Sippar

Coordinates: 33°03′32″N 44°15′08″E / 33.058829°N 44.252153°E / 33.058829; 44.252153 (Sippar)
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Sippar
Sippar
Sippar is located in Iraq
Sippar
Shown within Iraq
LocationBaghdad Governorate, Iraq
RegionMesopotamia
Coordinates33°03′32″N 44°15′08″E / 33.058829°N 44.252153°E / 33.058829; 44.252153 (Sippar)
Typetell
History
PeriodsEarly Dynastic, Old Babylonian, Neo-Babylonian

Sippar (Sumerian: 𒌓𒄒𒉣𒆠, 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 69 km (43 mi) north of Babylon and 30 km (19 mi) southwest of Baghdad. The city's ancient name, Sippar, could also refer to its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum (located at the modern site of Tell ed-Der); a more specific designation for the city here referred to as Sippar was Sippar-Yahrurum.[1]

History

Clay tablet and its sealed clay envelope. Legal document, listing of land and their distribution to several sons. From Sippar, Iraq. Old-Babylonian period. Reign of Sin-Muballit, 1812-1793 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin

Despite the fact that thousands of cuneiform clay tablets have been recovered at the site, relatively little is known about the history of Sippar. As was often the case in Mesopotamia, it was part of a pair of cities, separated by a river. Sippar was on the east side of the Euphrates, while its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum (modern Tell ed-Der), was on the west.

Hammurabi's Babylonia 1

While pottery finds indicate that the site of Sippar was in use as early as the

Neo-Babylonian time of the 1st millennium BC. Lesser levels of use continued into the time of the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian Empires.[2]

Sippar was the cult site of the sun god (Sumerian

Utu, Akkadian Shamash) and the home of his temple E-babbara (𒂍
𒌓𒌓𒊏, means "white house").

During early Babylonian dynasties, Sippar was the production center of wool. The

Old Babylonian period.[4] By the end of the 19th century BC, Sippar was producing some of the finest Old Babylonian cylinder seals.[5]

Sippar has been suggested as the location of the Biblical Sepharvaim in the Old Testament, which alludes to the two parts of the city in its dual form.[6]

Rulers

In the

Sumerian king list a king of Sippar, En-men-dur-ana
, is listed as one of the early pre-dynastic rulers of the region but has not yet turned up in the epigraphic records.

In his 29th year of reign

Nabonidos
record that they repaired the Shamash temple E-babbara.

Classical speculation

Xisuthros, the "Chaldean Noah" in Sumerian mythology, is said by Berossus to have buried the records of the antediluvian world here—possibly because the name of Sippar was supposed to be connected with sipru, "a writing".[7] And according to Abydenus, Nebuchadnezzar II excavated a great reservoir in the neighbourhood.[8]

Pliny (Natural History 6.30.123) mentions a sect of Chaldeans called the Hippareni. It is often assumed that this name refers to Sippar (especially because the other two schools mentioned seem to be named after cities as well: the Orcheni after Uruk, and the Borsippeni after Borsippa), but this is not universally accepted.[9]

Archaeology

Si.427 Obverse
Si.427 Reverse
Si.427, a tablet excavated in Sippar in 1894, depicting a land survey. A mathematical text dealing with the surface area of a field divided into 11 pieces.[10][11]
Hammurabi clay cone from Sippar at Louvre
Cylinder Seal, hematite. The king makes an animal offering to Shamash. The style of this seal suggests that it originated from a workshop in Sippar[12]

Tell Abu Habba, measuring over 1 square kilometer was first excavated by

Neo-Babylonian.[14][15] The temple had been mentioned as early as the 18th year of Samsu-iluna of Babylon, who reported restoring "Ebabbar, the temple of Szamasz in Sippar", along with the city's ziggurat
.

The tablets, which ended up in the British Museum, are being studied to this day.[16] 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.[17] Other tablets from Sippar were bought on the open market during that time and ended up at places like the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania.[18][19] Since the site is relatively close to Baghdad, it was a popular target for illegal excavations.[20]

In 1894, Sippar was worked briefly by Jean-Vincent Scheil.[21] The tablets recovered, mainly Old Babylonian, went to the Istanbul Museum.[22] In modern times, the site was worked by a Belgian team from 1972 to 1973.[23] Iraqi archaeologists from the College of Arts at the University of Baghdad, led by Walid al-Jadir with Farouk al-Rawi, have excavated at Tell Abu Habbah from 1977 through the present in 24 seasons.[24][25][26] In the 8th season a library of over 300 tablets was discovered but few were published at the time due to conditions in Iraq. With conditions improving they are now being published.[27][28][29] After 2000, they were joined by the German Archaeological Institute.[30][31] According to Andrew George, a cuneiform tablet containing a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh probably came from Sippar.[32]

In Sippar was the site where the Babylonian Map of the World was found.

