Borsippa (Sumerian: BAD.SI.(A).AB.BAKI; Akkadian: Barsip and Til-Barsip)[1] or Birs Nimrud (having been identified with Nimrod) is an archeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. The ziggurat is today one of the most vividly identifiable surviving ones, identified in the later Arabic culture with the Tower of Babel. However, modern scholarship concludes that the Babylonian builders of the Ziggurat in reality erected it as a religious edifice in honour of the local god Nabu, called the "son" of Babylon's Marduk, as would be appropriate for Babylon's lesser sister-city.
Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Hormuzd Rassam, Robert Koldewey, Helga Piesl-Trenkwalder, Wilfred Allinger-Csollich
Condition
Ruined
Ownership
Public
Public access
Yes
Borsippa was an important ancient city of Sumer, built on both sides of a lake about 17.7 km (11.0 mi) southwest of Babylon on the east bank of the Euphrates.
Borsippa is mentioned, usually in connection with Babylon, in texts from the Third Dynasty of Ur through the Seleucid Empire and even in early Islamic texts. It is also mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 36a, Avodah Zarah 11b) and other rabbinic literature. Borsippa was dependent upon Babylon and was never the seat of a regional power. From the ninth century BC, Borsippa was on the borderland south of which lay the tribal "houses" of Chaldea.
In the 1st millennium BC, the city had a large scribal class.[4]
Archaeologyedit
Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq. 6th century BC
In 1854, work at Borsippa was conducted under the direction of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, with most of the actual digging done by his subordinates.[5] 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 for the British Museum.[6][7] He concentrated primarily on E-zida, the temple of Nabu. In the 1890s looters removed about 2000 cuneiform tablets, mostly from the Ezida.[8] In 1902, Robert Koldewey 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.[9][10][11]
For 20 seasons between 1980 and 2003 the Austrian team from the Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck led by Helga Piesl-Trenkwalder and Wilfred Allinger-Csollich excavated for sixteen seasons at the site.[12][13] Early work concentrated on the large ziggurat E-ur-imin-an-ki and later on the Nabu temple. Examinination determined 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.[14] It was found that the ziggurat had been partially hollowed out in Parthian times.[15] Tablets of the Neo-Babylonian period were found. Excavations can currently not be carried out due to political events. The elaboration of the results of excavations within the project "Comparative studies of Borsippa - Babylon" are conducted.[16][17][18][19][20]
Many legal administrative and astronomical texts on cuneiform 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 Assyrian 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 Akkadian of Antiochus I, an example of the region's remarkable cultural continuity.[21][22]
Galleryedit
The original ancient gypsum plaster between mud-bricks, Borsippa, Babel, Iraq
Stamped mud-brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq, 6th century BC
Ruins around the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq
Original tiles at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq
The upper surface of the ruins of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq
Modern cement covering ancient bricks at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu, Borsippa, Iraq
Ruins of the lower part of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq
Stamped mud-brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu, Borsippa, Iraq
The upper part of the Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq
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
The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat of Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq, 6th century BC
The ruins of the so-called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Iraq
Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu, Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq, sixth century BC
Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq
^M. A. Dandamayev, "Ezida Temple and the Cult of Nabu in Babilonia of the First Millennium", Vestnik drevnej istorii, no. 3, pp. 87-94, 2009
^Zadok, Ran, "The Scribes of Borsippa in the First Millennium BC: A Preliminary Survey", The IOS Annual Volume 22:“Telling of Olden Kings”. Brill, pp. 67-92, 2022
^[1]Henry C. Rawlinson, "On the Birs Nimrud, or the Great Temple of Borsippa", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 18, pp. 1-34, 1861
^Hormuzd Rassam (1897). "Asshur and the Land of Nimrod: Being an Account of the Discoveries Made in the Ancient Ruins of Nineveh, Asshur, Sepharvaim, Calah, (etc)..." (PDF). Curts & Jennings.
