Nippur (Sumerian: Nibru, often logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory: Vol. 1, Part 1, Cambridge University Press, 1970 Akkadian: Nibbur) was an ancient Sumerian city. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind", ruler of the cosmos, subject to An alone. Nippur was located in modern Nuffar 8 kilometers north of modern Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. It is roughly 200 km south of modern Baghdad and about 100 km southeast of the ancient city of Babylon. Occupation at the site extended back to the Ubaid period (Ubaid 2 – Hajji Muhammed), the Uruk period, and the Jemdet Nasr period. The origin of the ancient name is unknown but different proposals have been made.Jacobsen, T., "The Assumed Conflict between Sumerians and Semites in Early Mesopotamian History", Journal of the American Oriental Society 59/4, pp. 485–495, 1939
History Early Bronze Age Early Dynastic period Nippur never enjoyed political hegemony in its own right, but its control was crucial, as it was considered capable of conferring the overall "kingship" on monarchs from other city-states. It was distinctively a sacred city, important from the possession of the famous Ekur temple of Enlil. Ninurta, son of Enlil, also had his main cult center, the E-shumesha temple, in the city-state.
According to the Tummal Chronicle, Enmebaragesi, an early ruler of Kish, was the first to build up this temple.Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, Brill Academic, 2005, His influence over Nippur has also been detected archaeologically. The Chronicle lists successive early Sumerian rulers who kept up intermittent ceremonies at the temple: Aga of Kish, son of Enmebaragesi; Mesannepada of Ur; his son Meskiang-nunna; Gilgamesh of Uruk; his son Ur-Nungal; Nanni of Ur and his son Meskiang-nanna. It also indicates that the practice was revived in the Ur III period by Ur-Nammu of Ur, and continued until Ibbi-Sin appointed Enmegalana high priest in Uruk (c. 1950 BC).
Inscriptions of Lugal-Zage-Si and Lugal-kigub-nidudu, kings of Uruk and Ur respectively, and of other early rulers, on door-sockets and stone vases, show the veneration in which the ancient shrine was then held, and the importance attached to its possession, as giving a certain stamp of legitimacy. On their votive offerings, some of these rulers designate themselves as ensis, or governors.
Akkadian period (c. 2350-2150 BCE) Late in the 3rd millennium BC, Nippur was conquered and occupied by the rulers of Akkad, or Agade, and numerous votive objects of Sargon, Rimush, and Naram-Sin testify to the veneration in which they also held this sanctuary. Naram-Sin rebuilt both the Ekur temple and the 17.5 meter wide city walls. One of the few instances of Nippur being recorded as having its own ruler comes from a tablet depicting a revolt of several Mesopotamian cities against Naram-Sin, including Nippur under Amar-enlila. The tablet goes on to relate that Naram-Sin defeated these rebel cities in nine battles, and brought them back under his control. The Weidner tablet (ABC 19) suggests that the Akkadian Empire fell as divine retribution, because of Sargon's initiating the transfer of "holy city" status from Nippur to Babylon.
This Akkadian occupation was succeeded by occupation during the third dynasty of Ur, and the constructions of Ur-Nammu, the great builder of temples, are superimposed immediately upon those of Naram-Sin. Ur-Nammu gave the temple its final characteristic form. Partly razing the constructions of his predecessors, he erected a terrace of bricks, some 12 m high, covering a space of about 32,000 m. Near the northwestern edge, towards the western corner, he built a ziggurat of three stages of dry brick, faced with kiln-fired bricks laid in bitumen. On the summit stood, as at Ur and Eridu, a small chamber, the special shrine or abode of the god. Access to the stages of the ziggurat, from the court beneath, was by an inclined plane on the south-east side. To the north-east of the ziggurat stood, apparently, the House of Bel, and in the courts below the ziggurat stood various other buildings, shrines, treasure chambers, and the like. The whole structure was oriented with the corners toward the cardinal points of the compass.
Ur III period (c. 2112-2004 BC) Ur-Nammu also rebuilt the walls of the city on the line of Naram-Sin's walls. The restoration of the general features of the temple of this, and the immediately succeeding periods, has been greatly facilitated by the discovery of a sketch map on a fragment of a clay tablet. This sketch map represents a quarter of the city to the east of the Shatt-en-Nil canal. This quarter was enclosed within its own walls, a city within a city, forming an irregular square, with sides roughly 820 m long, separated from the other quarters, and from the country to the north and east, by canals on all sides, with broad quays along the walls. A smaller canal divided this quarter of the city itself into two parts. In the south-eastern part, in the middle of its southeast side, stood the temple, while in the northwest part, along the Shatt-en-Nil, two great storehouses are indicated. The temple proper, according to this plan, consisted of an outer and inner court, each covering approximately , surrounded by double walls, with a ziggurat on the north-western edge of the latter.
Ur III ruler Shu-Sin, after destroying Šimānum, as noted in a year name, settled the prisoners of that war near Nippur he founded called Šimānum (sometimes called E-Šu-Suen). This practice for disposition of prisoners continued into the first millennium.Steinkeller, Piotr, "Corvée Labor in Ur III Times", From the 21st Century B.C. to the 21st Century A.D.: Proceedings of the International Conference on Neo-Sumerian Studies Held in Madrid, 22–24 July 2010, edited by Steven J. Garfinkle and Manuel Molina, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 347-424, 2013
Middle Bronze Age Isin/Larsa period (c. 2020-1820 BC) The temple continued to be built upon or rebuilt by kings of various succeeding dynasties, as shown by bricks and votive objects bearing the inscriptions of the kings of various dynasties of Ur and Isin. It seems to have suffered severely in some manner at or about the time the Elamites invaded, as shown by broken fragments of statuary, votive vases, and the like, from that period. Rim-Sin I, the king of Larsa, styles himself "shepherd of the land of Nippur".
