Borsippa ( Sumerian: BAD.SI.(A).AB.BA^KI;

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...

: ''Barsip'' and ''Til-Barsip'')
The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory
': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. or Birs Nimrud (having been identified with

Nimrod Nimrod (; ; arc, ܢܡܪܘܕ; ar, نُمْرُود, Numrūd) is a biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush and therefore a great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of ...

) is an archeological site in Babylon Province,

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 the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

. The

ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has ...

is today one of the most vividly identifiable surviving ones, identified in the later

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

culture with the

Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...

. However, modern scholarship concludes that the

Sumero-Akkadian Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. 1 ...

builders of the Ziggurat in reality erected it as a religious edifice in honour of the local god

Nabu Nabu ( akk, cuneiform: 𒀭𒀝 Nabû syr, ܢܵܒܼܘܼ\ܢܒܼܘܿ\ܢܵܒܼܘܿ Nāvū or Nvō or Nāvō) is the ancient Mesopotamian patron god of literacy, the rational arts, scribes, and wisdom. Etymology and meaning The Akkadian "nab ...

, called the "son" of Babylon's Marduk, as would be appropriate for Babylon's lesser sister-city. Borsippa was an important ancient city of Sumer, built on both sides of a lake about southwest of Babylon on the east bank of the

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

History

Borsippa is mentioned, usually in connection with Babylon, in texts from the

Ur III The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC ( middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider t ...

period through the

Seleucid The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...

period and even in early Islamic texts. It is also mentioned in the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cent ...

(''Shabbat'' 36a, ''Avodah Zarah'' 11b) and other

Rabbinic literature Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...

. Borsippa was dependent upon Babylon and was never the seat of a regional power. From the 9th century BC, Borsippa was on the borderland south of which lay the tribal "houses" of Chaldea. The Jewish historian,

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

, mentions the city in relation to the war between Cyrus the Great and Nabonnedus. The temple to Nabu at Borsippa was destroyed in 484 BC during the suppression of a revolt against the

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

king Xerxes.

Archaeology

In 1854, work at Borsippa was conducted under the direction of

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, KLS (5 April 1810 – 5 March 1895) was a British East India Company army officer, politician and Orientalist, sometimes described as the Father of Assyriology. His son, also Henry, was to bec ...

, with most of the actual digging done by his subordinates. Rawlinson personally uncovered the foundation prisms from Nebuchadnezzar II's restoration on the Nabu temple. Between 1879 and 1881 the site 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 ...

for 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 ...

. He concentrated primarily on

E-zida Nabu ( akk, cuneiform: 𒀭𒀝 Nabû syr, ܢܵܒܼܘܼ\ܢܒܼܘܿ\ܢܵܒܼܘܿ Nāvū or Nvō or Nāvō) is the ancient Mesopotamian patron god of literacy, the rational arts, scribes, and wisdom. Etymology and meaning The Akkadian "nab� ...

, the temple of Nabu. In 1902,

Robert Koldewey Robert Johann Koldewey (10 September 1855 – 4 February 1925) was a German archaeologist, famous for his in-depth excavation of the ancient city of Babylon in modern-day Iraq. He was born in Blankenburg am Harz in Germany, the duchy of Brunswick, ...

worked at Borsippa during his main effort at Babylon also mainly on the Nabu temple. E-DIM-AN-NA, temple of the bond of heaven, built by Nebuchadrezzar for the god Sin in the court of E-zida was also excavated. For 20 seasons between 1980 and 2003 the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n team from the

Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

led by Helga Piesl-Trenkwalder and Wilfred Allinger-Csollich excavated for sixteen seasons at the site. Early work concentrated on the large ziggurat E-ur-imin-an-ki and later on the Nabu temple. Examinination determind that the ziggurat had a 60 by 60 meter core of unbaked brinks with a mantle of baked bricks (or Kassite and Neo-Babylonian origin) bringing the structure up to 78 by 78 meters. The mantle was covered by a layer of baked bricks bonded by bitumen. Reeds, ropes, and wooden beams were used to bond the layers together.It was found that the ziggurat had been partially hollowed out in Parthian times. Tablets of the

