"There are many points from which to start new trips of exploration into the Gilgamesh Epic, once it is conceded that reasonable questions have to be asked. Among the many we single out two, without intending to "get at the bottom of the matter"; the first concerns the "ferryman", the second concerns "trees".

Face to face with the ferryman Urshanabi, a kind of personified ME who was dragged away from the "confluence of the rivers" to check the proper measure of Uruk, it can hardly be taken for a farfetched idea that we ask for comparative "individuals" or "places" in other Mesopotamian texts. There is, indeed, no need for a frantic search : the Enuma Elish offers us an equally decisive item from which depends the whole skeleton may, namely "Nibiru" (or "Neberu").

There are three passages of the so-called "Babylonian Genesis" that give -- recognizable at first glance -- details of the surveying of the new world as accomplished by Marduk/Jupiter. In Speiser's translation they read thus (ANET, pp. 67, 69) :

He crossed the heavens and surveyed the regions. He squared Apsu's quarter, the abode of Nudimmud [Ea], As the lord measured the dimensions of Apsu. The Great Abode, its likeness, he fixed as Esharra The Great Abode, Esharra, which he made as the firmament. Anu, Enlil, and Ea he made occupy their places.

He constructed stations for the great gods, Fixing their astral likenesses as constellations. He determined the year by designating the zones : He set up three constellations for each of the twelve months. After defining the days of the year by means of heavenly figures, He founded the station of Nibiru to determine their heavenly bands, That none might transgress of fall short. Alongside he set up the stations of Enlil and Ea."

read the rest here ~~
http://www.apollonius.net/trees.html