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Sippar (Sumerian
Sumerian language

Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. It was gradually replaced by Akkadian language as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia...
 Zimbir "bird city", modern Tell Abu Habbah, Iraq
Iraq

Iraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros Mountains, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
), was an ancient Sumer
Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
ian and later Babylonia
Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
n city on the east bank of the Euphrates
Euphrates

The Euphrates is the western of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia which flows from Anatolia....
, some 60 km north of Babylon
Babylon

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, sometimes considered an empire, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad....
.

as divided into two parts, "Sippar of the Sun-god
Shamash

Shamash was the common Akkadian language name of the Solar deity and god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Mesopotamian mythology Utu....
" and "Sippar of the goddess Anunit," the former of which was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam
Hormuzd Rassam

Hormuzd Rassam was an Assyriology and traveller who made a number of important discoveries, including the stone tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest literature....
 in 1881 at Abu Habba, 16 miles southeast of Baghdad
Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
.

Sippar is called Sepharvaim in the Old Testament
Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
, which alludes to the two parts of the city by its dual
Dual (grammatical number)

Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun....
 form.

Two other Sippars are mentioned in inscriptions, one of them being "Sippar of Edinu," which may have been an additional quarter of the city.






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Sippar (Sumerian
Sumerian language

Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. It was gradually replaced by Akkadian language as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia...
 Zimbir "bird city", modern Tell Abu Habbah, Iraq
Iraq

Iraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros Mountains, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
), was an ancient Sumer
Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
ian and later Babylonia
Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
n city on the east bank of the Euphrates
Euphrates

The Euphrates is the western of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia which flows from Anatolia....
, some 60 km north of Babylon
Babylon

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, sometimes considered an empire, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad....
.

History

It was divided into two parts, "Sippar of the Sun-god
Shamash

Shamash was the common Akkadian language name of the Solar deity and god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Mesopotamian mythology Utu....
" and "Sippar of the goddess Anunit," the former of which was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam
Hormuzd Rassam

Hormuzd Rassam was an Assyriology and traveller who made a number of important discoveries, including the stone tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest literature....
 in 1881 at Abu Habba, 16 miles southeast of Baghdad
Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
.

Sippar is called Sepharvaim in the Old Testament
Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
, which alludes to the two parts of the city by its dual
Dual (grammatical number)

Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun....
 form.

Two other Sippars are mentioned in inscriptions, one of them being "Sippar of Edinu," which may have been an additional quarter of the city. It is possible that one of the "Sippars" might be identified with Akkad
Akkad

The Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad Sumerian language: Agade KUR A.GA.D?KI "land of Akkad". ; Biblical Accad) and its surrounding region Akkadian URU Akkad KI in central Mesopotamia....
, the capital of the first Semitic Empire.

The main god of the city was the Sumerian Sun god, Utu
Utu

Utu is the Sumerian language for "Sun". The Sumerian cuneiform character is encoded in Unicode at U+12313 .In Sumerian mythology, Utu is the son of the moon god Nanna and the goddess Ningal....
 (Shamash
Shamash

Shamash was the common Akkadian language name of the Solar deity and god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Mesopotamian mythology Utu....
 in Akkadian).

One of its kings was En-men-dur-ana, who was said to have ruled many years before the Flood.

Xisuthros, the "Chaldean Noah", is said by Berossus
Berossus

Berossus was a Hellenistic civilization-era Babylonian writer and Babylonian astronomy who was active at the beginning of the 3rd century BC....
 to have buried the records of the antediluvian
Antediluvian

The antediluvian period is that period in Biblical history between the Creation according to Genesis of the earth and the Deluge. The story takes up chapters 1-6 of Genesis....
 world here--possibly because the name of Sippar was supposed to be connected with sipru, "a writing". And according to Abydenus
Abydenus

Abydenus was a Ancient Greece historian, and the author of a History of the Chaldeans and Assyrians, of which some fragments are preserved by Eusebius in his Praeparatio Evangelica, and by Cyril of Alexandria in his work against Julian....
, Nebuchadnezzar excavated a great reservoir in the neighbourhood. Here too was the Babylonian camp in the reign of Nabonidos.

