Nippur

Nuffar

Iraq · Al-Qadisiyyah

Ancient cityExcavation ongoing
Approximate period5,000 BCE — 800 CEApproximately from the Ubaid period to the Early Islamic period See on the map ↓

In brief

Nippur was the cult centre of the Sumerian god Enlil. Its layers, spanning approximately 5000 BCE to 800 CE, include houses, administrative buildings and areas where scribes worked, as well as temples.

What was found?

  • 1Ekur Temple and ziggurat

    The temple complex dedicated to the god Enlil is Nippur's principal monumental remains. It gives tangible form to the city's religious importance in the Sumerian world.

  • 2İnanna Temple

    It is one of the Sumerian temples uncovered during excavations. It shows that sacred buildings at Nippur were not limited to Enlil's temple.

  • 3Literary and school tablets

    Clay tablets containing Sumerian literature, dictionaries and writing exercises were found. The tablets from House F, which researchers believe was used as a school, help us understand how scribes were trained.

  • 4Clay city plan

    A city plan appears on a clay tablet dating to approximately 1250 BCE. It provides direct evidence of how an ancient city was mapped in its own time.

  • 5Parthian fortress

    The remains of a large Parthian fortress have been uncovered at the site. They also document the use of Nippur after the Sumerian period.

What does it point to?

The temples and tablets show that religious life and written culture were closely intertwined at Nippur. School exercises reveal the role of organized education in transmitting this culture from generation to generation.

What did it teach us?

  1. Provided fundamental sources for the rediscovery of Sumerian literature and the understanding of the Sumerian language.
  2. Made it possible to study scribal training through teachers' and students' exercises.
  3. Documented different phases of use within the same city, ranging from Sumerian temples to a Parthian fortress.

Images

Votive Bowl - Nippur Inanna Temple 6N-392
CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
The letter of Ludingirra to his mother. Terracotta tablet. From Nippur, Iraq. Circa 1700 B
Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Twilight Landscape of the Ziggurat at Nippur - Long-Range View Across the Site
Noémi Alzayadi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Record

Culture
Sumerian; Akkadian; Babylonian; Parthian; Islamic
First modern dig
1889
Team / historical
Augusta McMahon; University of Chicago Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage
Coordinates
32.1364°, 45.2210°

Sources

  1. whc.unesco.org
  2. isac.uchicago.edu
  3. Chicago Üniversitesi ISAC — Nippur Tablet Project

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12.000

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