11 Facts About Nippur

Nippur was located in modern Nuffar in Afak, Al-Qadisiyyah Governorate, Iraq.

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.

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 held this sanctuary.

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.

Nippur remained inhabited in Islamic times, and is mentioned by early Muslim geographers under the name of Niffar.

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However, Nippur remained the seat of an Assyrian Church of the East Christian bishopric until the late 900s, when the bishopric was transferred to the city of Nil, further northwest.

Nippur was first excavated, briefly, by Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1851.

Nippur was excavated for 19 seasons between 1948 and 1990 by a team from the Oriental Institute of Chicago, joined at times by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the American Schools of Oriental Research.

The whole city of Nippur appears to have been at that time merely an appendage of the temple.

Jewish names, appearing in the Persian documents discovered at Nippur, show that Jewish settlement at that city dates in fact from a much earlier period.

Drehem or ancient Puzrish-Dagan, sometimes called a suburb of Nippur, is the best-known city of the so-called redistribution centers of the Ur III period.