Temple Of Ishtar Research Articles

Application of Georadar Method to Investigate shallow Artifacts for Al-Maabid Area in Babylon Archaeological City

Babylon, one of the most influential civilizations in Mesopotamia, significantly contributed to human history with its rich culture, advanced legal systems, and architectural marvels, serving as the capital of the Neo-Babylonian empire. This study aims to discover ancient Babylonian civilizational remains and artifacts, including artifacts and walls from an ancient Babylonian house near the Ishtar temple. A geophysical survey was carried out using ground penetrating radar (GPR), yielding promising preliminary results. It contributed to the Department of Antiquities' excavation campaign for potential antiquities in Babylon Governorate, which was regarded as a preliminary step before beginning extensive excavations. Accurate GPR results were displayed as radargrams, maps, and 3D VI visualization diagrams, providing a precise subsurface view of buried archaeological remains.

Electrical resistivity tomography and ground‐penetrating radar methods to detect archaeological walls of Babylonian houses near Ishtar temple, ancient Babylon city, Iraq

AbstractA survey was conducted to investigate buried archaeological walls near the Ishtar temple in the ancient Babylon city using electrical resistivity tomography and ground‐penetrating radar methods. The survey includes applying 12 electrical resistivity tomography profiles using dipole–dipole array and a ground‐penetrating radar grid of 55 m × 50 m using 250 MHz antenna. Although the buried walls are consisting of mudbrick masonry and are embedded in a clayey environment, the electrical resistivity tomography method is still able to differentiate the tiny differences between the host materials and the buried walls, which show distinctive wall‐like features with resistivity values ranging between 9 and 15 Ω m. These features may reflect underground‐buried walls with a general width reaching about 2.5 m. The comparison of ground‐penetrating radar profiles and their corresponding electrical resistivity tomography profiles presents that the main architectures are coinciding well. The analysis of the geometry and composition of the walls around the Ishtar temple suggested that the wall‐like reflections on the ground‐penetrating radar slice at a depth between 140 and 150 cm (may be shallower) are underground‐buried walls. These wall‐like reflections show a special trend and orientation that indicate that they may be the remains of rooms belonging to two small houses or the remains of one big private house.

The Obelisk of Ishtar from Ebla. Kingship and the Great Goddess in the Old Syrian Artistic Culture

Ishtar’s Obelisk is an important Old Syrian votive monument of Ebla, originally erected in the Cult Area of the Temple of Ishtar (Area D), built on the border of the Citadel of Middle Bronze I–II. It was reconstructed from five fragments, of which three are of great size and two much smaller found scattered in the region. As concerns its typology, it had to end with a flat horizontal face. As regards iconography, it was decorated with carved registers on all four faces, most probably four on each face with divine, mythical, and ritual subjects. Its figurative program was similar, but not identical to that of Ishtar’s Stele. Both monuments were certainly dedicated by an unknown king of Ebla in the dynastic sanctuary of the Ishtar Eblaitu on a solemn occasion, between 1850 and 1750 BC circa to celebrate the great goddess of universal fertility and kingship of which she was the patron deity.

