Adab (modern
Bismaya (or Bismya), Wasit Governorate
, Iraq
) was an
ancient Sumerian city between Telloh
and Nippur
.
History
Adab was
occupied from at least the Early Dynastic period, thru the Akkadian Empire
and into the empire of
Ur
III. While no later archaeological evidence was found at
Bismaya,the excavations there were brief and there were later
epigraphic references to Adab such as inthe
Code of Hammurabi.
One king of Adab,
Lugal-Anne-Mundu,
is listedin the
Sumerian King
List and is mentioned in a later inscription. A king of
Kish,
Mesilim, appears
to have ruled at Adab, based on inscriptions found at Bismaya.
Several governors of the city under
Ur III
are also known. Lastly, a marble statue found at Bismaya was
inscribed with the name of a king of Adab which has been variously
translated as Lugal-daudu, Da-udu, Lugaldalu, and Esar.
According to
Sumerian text
Descent to
the Underworld, there was atemple of
Inanna named E-shar at Adab. Brick stamps, found by
Banks during his excavation of Adab state that the
Akkadian ruler
Naram-Suen
built atemple to Inanna at Adab, but the temple was not found
during the digand is not known for certain to be E-shar.
Archaeology
A group of
ruin mounds are what remains of the
ancient city.
The mounds are about 1.5 km (1 mile) long and
two miles (3 km) wide, consisting of a number of low ridges,
nowhere exceeding 12 m (40 ft) in height, lying in the Jezireh, somewhat nearer to the Tigris
than the
Euphrates, about a day's journey to the
south-east of Nippur.
Initial excavations of the site of Bismaya were by
William Hayes Ward of
the Wolfe Expedition
in 1885 and by John Punnett Peters of the University of
Pennsylvania
in 1889.
Excavations conducted there for six months,
from Christmas of 1903 to June 1904, for the University of
Chicago
, by Dr. Edgar James
Banks, proved that these mounds covered the site of the ancient
city of Adab (Ud-Nun), hitherto known only from the Sumerian king list and a brief mention of
its name in the introduction to the Hammurabi Code . The city was divided
into two parts by a
canal, on an island in
which stood the
temple, E-mach, with a
ziggurat, or stepped tower. It was
evidently once a city of considerable importance, but deserted at a
very early period, since the ruins found close to the surface of
the mounds belong to
Shulgi and
Ur-Nammu, kings of the
Third Dynasty of Ur in the latter part
of the third millennium B.C, based on inscribed bricks excavated at
Bismaya.
Immediately below these, as at Nippur, were found
artifacts dating to the reign of Naram-Suen and Sargon
of Akkad, ca. 2300 BC. Below these there were still
10.5m (35 ft) of stratified remains, constituting seven-eighths of
the total depth of the ruins. Besides the remains of buildings,
walls and graves, Dr. Banks discovered a large number of inscribed
clay tablets of a very early period, bronze and stone tablets,
bronze implements and the like.
But the two most notable discoveries were a
complete statue in white marble, apparently the earliest yet found
in Mesopotamia, now in the museum in
Constantinople
, bearing the inscription,translated by Banks
as "E-mach, King Da-udu, King of, Ud-Nun";
and a temple refuse heap, consisting of great quantities of
fragments of vases in marble,
alabaster,
onyx,
porphyry and
granite, some of which were inscribed, and others
engraved and inlaid with
ivory and precious
stones.
Of the Adab tablets that ended up at the University of Chicago,
sponsor of theexcavations, all have been published and also made
available in digital formonline. Of the tablets sold piecemealto
various owners, a few have also made their way into
publication.
There is a
Sumerian comic tale of
the
Three Ox-drivers from Adab (
translation).
Notes
- [1]John P. Peters, Nippur; Or, Explorations and
Adventures on the Euphrates: The Narrative of the University of
Pennsylvania Expedition to Babylonia in the Years 1888-1890,
University of Pennsylvania Babylonian Expedition, Putnam, 1897
- Edgar James Banks, Bismaya: or the lost City of
Adab, 1912
- OIP 14. Cuneiform Series, Vol. II: Inscriptions from from
Adab, Daniel David Luckenbill, 1930
- A Previously Unpublished Lawsuit from Ur III
Adab
References
- Edgar James Banks, The Bismya Temple, The American Journal of
Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 29-34, Oct.
1905
- D. D. Luckenbill, Two Inscriptions of Mesilim, King of Kish,
The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 30,
No. 3, pp. 219-223, Apr. 1914
- Edgar James Banks, The Oldest Statue in the World, The American
Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp.
57-59, Oct. 1904
See also
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