In each of twelve (directions) there emerged a nagu'. The word nagu, which in historical and geographical texts simply means 'region', seems to have a special cosmic or mythological significance on this tablet and in the Flood story of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet 11) there, as the flood waters subsided, Ut-Napishtim, the Babylonian Noah, 'looked about for the shores (kibrati), the boundaries of the sea. The 'four shores' (corresponding to the four quarters of the compass) is a regular Mesopotamian expression for the entire inhabited world. A final paragraph summarises, 'In all eight 'regions' of the four shores (kibrati) of the ea, their interior no-one knows'. It is not clear why the map twice gives the distance as six beru while the text, so far as preserved, consistently gives seven beru. This, like the notes on the map, seems to indicate the distance between the different 'regions' around the edge of the world. On the reverse of this tablet these eight 'regions' are described in eight broken and largely unintelligible paragraphs, each beginning 'To the first (second, etc) region to which you go (the distance is) seven beru'. This reflects the fact that the sun rises in the east, crosses the heavens, sets in the west, and then returns to the east (as the Babylonians thought) through the underworld or the underworld waters, never passing through the northern (or southern) regions of the world or underworld. In addition, beside the north-eastern 'region' is written 'Where Shamash is not seen'. These are each marked, na-gu-u, and beside each is written the note '6 (or 7) beru in between' (the beru is a Babylonian unit of time and linear measurement).

Urartu, an independent kingdom around the modern borders of Iran, Turkey and Russia, is placed relatively correctly to the north of Assyria.Д«eyond the circular 'Bitter River' are placed the eight outlying regions (nagu).

Habban, the homeland of a Kassite tribal group around Kermanshah in western Iran, is placed quite wrongly to the west of Babylon. Clay tablet map of the world shows the world as a disc, surrounded by a ring of water called the 'Bitter River' 'Babylon' is marked as a rectangle at the right end of the Euphrates although the city actually occupied both banks of the river during most of its history the river Euphrates flows south to a horizontal band, of which the right end is marked 'marsh' and the left end is marked 'outflow', thus the marshes at the head of the Gulf and either the Shatt al-Arab or where the river meets the cosmic 'Bitter River' to the right of the 'marsh' is a double curving line with a broken and unintelligible inscription small circles are used to indicate cities or districts, and two of which are identified as 'Assyria' and 'Der' three other geographical areas are marked, namely Bit-Yakin, the territory of an Aramaean tribal group around the southern Euphrates, is placed above its 'outflow'.

Babylon map