Sippar-Amnanum (modern Tell ed-Der in

Baghdad Governorate Baghdad Governorate ( ar, محافظة بغداد ''Muḥāfaẓät Baġdād''), also known as the Baghdad Province, is the capital governorate of Iraq. It includes the capital Baghdad as well as the surrounding metropolitan area. The governorat ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

) was an

ancient Near Eastern The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

'' tell'' (hill city) about 70 kilometers north 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 ...

History

Sippar-Amnanum was the sister city (or suburb in some eyes) of

Sippar Sippar ( Sumerian: , Zimbir) was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its '' tell'' is located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah near Yusufiyah in Iraq's Baghdad Governorate, some ...

. Though occupied from the Akkadian Period little is known of its history before the

Old Babylonian period The Old Babylonian Empire, or First Babylonian Empire, is dated to BC – BC, and comes after the end of Sumerian power with the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the subsequent Isin-Larsa period. The chronology of the first dynasty ...

The chief deity of Sippar-Amnanum was

Annunitum Annunitum () or Anunītu was a Mesopotamian goddess of war. While initially she functioned as an epithet of Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna), she started to develop into a separate deity in the final years of the Sargonic period and through the Ur III per ...

, a warlike aspect of

Ishtar Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in S ...

favored by the

Akkadians The Akkadian Empire () was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia after the long-lived civilization of Sumer. It was centered in the city of Akkad () and its surrounding region. The empire united Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rul ...

. She is the daughter of

Enlil Enlil, , "Lord f theWind" later known as Elil, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Bab ...

. According to the

Cylinder of Nabonidus The Cylinders of Nabonidus refers to cuneiform inscriptions of king Nabonidus of Babylonia (556-539 BC). These inscriptions were made on clay cylinders. They include the Nabonidus Cylinder from Sippar, and the Nabonidus Cylinders from Ur, four i ...

the temple Eulmash of Anunitu (Amnanum) was rebuilt by that

Neo-Babylonian The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and bein ...

king. The cylinder also reports that the temple had earlier been built by Shagarakti-Shuriash, a king of the

Kassite dynasty The Kassite dynasty, also known as the third Babylonian dynasty, was a line of kings of Kassite origin who ruled from the city of Babylon in the latter half of the second millennium BC and who belonged to the same family that ran the kingdom of ...

. Presumably the temple had been destroyed in the interim by

Shutruk-Nakhkhunte Šutruk-Nakhunte was king of Elam from about 1184 to 1155 BC (middle chronology), and the second king of the Shutrukid Dynasty. Elam amassed an empire that included most of Mesopotamia and western Iran. Under his command, Elam defeated the ...

Elam Elam (; Linear Elamite: ''hatamti''; Cuneiform Elamite: ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ; he, עֵילָם ''ʿēlām''; peo, 𐎢𐎺𐎩 ''hūja'') was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretc ...

when he destroyed

. Note that there is some confusion on the city's name since Sinkashid, a king of

Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...

, refers to himself in an inscription as "King of the Amnanum", where Amnanum is thought to be a tribal group.

Archaeology

The site of Tell ed-Der, along with

, was excavated by

Hormuzd Rassam Hormuzd Rassam ( ar, هرمز رسام; syr, ܗܪܡܙܕ ܪܣܐܡ; 182616 September 1910), was an Assyriologist and author. He is known for making a number of important archaeological discoveries from 1877 to 1882, including the clay tablets tha ...

in the early 1880s. Most of the tablets ended up in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. As was often the case in the early days of archaeology, excavation records were not made, particularly find spots. This makes it difficult to tell which tablets came from Sippar-Amnanum as opposed to Sippar. More Tell ed-Der tablets were purchased from locals by E. A. Wallis Budge while he was in the region after brief attempts to dig there. A sounding was conducted there in 1941 by the Directorate General of Antiquities of the Iraqi Government under the direction of

Taha Baqir Taha Baqir ( ar, طه باقر ') (born 1912 in Babylon, Ottoman Iraq – 28 February 1984) was an Iraqi Assyriologist, author, cuneiformist, linguist, historian, and former curator of the National Museum of Iraq. Baqir is considered one of Iraq' ...

. Three hundred broken cuneiform tablets from the Old Babylonian period were found. Since the site is relatively close to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

, it was a popular target for illegal excavations. More recently, Tell ed-Der was excavated between 1970 and 1985 by the Belgian Archaeological Expedition to Iraq. The "House of Ur-Utu" was excavated in the mid-1970s. This residence, of the kalamahhum-priest of Annunitum, held around 2000 cuneiform tablets forming a household archive spanning several centuries. Most of the tablets were contemporary with the reigns of

Ammisaduqa Ammi-Saduqa (or Ammisaduqa, Ammizaduga) was a king, c. 1646–1626 BC according to the Middle Chronology dating, (or c. 1582–1562 according to the Short Chronology), of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Some twenty-one year-names survive for his reign ...

and

Ammi-ditana Ammi-Ditana was a king of Babylon who reigned from 1683–1640s BC. He was preceded by Abi-Eshuh Abī-Ešuḫ (variants: m''a-bi-ši'',''Chronicle of Early Kings'', (ABC 20), Tablet B, reverse, lines 8 to 10. "Abiši", m''E-bi-šum'',''Babylon ...

of the

First Babylonian dynasty The Old Babylonian Empire, or First Babylonian Empire, is dated to BC – BC, and comes after the end of Sumerian power with the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the subsequent Isin-Larsa period. The chronology of the first dynasty ...

.Khalid al-A'dami, 'Old Babylonian Letters from ed-Der', Sumer, vol. 23, pp. 151-165 and plates 1-17, 1967 The destruction of the house by fire helped preserve the tablets. Also found at Tell ed-Der were letters to another official, Ikunpisha, which were from kings Sumu-abum and Sumu-la-El of

Notes

References

*Rivkah Harris, Ancient Sippar: A Demographic Study of an Old Babylonian City (1894-1595 B.C.), Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch-Historisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1975 *Dietz Otto Edzard, Altbabylonische Rechts-und Wirtschaftsurkunden aus Tell ed-Der im Iraq Museum, Baghdad, Bayerischen Akademie, 1970 *L. De Meyer et al., Tell ed-Der: La vie en Babylonie il y a 4000 ans, Archeologia, no. 195, pp. 8–25, 1984 *L. De Meyer, Tell ed-Der, Tome II, Peeters, 1978, *L. De Meyer, Tell ed-Der, Tome III, Peeters, 1980, *L. De Meyer, Tell ed-Der, Tome IV, Peeters, 1984,

External links

Digital Sippar-Amnanum tablets at CDLI
{{Authority control 1880s archaeological discoveries Baghdad Governorate Archaeological sites in Iraq Former populated places in Iraq

History

Archaeology

See also

Notes

References

External links