11 Facts About Nippur

1.

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

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2.

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.

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3.

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.

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4.

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.

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5.

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

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6.

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.

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7.

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

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8.

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.

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9.

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

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10.

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.

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11.

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.

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