Lagaba was a city in the historical region of southern

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

(now

southern Iraq Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, ...

). It is the place of origin of many illicitly excavated

clay tablet In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylu ...

s,Oded Tammuz, The location of Lagaba. ''Revue d'Assyriologie et d'Archeologie Orientale'' 90: 19-25, 1996.

all in Akkadian language, Old Babylonian. More than 400 tablets are known to have originated there. Tablets from Lagaba are kept in various collections around the world, among which * the Babylonian Collection at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. Tablets from the Yale Babylonian Collection have been published by G.M. Beckman in the Catalogue of the YBC and by Oded Tammuz of Ben Gurion University many dated to the reign of Samsuiluna, * the Böhl Collection at

The Netherlands Institute for the Near East The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (Dutch: ''Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten''; colloquially known by its abbreviation: NINO) is an institution for the advancement of the study of the Ancient Near East, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, a ...

W.F. Leemans, ''Legal and Administrative Documents of the Time of Hammurabi and Samsuiluna (Mainly from Lagaba)'', Studia ad Tabulas Cuneiformes Collectas a F.M.Th. de Liagre Bohl Pertinentia I (3). Leiden: The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 1960. at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

, * the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, * various others.Luis R. Siddall, Wayne Horowitz and Peter Zilberg, Old Babylonian clay bullae from Lagaba in the Australian Institute of Archaeology and other collections. ''Buried History. Journal of the Australian Institute of Archaeology'' 54 (2018), 11-14. The precise location of Lagaba is unknown to this day. The first thorough investigation into the location of Lagaba was undertaken by Leemans, on the basis of tablets kept in Leiden. By reviewing a tablet from Lagaba kept in Yale, Tammuz in 1996 concluded it to be 15 km North-north-east of the city of

Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...

, on the western bank of the

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

River.

References

See also