^J. E. Reade," Rassam's Excavations at Borsippa and Kutha, 1879-82", Iraq, vol. 48, pp. 105-116, 1986
^Robson, Eleanor, "The Socio-Economics of Cuneiform Scholarship after the ‘End of Archives’: Views from Borsippa and Uruk", At the Dawn of History: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J. N. Postgate, edited by Yağmur Heffron, Adam Stone and Martin Worthington, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 459-474, 2017
^Robert Koldewey, "The excavations at Babylon, University of Michigan Library, 1914
^Robert Koldewey, "Die Tempel von Babylon und Borsippa", WVDOG 15, Leipzig, 1911 ISSN 0342-118X
^Andrae, Walter, "BORSIPPA 1902", Babylon: Die versunkene Weltstadt und ihr Ausgräber Robert Koldewey, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 149-152, 1952
^[2]Trenkwalder-Piesl, H., "Report about the excavations in Borsippa (second season 1981)", Sumer 41, pp. 101–105, 1981
^Kaniuth, Kai, "Borsippa—Preliminary Report on the 18th-20th Campaigns (2001-2003).", Sumer 52.1, pp. 9-16, 2004
^"Recent Excavations in Iraq.", Iraq, vol. 61, pp. 195–202, 1999
^"Excavations in Iraq 1985-86.", Iraq, vol. 49, pp. 231–51, 1987
^W. Allinger-Csollich, "Birs Nimrud I. Die Baukörper der Ziqqurat von Borsippa, ein Vorbericht", Baghdader Mitteilungen (BaM). Gbr. Mann, Berlin, vol. 22, pp. 383-499, 1991, ISSN 0418-9698
^W. Allinger-Csollich, "Birs Nimrud II. Tieftempel-Hochtempel". (Vergleichende Studien: Borsipa-Babylon). BaM 29, pp. 95-330, 1998
^"Excavations in Iraq, 1979-80.", Iraq, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 167–98, 1981
^"Excavations in Iraq, 1983-84.", Iraq, vol. 47, pp. 215–39, 1985
^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)
^Widmer, Marie, "Translating the Seleucid ΒΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΑ: notes on the titulature of Stratonice in the Borsippa Cylinder", Greece & Rome 66.2, pp. 264-279. 2019
Further readingedit
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
Jakob-Rost, Liane, "Borsippa", Forschungen Und Berichte, vol. 27, pp. 65–88, 1989
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
[3]Kosmin, Paul, "Seeing Double in Seleucid Babylonia: Rereading the Borsippa Cylinder of Antiochus I", Patterns of the Past: Epitēdeumata in the Greek Tradition, pp. 173-198, 2014
Nielsen, John P., "Taking Refuge at Borsippa: The Archive of Lâbâši, Son of Nādinu", Archiv Für Orientforschung, vol. 53, pp. 93–109, 2015
[4]John P. Peters, The Tower of Babel at Borsippa, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 41, pp. 157–159, 1921
Still, Bastian, "Annotated List of Hanšû Land in Borsippa", The Social World of the Babylonian Priest. Brill, pp. 257-265, 2019
Still, Bastian, "Property Sales in the Borsippa Corpus", The Social World of the Babylonian Priest. Brill, pp. 1-4, 2019
Still, Bastian, "Quantitative Analysis of Priestly Marriages in Borsippa", The Social World of the Babylonian Priest. Brill, pp. 245-256, 2019
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 ISBN978-90-6258-415-4
Birs Nimrud - Iraq Cultural Heritage 2013-11-03 at the Wayback Machine.