Pliny
Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
 (Natural History 6.30.123) mentions a sect, or school 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
Uruk

Uruk , from the Akkadian rendering of the Sumerian toponym 'unug', is modern Warka , Iraq. Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient Nil canal, some 30 km east of As-Samawah, Al Muthanna Governorate, Iraq....
, and the Borsippeni after Borsippa
Borsippa

Borsippa was an important ancient city of Sumer, built on both sides of a lake about 17.7 km southwest of Babylon, on the east bank of the Euphrates....
), but this is not universally accepted.

In his 29th year of reign Sumu-la-El
Sumu-la-El

Sumu-la-El was a King in the First Dynasty of Babylon. He reigned ca.1817 BC - 1781 BC. See also*BabyloniaReferences...
 of Babylon
Babylon

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, sometimes considered an empire, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad....
 reported building the city wall of Sippar. Some years later Hamurabi
Hamurabi

Hamurabi was one of the earliest computer games .Richard Merrill wrote The Sumer Game in 1969 in his FOCAL language, programming it on a DEC PDP-8....
 of Babylon reported laying the foundations of the city wall of Sippar in his 23rd year and worked on the wall again in his 43rd year. His successor in Babylon, Samsu-iluna
Samsu-Iluna

Samsu-Iluna , was the King of Babylon, who reigned from 1749 BC to 1712 BC.He was a son of Hammurabi. During the reign of Samsu-Iluna the Babylonian Empire lost a lot of provinces....
 worked on Sippar's wall in his 1st year. The city walls, being typically made of mud bricks, required much attention.

Archaeology

Tell Abu Habba was first excavated by Hormuzd Rassam
Hormuzd Rassam

Hormuzd Rassam was an Assyriology and traveller who made a number of important discoveries, including the stone tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest literature....
 between 1880 and 1881 in a dig that lasted 18 months. Tens of thousands of tablets were recovered including the Tablet of Shamash in the Temple of Shamash
Shamash

Shamash was the common Akkadian language name of the Solar deity and god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Mesopotamian mythology Utu....
/Utu
Utu

Utu is the Sumerian language for "Sun". The Sumerian cuneiform character is encoded in Unicode at U+12313 .In Sumerian mythology, Utu is the son of the moon god Nanna and the goddess Ningal....
. Most of the tablets were Neo-Babylonian. The temple had been mentioned as early as the 18th year of Samsu-iluna
Samsu-Iluna

Samsu-Iluna , was the King of Babylon, who reigned from 1749 BC to 1712 BC.He was a son of Hammurabi. During the reign of Samsu-Iluna the Babylonian Empire lost a lot of provinces....
 of Babylon, who reported restoring "Ebabbar, the temple of Szamasz in Sippar", along with the cities ziggurat
Ziggurat

A ziggurat was a temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley and Iran, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories or levels....
.

The tablets, which ended up in the British Museum
British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than 7 million Object , are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present....
 are being studied to this day. As was often the case in the early days of archaeology, excavation records were not made, particulaly find spots. This makes it difficult to tell which tablets came from Sippar-Amnanum as opposed to Sippar. 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
University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States....
. Since the site is relatively close to Baghdad
Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
, it was a popular target for illegal excavations.

In 1894, Sippar was worked briefly by Jean-Vincent Scheil
Jean-Vincent Scheil

Father Jean-Vincent Scheil was a French Dominican Order scholar and Assyriologist. He was one of the discoverers of the Code of Hammurabi in Persia....
. The tablets recovered, mainly Old Babylonian, went to the Istanbul Museum. In modern times, the site was worked by a Belgian team from 1972 to 1973. Iraqi archaeologists from the College of Arts at the University of Baghdad
University of Baghdad

University of Baghdad is the largest university in Iraq and the second largest Arab university following University of Cairo....
, led by Walid al-Jadir with Farouk al-Rawi, have excavated at Tell Abu Habbah from 1977 through the present in 24 seasons. After 2000, they were joined by the German Archaeological Institute.

See also

  • Cities of the Ancient Near East
    Cities of the ancient Near East

    Uru was the Sumerian language term for a city or city state, written with the cuneiform ideogram URU .In Akkadian language and Hittite orthography, URU became a determinative sign denoting a city, or combined with KUR "land" the kingdom or territory controlled by a city, e.g....
  • Short chronology timeline
    Short chronology timeline

    The short chronology is one Chronology of the ancient Near East, which fixes the reign of Hammurabi to 1728 BC ? 1686 BC and the sack of Babylon to 1531 BC....


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