Calneh

Calneh /ˈkælnə/ was said to be one of the four cities founded by Nimrod, according to the Book of Genesis in the Bible. (Genesis 10:10) Its identity is uncertain, and remains a mystery. The verse in question reads, ...the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar, and W.F. Albright proposed that this is not actually a proper name, but merely the Hebrew word meaning "all of them". Isaac Asimov agrees with this view, and the word is translated this way in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible: "The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar."

Calneh ("Chalanne") was identified with Ctesiphon in Jerome's Hebrew questions on Genesis, ca. 390 CE.Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary silently follows Sir Henry Rawlinson in interpreting the Talmudic passage Joma 10a identifying Calneh with the modern Nippur, a lofty mound of earth and rubbish situated in the marshes on the east bank of the Euphrates, but 30 miles distant from its present course, and about 60 miles south-south-east from Babylon.