The Akkadians (Assyrians, progeny of Shem’s son Asshur) named the land of the city states immediately to their south as Sumer, or Sumeru which is the name used by the Buddhists and Hindus for the center of the earth or its axis point, so apparently it was in remembrance of Nimrod’s Tower of Babel, having been constructed to defy that a flood had covered the earth, as well the supposed stairway to heaven.
