Temples and Shrines of Ubassu

BM 108981 a two-column clay cylinder with an Akkadian inscription of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus mentioning Ubassu. Photo credit: Frauke Weiershäuser.

An Akkadian inscription of Nabonidus (r. 555–539 BC), Babylon's last native king, states that he undertook work at Ubassu (modern Tell Aswië), a small town situated between Babylon and Borsippa. The exact nature of the project(s) there is uncertain as the passage recording construction activities in that town is rather vague:

As for the city Ubassu, (which is) between Babylon and Borsippa, I raised up its superstructure with bitumen and baked brick(s) and (then) had the goddess Nanāya, the supreme goddess, enter her cella.

That Neo-Babylonian king appears to have renovated or rebuilt a sanctuary of the goddess Nanāya. Nothing further about that unnamed religious structure is known, including its Sumerian ceremonial name.

Jamie Novotny

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

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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