Gallery

  • Map of the World from Sippar, Mesopotamia, Iraq. 6th century BCE. The British Museum
    Map of the World from Sippar, Mesopotamia, Iraq. 6th century BCE. The British Museum
  • Tablet of Nabu-apla-iddina, 9th century BCE, from Sippar, Iraq. British Museum
    Tablet of Nabu-apla-iddina, 9th century BCE, from Sippar, Iraq. British Museum
  • Detail, Sun God Tablet from Sippar, Iraq, 9th century BCE. British Museum
    Detail, Sun God Tablet from Sippar, Iraq, 9th century BCE. British Museum
  • Detail, Kudurru of Ritti-Marduk, from Sippar, Iraq, 1125-1104 BCE. British Museum
    Detail, Kudurru of Ritti-Marduk, from Sippar, Iraq, 1125-1104 BCE. British Museum

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 978-0-19-506512-1
    .
  2. ^ MacGinnis, John, Jon McGinnis, and Cornelia Wunsch. The arrows of the sun: armed forces in Sippar in the first millennium BC. Islet-Verlag, 2012 ISBN 9783980846653
  3. ^ "Law Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon" [1], Louvre, retrieved on 29 Nov 2013.
  4. OCLC 329699
    .
  5. OCLC 63186269
    .
  6. ^ G. R. Driver, Geographical Problems, Eretz Israel, vol. 5, pp. 18-20, 1958
  7. ^ Ward, William Hayes, "Sippara", Hebraica, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 79–86, 1886
  8. ^ Dalley, Stephanie, "Nineveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens: Cuneiform and Classical Sources Reconciled", Iraq, vol. 56, pp. 45–58, 1994
  9. S2CID 163366720
    .
  10. S2CID 224837017
    .
  11. ^ Beek, Martinus Adrianus (1973). Symbolae Biblicae Et Mesopotamicae Francisco Mario Theodoro de Liagre Böhl Dedicatae. Brill Publishers. p. 379.
  12. ^ Al-Gailani Werr, L., 1988. Studies in the chronology and regional style of Old Babylonian Cylinder Seals. Bibliotheca Mesopotamica, Volume 23.
  13. ^ [2] Hormuzd Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod: Being an Account of the Discoveries Made in the Ancient Ruins of Nineveh, Asshur, Sepharvaim, Calah, [etc]..., Curts & Jennings, 1897
  14. OCLC 2581635
    .
  15. ISBN 0-7141-1124-4
  16. ^ [3] Nebo-Sarsekim Cuneiform Tablet at Archaeology.org
  17. OCLC 50207588
    .
  18. ISBN 1-144-69277-6
    )
  19. OCLC 18962321
    .
  20. ^ E. A. Budge, By Nile and Tigris: A Narrative of Journeys in Egypt and Mesopotamia on Behalf of the British Museum Between the Years 1886 and 1913, John Murray, 1920
  21. ^ V. Scheil, Une Saison de fouilles a Sippar, Le Caire, 1902
  22. ^ [5]Adalı, Selim Ferruh, and Frahm Eckart, "The Slave-Girl's Child: A" Literary" Fragment from the Istanbul Sippar Archive", Aula Orientalis, pp. 5-17, 2021
  23. OCLC 8165805.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  24. ^ [6]Lamia al-Gailani and Walid al-Jadir, Seal Impressions from Sippar, Sumer, vol. 37, pp. 129-144, 1981
  25. OCLC 47677571
    .
  26. ^ W. al-Jadir and Z. Rajib, "Archaeological Results from the Eighth Season at Sippar", Sumer, vol. 46, pp. 69-90, 1990 (in arabic)
  27. ^ Fadhil, Anmar Abdulillah, and Enrique Jiménez, "Literary Texts from the Sippar Library I: Two Babylonian Classics", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 109.2, pp. 155-176, 2019
  28. ^ Fadhil, Anmar Abdulillah, and Enrique Jiménez, "Literary Texts from the Sippar Library II: The Epic of Creation", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 111.2, pp. 191-230, 2021
  29. ^ Fadhil, Anmar Abdulillah, and Enrique Jiménez, "Literary Texts from the Sippar Library III:‘Eriš šummi’, a Syncretistic Hymn to Marduk", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 112.2, pp. 229-274, 2022
  30. ^ Abdulillah Fadhil et al., Ausgrabungen in Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah). Vorbericht über die Grabungsergebnisse der 24. Kampagne 2002, in: Baghdader Mitteilungen (BaM) 36, pp. 157-224, 2005
  31. ^ Abdulillah Fadhil et. el., Sippar - Results of prospecting 2004/24, in: Sumer, A journal of archaeology in Iraq and the Arab world, vol. LII, no. 1&2, pp. 294-357, 2004
  32. OCLC 51668477.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )

Further reading

External links

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