Nippur

Nippur (nĭpr`), ancient city of Babylonia, a N Sumerian settlement on the Euphrates. It was the seat of the important cult of the god Enlil, or Bel. Excavations at Nippur have yielded the remains of several temples that date from the middle of the 3d millennium B.C. and were later rebuilt and restored many times. Over 40,000 clay tablets found there serve as a primary source of information on Sumerian civilization. Assurbanipal erected a ziggurat in Nippur. Relics of the Persian and Parthian periods have also been unearthed at the site.

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Nippur

Female figure, made of gypsum, with a gold mask that stood at a temple altar in Nippur, c. …

(credit: Courtesy of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad; photograph, David Lees)

Ancient Mesopotamian city southeast of Babylon. Located in what is now southeastern Iraq, it was originally on the Euphrates River, whose course later changed. By 2500 BC it was the centre of worship of the Sumerian storm god Enlil (see Sumer). Parthian construction (see Parthia) later buried Enlil's sanctuary, and the city fell into decay in the 3rd century AD. It was abandoned in the 12th or 13th century. Excavations have revealed temples, a ziggurat, and thousands of clay tablets that are a primary source of information on ancient Sumerian civilization. Also uncovered were an Akkadian tomb (see Akkad) and a large temple devoted to the Mesopotamian goddess of healing.

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Nippur

an ancient Sumerian and Babylonian city, the excavated site of which is in SE Iraq: an important religious centre, abandoned in the 12th or 13th century

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Nippur 

(now Niffer or Nuffar), an ancient Sumerian city, northeast of modern Diwaniyah, Iraq; center of the Sumerian tribal union and seat of worship of the supreme god Enlil.

Seized by Babylonia in the 18th century B.C., Nippur later was granted autonomy. Archaeological excavations of Nippur in the middle and late 19th century permitted the partial restoration of the ancient city’s layout and architectural monuments. A canal, which is now dry, passed through the center of the city. A temple to Enlil called E-kur (The House of the Mountain) stood with a ziggurat on a hill in the northeast; both structures were rebuilt in the period from the third millennium to the end of the first millennium B.C. The most important buildings were those of the rulers Naram-Sin and Sharkalishari (second half of the third millennium B.C.), Ur-Nammu (end of the third millennium B.C.), and Ashurbanipal (seventh century B.C.). A large number of cuneiform tablets, which are presumed to have been school archives, have been found in Nippur. Most of the tablets are Sumerian literary texts, evidently copies made in the 19th and 18th centuries B.C. (the Nippur Canon texts). Also of great interest are the records of the commercial and money-lending house of Murashu (sixth century B.C.).