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...

tablets have originated at Borsippa and have turned up on the black market. Archives began to be published in the 1980s. An inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, the "Borsippa inscription," tells how he restored the temple of Nabu, "the temple of the seven spheres," with "bricks of noble lapis lazuli." that must have been covered with a rich blue glaze, surely a memorable sight. The Austrian archeologists have determined that Nebuchadnezzar's ziggurat encased the ruins of a smaller tower from the second millennium BC. When it was completed it reached a height of 70 meters, in seven terraces; even in ruin it still stands a striking 52 meters over the perfectly flat plain. Some tablets have been recovered, but archeologists still hope to uncover a temple archive of cuneiform tablets, of which there were some copies in ancient

Assyria Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...

n libraries. An inscribed foundation stone has been recovered, which details Nebuchadnezzar's plan to have the Borsippa ziggurat built on the same design as that at Babylon, of which only the foundation survives. Nebuchadnezzar declared that Nabu's tower would reach the skies, another inscription states. The reconstruction under the patronage of Bel-Marduk is summarized on a cylinder in

Antiochus I Antiochus I Soter ( grc-gre, Ἀντίοχος Σωτήρ, ''Antíochos Sōtér''; "Antiochus the Saviour"; c. 324/32 June 261 BC) was a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire. Antiochus succeeded his father Seleucus I Nicator in 281 BC and reigned du ...

, an example of the region's remarkable cultural continuity.A. Kuhrt and S. Selwin-White, "Aspects of Seleucid Royal Ideology : The Cylinder of Antiochus I from Borsippa", ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 111 (1991:71-86)

Gallery

File:The original ancient gypsum plaster between mud-bricks, Borsippa, Babel, Iraq.jpg, The original ancient gypsum plaster between mud-bricks, Borsippa, Babel, Iraq File:Stamped mud-brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq, 6th century BC.jpg, Stamped mud-brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq, 6th century BC File:Ruins around the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq.jpg, Ruins around the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq File:Original tiles at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq.jpg, Original tiles at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq File:The upper surface of the ruins of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq.jpg, The upper surface of the ruins of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq File:Modern cement covering ancient bricks at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu, Borsippa, Iraq.jpg, Modern cement covering ancient bricks at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu, Borsippa, Iraq File:Ruins of the lower part of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq.jpg, Ruins of the lower part of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq File:Stamped mud-brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu, Borsippa, Iraq.jpg, Stamped mud-brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu, Borsippa, Iraq File:The upper part of the Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq.jpg, The upper part of the Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq File:The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq. 6th century BC.jpg, The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq. 6th century BC File:The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat of Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq. 6th century BC.jpg, The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat of Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq. 6th century BC File:The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq.jpg, The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq File:Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu, Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq, sixth century BC.jpg, Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu, Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq, sixth century BC File:Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq.jpg, Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq

Notes

References

*G. Frame, The "First Families" of Borsippa during the Early Neo-Babylonian Period, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 67–80, 1984 *John P. Peters, The Tower of Babel at Borsippa, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 41, pp. 157–159, 1921 *Francis Joannes, Archives de Borsippa la famille Ea-Iluta-Bani : etude d'un lot d'archives familiales en Babylonie du VIIIe au Ve siecle av. J.-C, Droz, 1989 *Susan Sherwin-White, Aspects of Seleucid Royal Ideology: The Cylinder of Antiochus I from Borsippa, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 111, pp. 71–86, 1991 *Caroline Waerzeggers, The Carians of Borsippa, Iraq, vol. 68, pp. 1–22, 2006 *Caroline Waerzeggers, The Ezida temple of Borsippa Priesthood, cult, archives (Achaemenid History vol. 15), Leiden, 2010

External links