Minor Prophets

Minor Prophets John W. Wright, Christopher T. Begg, and Lesley R. DiFrancisco 526. [Twelve Prophets] Anselm C. Hagedorn, "Die Perser im Zwölfprophetenbuch," ZAW 127 (2015) 587-606. Scholars generally accept that the prophetic books were reworked, reread, or even written during the Persian Period; specific historical reminiscences to the Persians, however, are scarce. Texts like Hab 1:5-11; Zech 1:7-17; and Mal 1:8 do, however, conscientiously [End Page 140] (and uncritically) employ allusions to Persian institutions and thereby help to spread official imperial ideology. [Adapted from published abstract—J.W.W.] 527. [Hos 3:1-5] Kristin Weingart, "Eine zweite Chance für Israel? Gericht und Hoffnung in Hos 3,1-5," Bib 97 (2016) 342-59. In Hosea 3, we find a reflection on the situation of the Northern Israelites after the destruction of Samaria. The text, except for some slight additions, was originally composed shortly after 720 b.c.e. by Northerners and is part of an early composition of Hosea-materials. The fall of the Northern Kingdom was, according to the text, caused by the crimes denounced by Hosea and effected by the divine judgment he had announced. The course of events therefore confirms Hosea's prediction. Israel's punishment is interpreted as an educational process meant to make Israel return to Yhwh. Hence, there is hope for restoration and a better future after judgment. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 528. [Hos 10:13b-14b] Oded Tammuz, "Hosea 10,13b-14b: A Warning about a Rebellion," BN 170 (2016) 35-49. Hos 10:13b-14b reads: "… because thou didst trust in thy way (some versions of the LXX have chariots), in the multitude of thy mighty men; Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Betharbel." This text raises certain questions: Who was Shalman? What (and where) was Betharbel? Why was Shalman's plundering of Beth-arbel singled out as an example? More importantly: what is the overall meaning of the text? T. argues that "Shalman" is to be identified with Shalmaneser III, and that Betharbel is the temple of Ishtar of Arbaʾil in the city of Arbaʾil (modern Arbīl). There are several possible interpretations of the text: (1) Shalmaneser III plundered the temple of Ishtar, and (2) Shalmaneser III is the object of the sentence and the temple in his own city was plundered by someone else. Historically, both interpretations are possible: the first because (a) Shalmaneser III's military campaigns produced only little income in his later years and (b) he visited Arbaʾil in those years; the second is also credible given that one of the sons of Shalmaneser III rebelled against his father and took possession of the city of Arbaʾil. Both interpretations lead to the same conclusion: the text predicts that the Israelite army will rebel against the king of Israel and will plunder his fortresses. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 529. [Hosea 12] Felipe Fruto L. L. Ramirez, s.j., "Are the Allusions to Jacob and Moses in Hosea 12 Late Insertions?" Landas 29 (2015) 119-43. The sole evidence we have that certain stories about Jacob and Moses already existed in the 2nd half of the 8th cent. b.c.e. is the allusions to these in Hosea 12. Various attempts to invalidate this evidence on the basis of the chapter's poetic structure, vocabulary, grammar, typology of ideas, etc. have proved unsatisfactory. On the contrary, the use of the binomial Israel/Jacob in 8th cent. prophetic writings as well as the gentilics "Isaac" and "Joseph" in Amos presumes the existence of patriarchal stories that served to explain the connection of these names with the northern kingdom. Moreover, Hosea's allusion to an incident not mentioned in Genesis may reflect an early period before the fixing of patriarchal traditions in late Judean history. Hosea's allusions to both patriarchal and Mosaic traditions may then provide significant evidence that the epic legend of Israel's salvation history as narrated in Genesis–Exodus was already beginning to take shape during...

Middle paleolithic to neolithic cultural history of North Iraq

Six sections of 1–2.7-m depth contain ten sediment samples, each collected from the caves of Shanidar, Hawdian, and Hazar Merd with the nearby river valley sites of Zawi-Chemi, Gawra River, and Barda Balka, respectively, in North Iraq. They have been analyzed palynologically for their climatic significance and vegetational cover during late Quaternary in northeastern Iraq. The main information gathered from these palynological analyses as well as stone tools is ancient open site settlements in Barda Balka of Paleolithic interglacial Acheuleon culture. During the last Ice Age (120,000–10,000 years before present (B.P.)) people refuged to cave settlements. Baradost Mountain as well as the Aqra and Piera Maqroon mountains cavemen of the Middle Paleolithic Period are related to steppe vegetation with cold climate and glacial storms. Those cavemen manufactured stone artifacts of Mousterian to Gravetian culture and have their own religious belief and funeral ceremony especially recorded in the Shanidar cave. They lived by hunting and food collecting from a nearby valley to each cave. During earliest Holocene time (10,000 years B.P.), changing climate to moderately warm climate with Quercus forests and poacean vegetation was recorded, and the cavemen evolved to Neolithic culture and hence moved to settle in plain areas and built the oldest villages of the world, viz., Zawi-Chemi and Jarmo with continuing temporarily living in the caves as well. Their habit changed from food collectors to farmers who cultivated the land with wheat, barley, fruits, olive, legumes, and flowers of brilliant colors, nice odor, and nectariferous as well as domesticated animals for their food resources. Clay tablets of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians have documented (Arapha) Kirkuk as one of their cities since 5,500 years B.P. The stone writing records of Assyrian king Sennacherib (705–681 years B.C.) state of making irrigation canals flowing to the temple of Ishtar in Erbil. On the other hand, the similarity of Jarmo village in the present Kurdstan region of Iraq to ancient Tell Hassuna village, south of the present Mosul city (within ancient Nineva city), and the pottery of Jarmo villages to Nineva pottery could give evidence for Jarmo people as followers to the Babylonian–Assyrian cultures within their empire and to prove that people of North Iraq and South Iraq are interrelated cultures through the history within Mesopotamian cultures.

