Walls and Gates of Kish

The city wall of Kish, Melem-kurukurra-dulla, is mentioned in a royal inscription of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus, in the Kuyunjik Ziggurat List, and in an explanatory temple list.

Names and Spellings

Kish's city wall bears the Sumerian ceremonial name Melem-kurukurra-dulla, which means "(Whose) Radiance Spreads over (All) Lands."

Written Forms: me-lam-kur-kur-ra-dul-la; me-lem₄-kur-kur-ra-dul-la.

Known Builders

Building History

In an Akkadian inscription recording work at the city of Marad, the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus (r. 555–539 BC) states that he raised the mud-brick superstructure of the main wall of Kish, Melem-kurukurra-dulla, as high as a mountain. No details around the project are provided in that text.

Further Reading

Jamie Novotny & Naomi Weir

Jamie Novotny & Naomi Weir, 'Walls and Gates of Kish', Babylonian Temples and Monumental Architecture online (BTMAo), The BTMAo Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, [http://oracc.org/btmao/Kish/WallsandGates/]

 
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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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