Old Babylonian period (1820-1587 BCE)
With the establishment of the Babylonian empire, under Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 BC), early in the 2nd millennium BC, the religious, as well as the political center of influence, was transferred to Babylon, Marduk became lord of the pantheon, many of Enlil's attributes were transferred to him, and Ekur, Enlil's temple, was to some extent neglected.Jonathan S. Tenney, "The Elevation of Marduk Revisited: Festivals and Sacrifices at Nippur during the High Kassite Period", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 68, pp. 153–80, 2016
The city was taken by Ilī-ma-ilu, the first ruler of the First Sealand dynasty in about the 29th year of the reign of Samsu-iluna, ruler of Babylon. It was retaken by Abī-ešuḫ by his 5th year, after he damned the Tigris river.Béranger, Marine, "Dur-Abi-ešuh and the Abandonment of Nippur During the Late Old Babylonian Period: A Historical Survey", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 75.1, pp. 27-47, 2023Boivin, Odette, "A political history of the Sealand kingdom", The First Dynasty of the Sealand in Mesopotamia, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 86-125, 2018 During the reign of Ammi-Ditana Nippur was again attacked by Sealand forces and the Ekur temple of Enil sacked and looted. A text from the Babylonian fortress at Dūr-Abī-ešuḫ includes "... five hundred enemy soldiers went to Nippur together with mules and labourers(?). They entered the Ekur, vandalised the doors and walls of the cultrooms of [Enlil and Ninlil(?) and] set light to the doors. They unfastened the (doors’) copper (sheathing), loaded it on the mules and then went away. ... three hundred enemy soldiers entered the Ekur together with mules, and ... Enemy [soldiers] have desecrated [the cultrooms(?)] of the Ekurigigal and the Ekur. Every day enemy soldiers are regularly at Nippur.". Arkhipov, Ilya, Andrew George, "Tablets from Dūr-Abiešuḫ in Other Collections", Old Babylonian Texts in the Schøyen Collection Part 4: Documents from Selected Archives, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection Cuneiform Texts, XVII, Münster: Zaphon, pp.104–108, 2025
Late Bronze Age The Late Bronze Age was from around 1600/1550 to 1200/1150 BCE. In 1587 BCE, the Fall of the Old Babylonian Kingdom came after Mursili I of Hatti raided Babylon in an event known as the "Sack of Babylon".
Kassite period Under the succeeding Kassite dynasty, shortly after the middle of the 2nd millennium, Ekur was restored once more to its former splendor, several monarchs of that dynasty built upon and adorned it, and thousands of inscriptions, dating from the time of those rulers, have been discovered in its archives. A new temple within Ekur, the Ekurigibarra, was built by Kurigalzu I (c. 1375 BC).Bartelmus, A. (2010): Restoring the past. A historical analysis of the royal temple building inscriptions from the Kassite Period, Kaskal 7, 143–171.
Iron Age onwards After the middle of the 12th century BC follows another long period of comparative neglect due to the river Euphrates changing its course, but with the waters return and the conquest of Babylonia by the Assyrian king Sargon II, at the close of the 8th century BC, we meet again with building inscriptions, and under Ashurbanipal, about the middle of the 7th century BC, we find Ekur restored with a splendour greater than ever before, the ziggurat of that period being 58 by 39 m.Mark Altaweel and Carrie Hritz, Assyrians in Nippur, pp. 41-62 in Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 71, Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2021 Cole, S. W., "Nippur in Late Assyrian Times (c. 755–612 BC).", State Archives of Assyria Studies, vol. 4, Helsinki, 1996 After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire Ekur appears to have gradually fallen into decay, until finally, in the Seleucid period, the ancient temple was turned into a fortress (, Nippoúr). Huge walls were erected at the edges of the ancient terrace, the courts of the temple were filled with houses and streets, and the ziggurat itself was curiously built over in a cruciform shape, and converted into an acropolis for the fortress. This fortress was occupied and further built upon until the close of the Parthian period, about 250 AD; but under the succeeding rule of the Sassanids it in its turn fell into decay.
Islamic abandonment Nippur remained inhabited in Islamic times, and is mentioned by early Muslim geographers under the name of Niffar. It lay on the Nahr an-Nars canal, believed to have been built by Narses. By the late 800s, though, geographers no longer mentioned it, which indicates that the city had gone into decline by that time.Adams 236 This was part of a broader decline in settlements throughout Iraq, especially in the south, as decaying infrastructure and political violence resulted in large areas being completely abandoned.Adams 215-225 However, Nippur (Nifr) remained the seat of a Christian bishop of the Patriarchal Province of the Church of the East until the late 900s, when the bishopric was transferred to the city of Nil to the northwest. Nippur itself may have remained occupied even later, since ceramics found among the ruins display underglaze sgraffiato drawings, which were not used much prior to the end of the 10th century. By the time of Yaqut al-Hamawi in the early 1200s, Nippur had been definitively abandoned, although Yaqut still recognized its ruins as the site of a famous place.Adams 236-237