Assyrian high-relief bricks from Nineveh and the fragments of a royal name

During the excavations in Nineveh carried out by R. Campbell Thompson on behalf of the British Museum in the years 1929 to 1932, many glazed Assyrian bricks were recovered and partly published in the excavation reports. Bricks were found in the years 1927–8 and 1929–30, respectively, when the Temple of Nabu and the so-called Palace of Assurnasirpal II were being excavated. Bricks were said to have come from the South-East area of the Temple of Nabu, where the excavators thought they had found the palace of King Assurnasirpal II. Actually, as recognised then by Thompson himself, the area between the temples of Nabu and Ishtar, where the palace of Assurnasirpal was thought to be, is characterised by later installations that reused Assyrian materials and structures (Fig. 1a–b). Confusion is due to the frequent presence of the wordé.gal(“palace”) at the beginning of the inscription that was stamped onto the bricks. However, the wordé.galprobably does not refer to a palace proper, but was used as a production mark: the brick was produced by and/or within the administrative structure (“palace”) of the Assyrian king, whose name usually follows the wordé.gal(“palace” of + Assyrian king's name), independently from its final location or use either for a palace or a temple.Thus, as reconstructed by Julian Reade, the Temple of Ishtar should be considered the likely source for the Assyrian materials found when excavating the South-East quadrant in the years 1927–8 and 1929–30, although the Temple of Nabu itself cannota prioribe totally excluded.

The Broken Obelisk

The purpose of the present note is to alert scholars to the fact that following a cleaning programme undertaken in the late 1960s certain iconographic details apparently visible on the decorated face of the monument known as the Broken Obelisk should be treated with caution.As recounted by C. J. Gadd, the Broken Obelisk was found by Hormuzd Rassam in August 1853 at Nineveh, about halfway between Sennacherib's Palace and Ashurbanipal's Palace (Gadd 1936: 123; Rassam 1897: 9). It was probably in or near the Ishtar Temple (ibid.; Reade 2005: 373). The Obelisk was drawn on site (Fig. 1), either by Charles Hodder (Gadd 1936: 123) or by William Boucher, who arrived at Nineveh in March 1854 in order to help Rassam record some of the important sculptures he had found at Kouyunyik (Barnett 1975: 22; Rassam 1897: 37). Gadd describes how the obelisk was shipped with other sculptures from Basra to Bombay in the steam-frigate Acbar in March 1854, and from Bombay to London in the ship Merchantman, arriving in February 1855 (Gadd 1936: 123). It now has the British Museum number 118898 (56-9-9, 59).It is known as the Broken Obelisk because it is the upper part only of an obelisk with a stepped top. At the bottom it measures 65 × 41 cm, and it has an overall surviving height of 63 cm. There is a lengthy cuneiform inscription on three of the four sides (the short left side is blank) and on one of the long sides there is, in addition to the cuneiform inscription, a panel of carved decoration showing a king holding a rod and ring or (more likely) a mace and a coil of rope. In front of the king are two pairs of prisoners roped together. In the field above the prisoners, and in front of the king, are five divine symbols, comprising a horned cap, a crescent, a winged disc from which emerge two hands, one of them holding a bow, a bolt of lightning, and a rosette. The text (Grayson 1991: 99–105) recounts the achievements of a king who is thought to be Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC). It is usually inferred from the text that the obelisk was originally set up at Ashur.

