Etila (temple of Gula/Ninkarrak at Borsippa)

According to Akkadian inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 BC), including the "East India House Inscription," the healing goddess Gula/Ninkarrak had three temples at Borsippa. Etila was one of those three; the other two were Egula and Ezibatila.

East India House

BM 129397, a large stone tablet that bears a long Akkadian inscription that is now commonly referred to as the "East India House Inscription." The description of Nebuchadnezzar's rebuilding of Etila is recorded in lines iv 52–56. Image adapted from the British Museum Collection website. Credit: Trustees of the British Museum.

Names and Spellings

This temple at Borsippa went by the Sumerian ceremonial name Etila, which means "House Which Gives Life."

Written Forms: e₂-ti-la.

Known Builders

Building History

A fragmentarily-preserved Akkadian inscription of the Neo-Assyrian king Esarhaddon records that he repaired a Gula temple at Borsippa after it had been damaged by water. Due to the text's bad state of preservation, it is not entirely certain that this ruler restored Etila and not one of the other two Gula temples at Borsippa. Esarhaddon is tentatively regarded on BTMAo as a known builder of this temple, although this cannot presently be proven with certainty.

In numerous Akkadian inscriptions, Nebuchadnezzar II states that he built Etila anew. This work was carried out in connection with the rebuilding of two other temples of Gula/Ninkarrak at Borsippa, Egula and Ezibatila. Several still-fragmentarily-preserved texts discovered at Borsippa record additional details about the project. One inscription, which is written on a two-column clay cylinder, describes the earliest stages of Etila's rebuilding as follows:

At that time, (as for) Etila, the temple of the goddess Ninkarrak, which is inside Borsippa, whose brickwork had not been restored from distant days, (my) heart prompted me and my mind was focused on (re)building that temple. I sought out the (original) emplacement of this temple and (thus) I dug down N+2 cubits into the earth. Then, I saw the original foundation(s), laid its (new) foundations on top of its former foundation(s) and (thereby) firmly established it (Etila) for eternity.

Presumably, after relaying the foundations on their original positions, Nebuchadnezzar's workmen built the temple's brick superstructure anew, roofed it, and decorated it interior. Those building stages are not recorded in presently-known inscriptions.

Archaeological Remains

Etila has not yet been positively identified in the archaeological record.

Further Reading

Jamie Novotny & Joshua Meynell

Jamie Novotny & Joshua Meynell, 'Etila (temple of Gula/Ninkarrak at Borsippa)', Babylonian Temples and Monumental Architecture online (BTMAo), The BTMAo Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, [http://oracc.org/btmao/Borsippa/TemplesandZiggurat/Etila/]

 
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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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