Dilbat

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Coordinates: 32°17′44″N 44°27′58″E / 32.29556°N 44.46611°E / 32.29556; 44.46611

Dilbat
Dilbat is located in Iraq
Dilbat
Dilbat
Location in Iraq
Coordinates: 32°17′44″N 44°27′58″E / 32.29556°N 44.46611°E / 32.29556; 44.46611
Country Iraq

Dilbat (modern Tell ed-Duleim or Tell al-Deylam, Iraq) was an ancient Sumerian minor tell (hill city) located southeast from Babylon on the eastern bank of the Western Euphrates in modern-day Al-Qādisiyyah, Iraq. The ziggurat E-ibe-Anu, dedicated to Urash, a minor local deity distinct from the earth goddess Urash, was located in the center of the city and was mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh.[1]

History[]

Dilbat was founded during the Sumerian Early Dynastic II period, around 2700 BC. It is known to have been occupied, at least, during the Akkadian, Old Babylonian, Kassite, Sasanian and Early Islamic periods. It was an early agricultural center cultivating einkorn wheat and producing reed products.[2] It lay on the Arahtum canal.

Archaeology[]

Stone tablet, land purchase, from Dilbat, Iraq. 2400-2200 BCE. Excavated by Hormuzd Rassam. British Museum

The site of Tell al-Deylam consists of two mounds, a small western mound with 1st millennium BC and Early Islamic remains and a larger east mound, roughly 500 meters in circumference, with remains from the 1st to 3rd millennium BC. Dilbat was excavated briefly by Hormuzd Rassam, who recovered some cuneiform tablets at the site, mainly from the Neo-Babylonian period.[3] The site was worked in 1989 by J. A. Armstrong of the Oriental Institute of Chicago.[4][5] Though Dilbat itself has only been lightly excavated by archaeologists, numerous tablets from there have made their way to the antiquities market over the years as the result of unauthorized digging.

Excavations, by the Department of Archaeology of the University of Babylon, have resumed. A Kassite period temple to the city god was uncovered. Inscriptions were of one of the kings named Kurigalzu.[6]

Tutelary god[]

Main article: Urash (god)

Dilbat, like many other Mesopotamian settlements had its own tutelary deity, Urash, a male deity distinct from the more well known goddess Urash associated with Anu.[7] He was regarded as a farming god and a warror,[8] similar to Ninurta.

Urash was regarded as the father of Nanaya, a goddess of love from the entourage of Inanna,[9] as well as the minor underworld deity Lagamal,[10] worshiped in Susa as an attendant of Inshushinak moreso than in Mesopotamia.[11] Urash was also the husband of Ninegal ("lady of the palace"), and they had a joint temple,[12] as attested by an Assyrian account of its renovation undertaken on the orders of Ashur-etil-ilani.[13]

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ [1] Stephen Langdon, The Epic of Gilgamish. A Fragment of the Gilgamish Legend in Old-Babylonian Cuneiform, 1919
  2. ^ A. Goddeeris, Economy and Society in Northern Babylonia, Peeters , 2002, ISBN 90-429-1123-9
  3. ^ Hormuzd Rassam and Robert William Rogers, Asshur and the land of Nimrod, Curts & Jennings, 1897
  4. ^ J. A. Armstrong, Dilbat revisited: the Tell al-Deylam project, Mar Sipri, vol. 3, no. 1, pp, 1-4, 1990
  5. ^ James A. Armstrong, West of Edin: Tell al-Deylam and the Babylonian City of Dilbat, The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 219-226, 1992
  6. ^ Haider Oraibi Almamori and Alexa Bartelmus, "New Light on Dilbat: Kassite Building Activities on the Uraš Temple “E-Ibbi-Anum” at Tell al-Deylam", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 111, iss. 2, 2021
  7. ^ M. Krebernik, Uraš A [in:] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol. 14, 2014, p. 404; note that in the electronic edition authors of the entry on the two deities named Uraš and geographical location in Asia Minor are accidentally swapped
  8. ^ Ch. Lilyquist, The Dilbat Hoard, Metropolitan Museum Journal 29, 1994, p. 6; note there's a typo in the article, "Ningal" is mentioned instead of "Ninegal"
  9. ^ O. Drewnowska-Rymarz, Mesopotamian Goddess Nanajā, 2008, p. 139
  10. ^ K. van der Torn, Migration and the Spread of Local Cults [in:] A. Schoors, K. Van Lerberghe (eds.), Immigration and Emigration Within the Ancient Near East: Festschrift E. Lipinski, 1995, p. 368
  11. ^ W. G. Lambert, Lāgamāl [in] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol 6, 1983, p. 418-419
  12. ^ G. De Clercq, Die Göttin Ninegal/Bēlet-ekallim nach den altorientalischen Quellen des 3. und 2. Jt. v. Chr. mit einer Zusammenfassung der hethitischen Belegstellen sowie der des 1.Jt. v. Chr. (dissertation), 2004, p. 17, footnote 80: "Ninegal und Uraš, der Stadtgott von Dilbat, formen hier ein Paar. Siehe Unger, RlA 2 ("Dilbat") 222 über den Tempel der Ninegal in Dilbat und ihre Verehrung als Gemahlin des Uraš. Über die doppelte Gestalt der Gottheit Uraš schreibt auch Kienast, in: Fs van Dijk (1985) 112f.: Er ist als männlicher Gott bekannt, als Stadtgott von Dilbat und allgemein in Nordbabylonien; andererseits kann die Gottheit weiblich sein ("die Erde") und mit An verbunden werden."
  13. ^ S. W. Holloway, Aššur is King! Aššur is King!: Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, 2002, p. 254

Further reading[]

  • [2] Christine Lilyquist, The Dilbat Hoard, Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 29, pp. 5–36, 1994
  • S. G. Koshurnikov and N. Yoffee, Old Babylonian Tablets from Dilbat in the Ashmolean Museum, Iraq, vol. 48, pp. 117–130, 1986
  • Matthew W. Stolper, Late Achaemenid Texts from Dilbat, Iraq, vol. 54, pp. 119–139, 1992
  • Joseph Etienne Gautier, Archives d'une famille de Dilbat au temps de la premiere dynastie de Babylone, Le Caire, 1908
  • SG Koshurnikov,A Family Archive from Old Babylonian Dilbat, Vestnik Drevnii Istorii, vol. 168, pp. 123ff, 1984

External links[]


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