Who is holding the lead rope? The relief of the Broken Obelisk

The step-topped, free-standing square monument called in modern literature the Broken Obelisk was found by Hormuzd Rassam at Nineveh, near the Ishtar temple on the mound of Kuyunjik. It is the earliest monument of this kind, and it differs in its pictorial rendering from the later, so-called Assyrian obelisks. Whereas the succeeding examples display reliefs on their four sides, creating consecutive narratives, the Broken Obelisk exhibits a single, motionless relief on its front, the subject of the present paper (Börker-Klähn 1982, Nos. 132, 138–45, 152; Bär 1996, 57-68, 88–99, 101–5, 148–65).My aim here is to shed light on the motif of the king holding prisoners of war by means of lead ropes and to examine the bearing of this motif on the status of the royal image in pictorial renderings. According to different interpretations of the scene, the king holds a ring and rod (Börker-Klähn 1982, 178, No. 131 with earlier bibliography), or a ceremonial mace (Russell 2003, 4) as well as lead rope(s) with which he binds prisoners of war standing in front of him (e.g. Pritchard 1969, 300, No. 440; Strommenger 1964, 437, PI. 188, bottom; Börker-Klähn 1982, 178; Collon 1995, 117; Russell 2003, 4). My initial interest in the iconography of the Broken Obelisk was aroused by the fact that on it the so-called ring and rod symbols of kingship granted by the gods, are held by the king, whereas usually they are held by a deity in compositions conveying the very act of the divine giving (Hallo 2005, 150–1, 161; Suter 2000, 6–7; Ornan 2005, 12).

Does It Have to be hESC? A Note on War, Embryo, and the Disabled

In the spring semester of 2006, in my previous university position, I offered a course entitled: "Does it have to be hESC? Ethics and debate of stem cell research and cloning." As part of the course assignment, my students, divided into small groups, had to conduct group research on either a nation (or state within it) or a religious/political movement and its position on human embryonic stem cell research to present to the class. Groups elected to present on Israel, California, Canada, Vatican, the Bush-Kerry 2004 Presidential campaign, and South Korea. Outstanding presentations brought to the foreground how difficult it would be to reach any kind of complete agreement on ethical standards of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research on an international level, yet at the same time, nearly all emphasized how important such an agreement would be, on the basis that hESC research concerns precisely what we see as life or non-life. Here, life's national specificity and human universality clashed head on. * * * Debates on hESC research are multi-directional, including the precise point of life's beginning, the moral status of embryo, and how to reconcile [End Page 509] with the existing practice of discarding and destroying not insignificant portions of spare embryos that are produced from IVF (in vitro fertilization), diverse religious views on what embryo is, and so on. Paralleling these discussions, (industrialized) national-states' efforts to participate in global competition, mixed with individual scientists' dreams and ambitions, creates an enormously complex terrain in which to observe debates about what life is and how it should be treated. These debates on life, involving individual, cultural, political, national, and international actors, curiously, are also about death—notably, the question of of whether non-life=death. It is here that the most salient, yet characteristically unspoken, points are contained. For, as I shall argue below, societies (including our own) are constantly making decisions about who can survive and who can be killed. If any society in a certain period of history under certain conditions does not necessarily see an individual life belonging exclusively to an individual, then this individual's death may not result in death. More concretely: in the current rhetoric of the US government with regard to the American soldier's death in Iraq, references to the eternity of life prevail—the deceased soldier being not dead, but alive, eternally with us. If so, in the US, under the current national emergency, individual lives are not the exclusive property of individuals—they belong, at least in part, to the nation. As long as the nation survives, the dead soldier never dies. As another example, many nations, including the US, allow brain death to be deemed as death proper and, as we witnessed in the 2005 removal of Terry Schiavo's feeding tube, the political and judiciary institution such as courts and the congress interfered directly and exercised their authority to endorse or disputing the death ("Schiavo's feeding tube removed" 2005, see also Lock 2002 for a comparative study). Often, on the other hand, the brain-dead person's fully functioning organs or even, as in the recent transplantion in France, a face ("Woman has first face transplant" 2006). Body parts are donated to needy persons and, in this practice, the donated organ, part of the life of the deceased, continues to live, fused with someone else's life. These instances evoke the concept of sacrifice. Individual sacrifices for a larger and supposedly more meaningful collectivity are often not seen as death. Humans have done this since primordial times, both in myths and rituals: Adonis's sacrifice for the vegetation god, offers of virgin sexuality for the temple of Ishtar, and other such instances are abundantly recorded (Frazer 1922, Herodotus 1954). From Hollywood movie themes to pious martyrdoms, [End Page 510] sacrificial tales continue to surround us today. If a soldier's death...

