Temples, Shrines, and Ziggurat of Babylon

Babylon's districts

The scholarly compendium Tintir = Babylon names forty-three temples, as well as forty-eight daises or pedestals, in the ten city quarters of the inner city of Babylon. Of those, only eight on the eastern side of the city have been excavated: Emah (the temple of the goddess Bēlet-ilī), Emašdari (the temple of Ištar of Agade), Ehilikalama (the temple of the goddess Ašratu), and Eniggidrukalammasuma (the temple of the god Nabû of the harû) in Ka-dingirra; Esagil (the temple of Babylon's patron deity Marduk) and Etemenanki (the ziggurat dedicated to Marduk) in Eridu; and Ehursagtila (the temple of the god Ninurta) and Ešasurra (the temple of the god Išhara) in Šuanna. The four northern temples, those in the Ka-dingirra district, have been reconstructed, while the southern temples, those in the Eridu and Šuanna districts, have not.

Ashm1924-0846.jpg

Obverse of clay tablet Ashm 1924-0846, which is inscribed with a copy of Tintir = Babylon Tablet IV, which lists the temples in the Eridu, Ka-dingirra, Šuanna, and New City districts of Babylon. Image adapted from the CDLI.

List of temples at Babylon by district (according to Tintir = Babylon Tablet IV)

Eridu (East Babylon)

Ka-dingirra (East Babylon)

Šuanna (East Babylon)

New City (East Babylon)

Ashm1924-0846.jpg

Reverse of clay tablet Ashm 1924-0846, which is inscribed with a copy of Tintir = Babylon Tablet IV [/btmao/Q000305], which lists the temples in the Kullab, Tê, Lugalirra Gate, Kumar, and Tuba districts of Babylon. Image adapted from the CDLI.

Kullab (East Babylon)

Tê (East Babylon)

Lugalirra Gate (West Babylon)

Kumar (West Babylon)

Tuba (West Babylon)

In addition to these forty-three temples, Babylon is known to have had other religious structures. The most important of these was Marduk's New Year's temple (Akkadian bīt akīti) Esiskur, which was outside and to the north of the inner city. Because it was not located in one of the city's ten districts, Esiskur was excluded from Tintir = Babylon Tablet IV.

Banner image: plan and reconstruction of Babylon with the excavated and unexcavated temples shown according to their city districts according to Tintir = Babylon Tablet IV [/btmao/Q000305]. Adapted from O. Pedersén, Babylon: The Great City, fig. 4.2 [https://uppsala.app.box.com/s/cgm386mr39f0we39y8v49ktecc664k0k/file/722114699771].

Jamie Novotny

Jamie Novotny, 'Temples, Shrines, and Ziggurat of Babylon', Babylonian Temples and Monumental Architecture online (BTMAo), The BTMAo Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, [http://oracc.org/btmao/Babylon/TemplesandZiggurat/]

 
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BTMAo 2019-. BTMAo is based at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Historisches Seminar (LMU Munich, History Department) - Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East. BTMAo is part of the four-year project Living Among Ruins: The Experience of Urban Abandonment in Babylonia (September 2019 to October 2023), which is funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung as part of the program "Lost Cities. Wahrnehmung von und Leben mit verlassenen Städten in den Kulturen der Welt," coordinated by Martin Zimmermann and Andreas Beyer. Content released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/] license, 2007-.
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