pieces of polished alabaster and marble, with small pieces of pure gold and gold-headed copper nails, found on and about the top of the second stage, indicated that a small but richly adorned sacred chamber, apparently plated within or without gold, formerly crowned the top of this structure. Around the whole tower was a pavement of inscribed baked bricks, resting on a layer of clay 2 ft. thick. On the S.E. part of the terrace were the remains of several edifices, containing suites of rooms. Inscriptions on the bricks identified the site as that of Eridu. Eridu is best known for its temples, called Ziggurats. The earliest temple, dated to the Ubaid period about 5570 BC, consisted of a small room with a possible cult niche and an offering table. After a break, there were larger temples built and rebuilt on this site throughout its history. Each of these temples were built with classical early Mesopotamian format of tripartite plan, with a buttressed facade and a long central room with an altar. The Ziggurat of Enki was built for the Third Dynasty of Ur, 3,000 years after the city's founding.

                          

 In Sumerian mythology, it was said to be one of the five cities built before the Deluge occurred.  Eridu appears to be the earliest settlement in the region, founded ca. 5400 BC, close to the  Persian Gulf near the mouth of the Euphrates River. Because of accumulation of silt at the  shoreline over the millennia, the remains of Eridu are now some distance from the gulf at Abu  Shahrain in Iraq.In early Eridu, Enki's temple was known as E-abzu, or E-engura ("House of the subterranean waters" due to Enki's association with water), and was located at the edge of a  freshwater marsh, an abzu.

sources-(https://www.britannica.com/place/Eridu)