The Ishtar Temple at Nineveh

Nineveh, like modern Mosul of which it is now a suburb, lay at the heart of a prosperous agricultural region with many interregional connections, and the temple of Ishtar of Nineveh dominated the vast mound of Kuyunjik (Fig. 1). Trenches dug on behalf of the British Museum, mainly by Christian Rassam in 1851–2, Hormuzd Rassam in 1852–4 and 1878–80, George Smith in 1873–4, and Leonard King and Reginald Campbell Thompson in 1903–5, impinged on the site. The main temple was almost completely cleared, together with an area to the north-west, by Thompson and colleagues in four seasons between 1927 and 1932 (Figs. 2–3). Many original King and Thompson records are kept in the Department of the Ancient Near East at the British Museum; some photographic negatives are at the Royal Asiatic Society in London. The numerous objects from Thompson's excavations are now divided between the Iraq Museum, the British Museum (where they are registered in the 1929-10-12, 1930-5-8, 1932-12-10 and 1932-12-12 collections, mostly corresponding to the four successive seasons), the Birmingham City Museum, the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; some were given to other institutions, and to individuals who had contributed to the excavation costs.

Old Babylonian Tablets from Nineveh; And Possible Pieces of Early Gilgamesh Epic

The cuneiform tablets in the British Museum published here come from Old Babylonian Nineveh. A tablet from the Ashmolean Museum is also published here because its contents, reminiscent of the Epic of Gilgamesh, seem to link it with some of the British Museum fragments. Despite the fact that it was registered in the same year, the Ashmolean tablet almost certainly does not come from Nineveh, as the ductus is entirely different, and so is the clay. According to the sequence of numbers to which it belongs, the most likely findspot is Kish.The tablet fragments and flakes numbered BM 134537 A–I and 134538 probably all belong to a single, very large tablet of the Old Babylonian period. They are written in Old Babylonian script quite similar to that of the letters from Tell al Rimah, and distinct from the script of Sippar. They were found by Campbell Thompson in the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh, together with other fragments which include a possibly bilingual text, and three letters.

The Ishtar Temple at Alalakh

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Ishtar Temple at AlalakhNadav NaʾamanNadav Naʾaman Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 39, Number 3Jul., 1980 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/372804 Views: 11Total views on this site Copyright 1980 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Fragments of Historical Texts from Nineveh: Middle Assyrian and Later Kings

A Number of the historical texts excavated by R. Campbell Thompson at Nineveh belong to the period of the Middle Assyrian kingdom, or to the first two centuries of the first millennium B.C. They attest the activity of successive Assyrian rulers in structural works on the mound of Kouyunjik, although the buildings themselves have been demolished, or remain undiscovered. Moreover, they add information on the history of that age, known mainly from texts unearthed at Ashur. All the pieces studied here are catalogued in the Second Supplement to the Catalogue of Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (1968) where details of provenance and physical appearance are given. They are published by permission of the Trustees.The series of clay knobs (‘bosses’) recording the history of the Temple of Ishtar was edited by R. Campbell Thompson and he had a presentation of some other texts in hand at the time of his death, in 1941. His notes and copies were made available by courtesy of the Keeper of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, but the tablets have been baked and cleaned recently, so new copies have been drawn. One of the texts, an important tablet of Tiglath-pileser I, has been edited by E. F. Weidner (see below, n.2), the remaining fragments of historical content are given now, and some related pieces added for the information they add in this respect. Although these are but scraps, and many are unidentified, they merit publication as records of a poorly documented era.

