"The temple of the Life of Heaven is destroyed--who, in the day of its glory, has cut off its glory? The everlasting temple, the building of Uriwa, The everlasting temple, the building of Ê-kis-nu-gala. The city Uriwa is a house of darkness in the land-- Ê-kis-nu-gala (and) Nannara."
"Let heaven rest with earth, heaven enclosed with earth. Father Nannar, lord of Uriwa, To the great lady, the lady of Ê-kis-nu-gala, give thou rest. To heaven with earth, heaven and earth, (give thou rest). To the heaven of Uras, at _se-gu-nu_, The god Enki, the goddess Ninki, the god Endu, the goddess Nindu, The god En-da-u-ma, the goddess Nin-da-u-ma, The god En-du-azaga, the goddess Nin-du-azaga, The god En-u-tila, the god En-me-sarra, The princess of the Life of Heaven, the lady of the mountain."
"... he will restore the site of Ê-kis-nu-gala."(33)
Thus does the poet of ancient days, in a composition in the non-Semitic idiom of his time, lament the misfortunes which had come over the temple and city--how, whether by was by famine, or by some other mischance, we know not. It serves to show, however, not only the poetical spirit which animated the Akkadians at the time, but also the high esteem in which the temple and the deities venerated therein were held, and the power attributed to the Moon-god in the centre of his worship. The fact that Ur (Mugheir) was an important place for the worship of the Moon-god has been not seldom quoted in support of the identity of this city with Ur of the Chaldees, because Haran, the city to which Abram migrated with his father Terah, was also a centre of the worship of Sin. This, in itself, is not at all improbable, the Jewish tradition being, that Terah was an idolater.(34) That Terah should go 560 miles simply for this reason, when he might have found a suitable settlement nearer, seems to be in the highest degree unlikely, minor shrines of the Moon-god being, in all probability, far from rare in Babylonia.(35) He simply sojourned there because, in his journeyings, it suited him to stay there. If he were a devotee of the Moon-god, he was in all probability the more pleased to take up his abode there. But he may not have worshipped that divinity at all, or if he did do so, may not have honoured him more than the Sun-god, Anu, the god of the heavens, or the goddess Istar.