Nippur: The History and Legacy of One of the Ancient Sumerians' Oldest Cities - Paperback

by Charles River (Author)

*Includes pictures
*Includes ancient accounts of Nippur
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
In southern Iraq, a crushing silence hangs over the dunes. For nearly 5,000 years, the sands of the Iraqi desert have held the remains of the oldest known civilization: the Sumerians. When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia. The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old Testament and the nascent field of Near Eastern studies had unraveled the enigma of the Akkadian language that was widely used throughout the region in ancient times, but the discovery of the Sumerian tablets brought to light the existence of the Sumerian culture, which was the oldest of all the Mesopotamian cultures.
Although the Sumerians continue to get second or even third billing compared to the Babylonians and Assyrians, perhaps because they never built an empire as great as the Assyrians or established a city as enduring and great as Babylon, they were the people who provided the template of civilization that all later Mesopotamians built upon. The Sumerians are credited with being the first people to invent writing, libraries, cities, and schools in Mesopotamia (Ziskind 1972, 34), and many would argue that they were the first people to create and do those things anywhere in world.
For a people so great it is unfortunate that their accomplishments and contributions, not only to Mesopotamian civilization but to civilization in general, largely go unnoticed by the majority of the public. Perhaps the Sumerians were victims of their own success; they gradually entered the historical record, established a fine civilization, and then slowly submerged into the cultural patchwork of their surroundings. They also never suffered a great and sudden collapse like other peoples of the ancient Near East, such as the Hittites, Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians did. A close examination of Sumerian culture and chronology reveals that the Sumerians set the cultural tone in Mesopotamia for several centuries in the realms of politics/governments, arts, literature, and religion. The Sumerians were truly a great people whose legacy continued long after they were gone.
Located approximately 100 miles southeast of present-day Baghdad, on the east bank of the Euphrates River, are the remains of a large complex of ruins known as Nippur, a once great city with a history that stretches back to the 5th millennium BCE. Nippur owed its prestige through its status as a religious capital; it was the main place of worship of the great Sumerian god Enlil, considered to be the lord of the cosmos in the Mesopotamian pantheon. The city contained the main sanctuary and temple of Enlil, the Ekur (meaning "House-mountain" or "House of Life"). This religious complex was located in the heart of the city, and was believed to be where the gods met together at assemblies to decide upon the future of mankind.
Throughout history, the kings of Mesopotamia and beyond traveled to Nippur to be consecrated at the Ekur-a ceremony that would symbolize their divine legitimacy as rulers. It was largely for these reasons that the struggles for possession of the city in the early days of the Paleo-Babylonian Empire (approximately 1830-1531 BCE) were so intense. The political situation in Nippur between the end of the Ur III kingdom and the end of the rivalry between Isin, Larsa, and Babylon was one of fierce competition over the site's ownership, and while it is likely that local authorities remained in place to preserve continuity and stability, the dominating rulers of Nippur changed frequently.