Nippur (Sumerian: Nibru, often logographically recorded as 𒂗𒆤𒆠, EN.LÍLKI, Enlil City;[1] Akkadian: Nibbur) was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities.[citation needed] It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the Lord Wind, ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone. Nippur was located in modern Nuffar in Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Pre-Sargonic era 1.2 Akkadian, Ur III, and Old Babylonian periods 1.3 Later history 2 Archaeology 3 Drehem 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links History[edit] Nippur never enjoyed political hegemony in its own right, but its control was crucial, as it was considered capable of conferring the overall kingship on monarchs from other city-states. It was distinctively a sacred city, important from the possession of the famous shrine of Enlil. According to the Tummal Chronicle, Enmebaragesi, an early ruler of Kish, was the first to build up this temple. [2] His influence over Nippur has also been detected archaeologically. The Chronicle lists successive early Sumerian rulers who kept up intermittent ceremonies at the temple: Aga of Kish, son of Enmebaragesi; Mesannepada of Ur; his son Meskiang-nunna; Gilgamesh of Uruk; his son Ur-Nungal; Nanni of Ur and his son Meskiang-nanna. It also indicates that the practice was revived in Neo-Sumerian times by Ur-Nammu of Ur, and continued until Ibbi-Sin appointed Enmegalana high priest in Uruk (ca. 1950 BC). Inscriptions of Lugal-Zage-Si and Lugal-kigub-nidudu, kings of Uruk and Ur respectively, and of other early pre-Semitic rulers, on door-sockets and stone vases, show the veneration in which the ancient shrine was then held, and the importance attached to its possession, as giving a certain stamp of legitimacy. On their votive offerings, some of these rulers designate themselves as ensis, or governors. Pre-Sargonic era[edit] Originally a village of reed huts in the marshes, Nippur was especially prone to devastation by flooding or fire. For some reason, settlement persisted at the same spot, and gradually the site rose above the marshes - partly from the accumulation of debris, and partly through the efforts of the inhabitants. As the inhabitants began to develop in civilization, they substituted, at least in the case of their shrine, mud-brick buildings instead of reed huts. The earliest age of civilization, the clay age, is marked by crude, hand-made pottery and thumb-marked bricks - flat on one side, concave on the other, gradually developing through several fairly marked stages. The exact form of the sanctuary at that period cannot be determined, but it seems to have been connected with the burning of the dead, and extensive remains of such cremation are found in all the earlier, pre-Sargonic strata. There is evidence of the succession on the site of different peoples, varying somewhat in their degrees of civilization. One stratum is marked by painted pottery of good make, similar to that found in a corresponding stratum in Susa, and resembling early Aegean pottery more closely than any later pottery found in Mesopotamia. This people gave way in time to another, markedly inferior in the manufacture of pottery, but apparently superior as builders. In one of these earlier strata, of very great antiquity, there was discovered, in connection with the shrine, a conduit built of bricks in the form of an arch. At some point, Sumerian inscriptions began to be written on clay, in an almost linear script. The shrine at this time stood on a raised platform, and apparently contained a ziggurat. Akkadian, Ur III, and Old Babylonian periods[edit] Babylonia in the time of Hammurabi. Late in the 3rd millennium BC, Nippur was conquered and occupied by the Semitic rulers of Akkad, or Agade, and numerous votive objects of Sargon, Rimush, and Naram-Sin testify to the veneration in which they also held this sanctuary. Naram-Sin rebuilt both the temple and the city walls, and in the accumulation of debris now marking the ancient site, his remains are found about half way from the top to the bottom. One of the few instances of Nippur being recorded as having its own ruler comes from a tablet depicting a revolt of several Mesopotamian cities against Naram-Sin, including Nippur under Amar-enlila. The tablet goes on to relate that Naram-Sin defeated these rebel cities in nine battles, and brought them back under his control. The Weidner tablet (ABC 19) suggests that the Akkadian Empire fell as divine retribution, because of Sargons initiating the transfer of holy city status from Nippur to Babylon. This Akkadian occupation was succeeded by an occupation during the third dynasty of Ur, and the constructions of Ur-Nammu, the great builder of temples, are superimposed immediately upon those of Naram-Sin. Ur-Nammu gave the temple its final characteristic form. Partly razing the constructions of his predecessors, he erected a terrace of bricks, some 12 m high, covering a space of about 32,000 m². Near the northwestern edge, towards the western corner, he built a ziggurat of three stages of dry brick, faced with kiln-fired bricks laid in bitumen. On the summit stood, as at Ur and Eridu, a small chamber, the special shrine or abode of the god. Access to the stages of the ziggurat, from the court beneath, was by an inclined plane on the south-east side. To the north-east of the ziggurat stood, apparently, the House of Bel, and in the courts below the ziggurat stood various other buildings, shrines, treasure chambers, and the like. The whole structure was oriented with the corners toward the cardinal points of the compass. Ur-Nammu also rebuilt the walls of the city on the line of Naram-Sins walls. The restoration of the general features of the temple of this, and the immediately succeeding periods, has been greatly facilitated by the discovery of a sketch map on a fragment of a clay tablet. This sketch map represents a quarter of the city to the east of the Shatt-en-Nil canal. This quarter was enclosed within its own walls, a city within a city, forming an irregular square, with sides roughly 820 m long, separated from the other quarters, and from the country to the north and east, by canals on all sides, with broad quays along the walls. A smaller canal divided this quarter of the city itself into two parts. In the south-eastern part, in the middle of its southeast side, stood the temple, while in the northwest part, along the Shatt-en-Nil, two great storehouses are indicated. The temple proper, according to this plan, consisted of an outer and inner court, each covering approximately 8 acres (32,000 m²), surrounded by double walls, with a ziggurat on the north-western edge of the latter. The temple continued to be built upon or rebuilt by kings of various succeeding dynasties, as shown by bricks and votive objects bearing the inscriptions of the kings of various dynasties of Ur and Isin. It seems to have suffered severely in some manner at or about the time the Elamites invaded, as shown by broken fragments of statuary, votive vases and the like, from that period. At the same time it seems to have won recognition from the Elamite conquerors, so that Rim-Sin I, the Elamite king of Larsa, styles himself shepherd of the land of Nippur. With the establishment of the Babylonian empire, under Hammurabi, early in the 2nd millennium BC, the religious as well as the political centre of influence was transferred to Babylon, Marduk became lord of the pantheon, many of Enlils attributes were transferred to him, and Ekur, Enlils temple, was to some extent neglected. Later history[edit] Under the succeeding Kassite dynasty, shortly after the middle of the 2nd millennium, Ekur was restored once more to its former splendour, several monarchs of that dynasty built upon and adorned it, and thousands of inscriptions, dating from the time of those rulers, have been discovered in its archives. After the middle of the 12th century BC follows another long period of comparative neglect, but with the conquest of Babylonia by the Assyrian king Sargon II, at the close of the 8th century BC, we meet again with building inscriptions, and under Ashurbanipal, about the middle of the 7th century BC, we find Ekur restored with a splendour greater than ever before, the ziggurat of that period being 58 by 39 m. After the fall of the Neo Assyrian Empire Ekur appears to have gradually fallen into decay, until finally, in the Seleucid period, the ancient temple wa
Posted on: Sun, 02 Mar 2014 17:20:30 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015