A List of Copper Objects

The object here published, no. 1931.128 in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, is a seven-sided prism measuring 17 cm. in height and 53 mm. in diameter. It was excavated at Tell Ingharra, Kisn, and Dr. P. R. S. Moorey has kindly provided me with the following note on its provenance:“ Its field reference is C 10 5(5), which means that it was found in area ‘C’, trench number 10, at five metres from the surface of the mound at a place where the surface is five metres above the plain, i.e. at plain level (see Iraq 28 (1966), 19–20 with Fig. 1, and 32–3). If my interpretation of the site is correct, these levels were part of an Akkad–Isin/Larsa religious centre, perhaps the well-known Temple of Ishtar (Ninlil) at Ehursagkalamma.” The script is at least as early as the Ur III period, probably earlier.The text consists of a list of copper objects, each line ending with the sign urudu. Its main divisions are as follows: I 1 ff. vessels (šen); II 10 ff. chisels (bulug); IV 10 ff. daggers (gír); VI 8 ff. knives(?) (šum). A strange peculiarity of the text is that the lines run in pairs, each object being followed by the same object preceded by the sign AN. This rule is broken only in side IV lines 2–9, and possibly also in the damaged passage I 16–II 9, and it has made it possible to restore a large number of damaged lines with a high degree of probability. At first sight one is inclined to read these lines beginning with AN as the object in question deified, but this seems so improbable that it is safer to transliterate the sign as AN.

The British Museum Excavations on the Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh, 1930–31. University of Liverpool, Annals of Archæology and Anthropology, vol. xix. By R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hamilton. 10½ × 7¼, pp. 62, pls. xlvi–xcii. Liverpool: University Press, 1932. 6s.

The British Museum Excavations on the Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh, 1930–31. University of Liverpool, Annals of Archæology and Anthropology, vol. xix. By R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hamilton. 10½ × 7¼, pp. 62, pls. xlvi–xcii. Liverpool: University Press, 1932. 6s. - Volume 66 Issue 2

The Orient and Greece

On p. 289 of the last volume of the Journal Dr. Roes refers to the discovery at Nineveh by Dr. Campbell Thompson of large quantities of‘the black-painted ware the like of which is found in South Mesopotamia and Persia,’ in Parthian houses erected among the ruins of the destroyed temple of Ishtar. She discourages Dr. Thompson's suggestion that they were part of the ‘collection’ of a Parthian antiquary and suggests that ‘the discovery must mean that in the days of the Parthians the vases were still being made somewhere.’I also feel sceptical about Dr. Thompson's Parthian antiquary, but think that Dr. Roes probably does not realise the peculiar nature of the site. Quyunjik is an immense mound rising about 100 feet above the bed of the Khosr that flows under it.

An Aramaic Inscription on a Piece of Black painted Ware from Nineveh

While excavating at the side of the foundations of the Temple of Ishtar in some Parthian houses on Kouyunjik in 1930–1, we found a quantity of black-painted pottery, to all appearances of an early date, of the same kind as appeared in 1927 and 1929, when Mr. Hutchinson was in charge of the pottery. This painted ware, while reminiscent of the well-known ware from Susa and Babylonia, has a distinct type of its own, and we are still in doubt about its exact date, but it is presumably of the Third Millennium. Its presence in Parthian levels led us to assume that some Parthian archaeologist had collected it.

The Orient and Greece

Mr. Campbell Thompson tells us, in the Ill. London News of June 27th, 1931, that in excavating at Niniveh he discovered a Parthian settlement on the foundations of the destroyed temple of Ishtar. In some of the houses belonging to this settlement were found great quantities of ‘the blackpainted ware, the like of which is found in South Mesopotamia and Persia.’ As this kind of pottery, decorated with geometric ornaments and animals, in all the places where it has hitherto come to light, must be dated about 3000 B.C., he is much surprised by his find, and the only explanation he suggests is that there must have been some Parthian virtuoso who collected antiquities. Now this seems most improbable, for who would at that time care for ancient pottery of no great beauty or attractive appearance, supposing even that after so many centuries unbroken vases were still found in sufficient quantities to encourage collectors?