November 25, 2023
borsippa, confused, with, nimrud, sumerian, baki, akkadian, barsip, barsip, birs, nimrud, having, been, identified, with, nimrod, archeological, site, babil, governorate, iraq, ziggurat, today, most, vividly, identifiable, surviving, ones, identified, later, a. Not to be confused with Nimrud Borsippa Sumerian BAD SI A AB BAKI Akkadian Barsip and Til Barsip 1 or Birs Nimrud having been identified with Nimrod is an archeological site in Babil Governorate Iraq The ziggurat is today one of the most vividly identifiable surviving ones identified in the later Arabic culture with the Tower of Babel However modern scholarship concludes that the Babylonian builders of the Ziggurat in reality erected it as a religious edifice in honour of the local god Nabu called the son of Babylon s Marduk as would be appropriate for Babylon s lesser sister city Borsippa 1 Shown within IraqAlternative nameBirs NimrudLocationIraqCoordinates32 23 31 19 N 44 20 30 08 E 32 3919972 N 44 3416889 E 32 3919972 44 3416889TypesettlementSite notesExcavation dates1854 1861 1902 1980 2003ArchaeologistsHenry Creswicke Rawlinson Hormuzd Rassam Robert Koldewey Helga Piesl Trenkwalder Wilfred Allinger CsollichConditionRuinedOwnershipPublicPublic accessYesBorsippa was an important ancient city of Sumer built on both sides of a lake about 17 7 km 11 0 mi southwest of Babylon on the east bank of the Euphrates Contents 1 History 2 Archaeology 3 Gallery 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External linksHistory editBorsippa is mentioned usually in connection with Babylon in texts from the Third Dynasty of Ur through the Seleucid Empire and even in early Islamic texts It is also mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 36a Avodah Zarah 11b and other rabbinic literature Borsippa was dependent upon Babylon and was never the seat of a regional power From the ninth century BC Borsippa was on the borderland south of which lay the tribal houses of Chaldea The Jewish historian Josephus mentions the city in relation to the war between Cyrus the Great and Nabonnedus 2 The temple to Nabu at Borsippa was destroyed in 484 BC during the suppression of a revolt against the Achaemenid emperor Xerxes I 3 In the 1st millennium BC the city had a large scribal class 4 Archaeology edit nbsp Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa Babel Governorate Iraq 6th century BCIn 1854 work at Borsippa was conducted under the direction of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson with most of the actual digging done by his subordinates 5 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 for the British Museum 6 7 He concentrated primarily on E zida the temple of Nabu In the 1890s looters removed about 2000 cuneiform tablets mostly from the Ezida 8 In 1902 Robert Koldewey 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 9 10 11 For 20 seasons between 1980 and 2003 the Austrian team from the Leopold Franzens Universitat Innsbruck led by Helga Piesl Trenkwalder and Wilfred Allinger Csollich excavated for sixteen seasons at the site 12 13 Early work concentrated on the large ziggurat E ur imin an ki and later on the Nabu temple Examinination determined 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 14 It was found that the ziggurat had been partially hollowed out in Parthian times 15 Tablets of the Neo Babylonian period were found Excavations can currently not be carried out due to political events The elaboration of the results of excavations within the project Comparative studies of Borsippa Babylon are conducted 16 17 18 19 20 Many legal administrative and astronomical texts on cuneiform 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 Assyrian 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 Akkadian of Antiochus I an example of the region s remarkable cultural continuity 21 22 Gallery edit nbsp The original ancient gypsum plaster between mud bricks Borsippa Babel Iraq nbsp Stamped mud brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa Iraq 6th century BC nbsp Ruins around the ziggurat and temple of the god Nabu at Borsippa Babel Governorate Iraq nbsp Original tiles at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa Iraq nbsp The upper surface of the ruins of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa Iraq nbsp Modern cement covering ancient bricks at the upper surface of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu Borsippa Iraq nbsp Ruins of the lower part of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa Babel Governorate Iraq nbsp Stamped mud brick from the ziggurat and temple of Nabu Borsippa Iraq nbsp The upper part of the Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa Iraq nbsp 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 nbsp The ruins of the so called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat of Nabu at Borsippa Babel Governorate Iraq 6th century BC nbsp The ruins of the so called Tongue Tower of the ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa Iraq nbsp Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu Borsippa Babel Governorate Iraq sixth century BC nbsp Ruins of the ziggurat and temple of god Nabu at Borsippa Babel Governorate IraqSee also editCities of the Ancient Near East Short chronology timelineReferences edit The Cambridge Ancient History Prolegomena amp Prehistory Vol 1 Part 1 Accessed 15 Dec 2010 Josephus Against Apion Book 1 section 20 M A Dandamayev Ezida Temple and the Cult of Nabu in Babilonia of the First Millennium Vestnik drevnej istorii no 3 pp 87 94 2009 Zadok Ran The Scribes of Borsippa in the First Millennium BC A Preliminary Survey The IOS Annual Volume 22 Telling of Olden Kings Brill pp 67 92 2022 1 Henry C Rawlinson On the Birs Nimrud or the Great Temple of Borsippa The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland vol 18 pp 1 34 1861 Hormuzd Rassam 1897 Asshur and the Land of Nimrod Being an Account of the Discoveries Made in the Ancient Ruins of Nineveh Asshur Sepharvaim Calah etc PDF Curts amp Jennings J E Reade Rassam s Excavations at Borsippa and Kutha 1879 82 Iraq vol 48 pp 105 116 1986 Robson Eleanor The Socio Economics of Cuneiform Scholarship after the End of Archives Views from Borsippa and Uruk At the Dawn of History Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J N Postgate edited by Yagmur Heffron Adam Stone and Martin Worthington University Park USA Penn State University Press pp 459 474 2017 Robert Koldewey The excavations at Babylon University of Michigan Library 1914 Robert Koldewey Die Tempel von Babylon und Borsippa WVDOG 15 Leipzig 1911 ISSN 0342 118X Andrae Walter BORSIPPA 1902 Babylon Die versunkene Weltstadt und ihr Ausgraber Robert Koldewey Berlin Boston De Gruyter pp 149 152 1952 2 Trenkwalder Piesl H Report about the excavations in Borsippa second season 1981 Sumer 41 pp 101 105 1981 Kaniuth Kai Borsippa Preliminary Report on the 18th 20th Campaigns 2001 2003 Sumer 52 1 pp 9 16 2004 Recent Excavations in Iraq Iraq vol 61 pp 195 202 1999 Excavations in Iraq 1985 86 Iraq vol 49 pp 231 51 1987 W Allinger Csollich Birs Nimrud I Die Baukorper der Ziqqurat von Borsippa ein Vorbericht Baghdader Mitteilungen BaM Gbr Mann Berlin vol 22 pp 383 499 1991 ISSN 0418 9698 W Allinger Csollich Birs Nimrud II Tieftempel Hochtempel Vergleichende Studien Borsipa Babylon BaM 29 pp 95 330 1998 W Allinger Csollich Birs Nimrud II Tieftempel Hochtempel Vergleichende Studien Borsippa Babylon Baghdader Mitteilungen vol 29 pp 95 330 1998 ISSN 0418 9698 Excavations in Iraq 1979 80 Iraq vol 43 no 2 pp 167 98 1981 Excavations in Iraq 1983 84 Iraq vol 47 pp 215 39 1985 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 Widmer Marie Translating the Seleucid BASILISSA notes on the titulature of Stratonice in the Borsippa Cylinder Greece amp Rome 66 2 pp 264 279 2019Further reading editG Frame The First Families of Borsippa during the Early Neo Babylonian Period Journal of Cuneiform Studies vol 36 no 1 pp 67 80 1984 Jakob Rost Liane Borsippa Forschungen Und Berichte vol 27 pp 65 88 1989 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 3 Kosmin Paul Seeing Double in Seleucid Babylonia Rereading the Borsippa Cylinder of Antiochus I Patterns of the Past Epitedeumata in the Greek Tradition pp 173 198 2014 Nielsen John P Taking Refuge at Borsippa The Archive of Labasi Son of Nadinu Archiv Fur Orientforschung vol 53 pp 93 109 2015 4 John P Peters The Tower of Babel at Borsippa Journal of the American Oriental Society vol 41 pp 157 159 1921 Still Bastian Annotated List of Hansu Land in Borsippa The Social World of the Babylonian Priest Brill pp 257 265 2019 Still Bastian Property Sales in the Borsippa Corpus The Social World of the Babylonian Priest Brill pp 1 4 2019 Still Bastian Quantitative Analysis of Priestly Marriages in Borsippa The Social World of the Babylonian Priest Brill pp 245 256 2019 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 ISBN 978 90 6258 415 4External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Borsippa nbsp Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article Borsippa Google Maps link to the Borsippa ziggurat Birs Nimrud Iraq Cultural Heritage Archived 2013 11 03 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Borsippa amp oldid 1175239471, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
