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129-697: Akkad ( / ˈ æ k æ d / ; also spelt Accad , Akkade , a-ka₃-de₂ or Agade , Akkadian : 𒀀𒂵𒉈𒆠 akkadê , also 𒌵 𒆠 URI in Sumerian during the Ur III period) was the capital of the Akkadian Empire , which was the dominant political force in Mesopotamia during a period of about 150 years in the last third of the 3rd millennium BC. Its location is unknown . In the early days of research various unidentified mounds were considered as

258-691: A lingua franca of the empire, rather than it being eclipsed by Akkadian. Texts written 'exclusively' in Neo-Assyrian disappear within 10 years of Nineveh 's destruction in 612 BC. Under the Achaemenids , Aramaic continued to prosper, but Assyrian continued its decline. The language's final demise came about during the Hellenistic period when it was further marginalized by Koine Greek , even though Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times. Similarly,

387-650: A voiced alveolar trill /r/ but its pattern of alternation with ⟨ ḫ ⟩ suggests it was a fricative (either uvular /ʁ/ or velar /ɣ/ ). In the Hellenistic period, Akkadian ⟨ r ⟩ was transcribed using the Greek ρ, indicating it was pronounced similarly as an alveolar sound (though Greeks may also have perceived a uvular trill as ρ). Several Proto-Semitic phonemes are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop *ʔ , as well as

516-400: A "fierce power". "If a man begat sons, divorced his wife and married another, that man shall be uprooted from the house and property and may go after whom he loves. His wife (on the other hand) she claims the house." The Laws of Eshnunna consist of two tablets, found at Shaduppum (Tell Harmal) and a fragment found at Tell Haddad, the ancient Mê-Turan . They were written sometime around

645-540: A campaign against Qabra, and Shamshi-Adad and Dadusha's recount of the events were recorded in the Mardin stela and Dadusha stela respectively. The victory over Qabra was celebrated in the following year name of Dadusha, although the king would later die in the same year. Negotiations with Dadusha's successor Ibal-pi-El II proved difficult for Shamshi-Adad, and envoys from Eshnunna continued to come to Shamshi-Adad's kingdom to negotiate an agreement years later. Later, during

774-517: A comparison with other Semitic languages, and the resulting picture was gradually amended using internal linguistic evidence from Akkadian sources, especially deriving from so-called plene spellings (spellings with an extra vowel). According to this widely accepted system, the place of stress in Akkadian is completely predictable and sensitive to syllable weight . There are three syllable weights: light (ending in -V); heavy (ending in -V̄ or -VC), and superheavy (ending in -V̂, -V̄C or -V̂C). If

903-509: A contemporary of Lugal-zage-si of Umma , was "Year in which En-šakušuana defeated Akkad". This would have been shortly before the rise of the Akkadian Empire and part of his northern campaign that also defeated Kish and Akshak. A number of fragments of royal statues of Manishtushu ( c.  2270 –2255 BC), second Akkadian ruler, all bearing portions of a "standard inscription". It mentions Agade An excerpt: "Man-istusu, king of

1032-500: A diplomatic marriage with Elam , giving his daughter Me-Kubi to Tan-Ruhuratir. The name of Kirikiri is non-Semitic, and possibly Elamite. Bilalama attempted to maintain good relationships with Ilum-muttabbil of Der and Elam, although Der and Elam were at war. Bilalama was succeeded by Ishar-ramassu. The palace was then destroyed in a fire, which may have been the result of a foreign invasion. Ilum-mutabbil of Der may have taken Eshnunna and replaced Ishar-ramassu with Usur-awasu, which if

1161-608: A family native to Middle East , Arabian Peninsula , parts of Anatolia , parts of the Horn of Africa , North Africa , Malta , Canary Islands and parts of West Africa ( Hausa ). Akkadian is only ever attested in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions in the Near East. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup (with Eblaite and perhaps Dilmunite ). This group differs from

1290-585: A few thousand troops, likely because they were attacked by Halmam. Zimri-Lim then successfully sieged Andarig and took the city. The Yaminites also attacked Mari at this time, and Charpin suggested that there was a plan to have the Eshnunnian army and the Yaminites meet, although it wasn't successful. After Mari took back Andarig, they began peace talks, although several groups in Mari were against concluding

1419-567: A geometric style, were found in the Square Temple; these are known as the Tell Asmar Hoard . They are some of the best known examples of ancient Near East sculpture. The group, now split up, show gods, priests and donor worshipers at different sizes, but all in the same highly simplified style. All have greatly enlarged inlaid eyes, but the tallest figure, the main cult image depicting the local god, has enormous eyes that give it

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1548-533: A high position in international relations, and eventually Siwe-palar-huppak asked both Mari and Babylon for support against Eshnunna in Zimri-Lim's 7th year, which both obliged. Durand recently suggested that Eshnunna may have acted as an agent of Elam prior to Ibal-pi-El, which means that the Elamite invasion of Eshnunna was essentially an act against a rogue vassal. However, eventually an anti-Elamite coalition

1677-571: A letter sent to Zimri-Lim (Zimri-Lim's Mari is likely not mentioned because it is taken for granted): "No king is truly powerful just on his own: ten to fifteen kings follow Hammurabi of Babylon, as many follow Rim-Sin of Larsa, as many follow Ibal-pi-El of Eshnunna, and as many follow Amut-pi-El of Qatna; but twenty kings follow Yarim-Lim of Yamhad" Later, between Zimri-Lim's 7th year and 9th year, contact with Elam increased with gift exchanges going both sides, with Mari receiving tin on multiple occasions. The sukkalmah of Elam had henceforth occupied

1806-487: A list of cities in order along their watercourse ie "... Tutub, Eshnunna, Agade, Ashur, ..." which would place Akkade off the Tigris between Eshnunna and Ashur. Akkade is given the modifier ribitu which is used for prominent places. Centuries later, an old Babylonian text (purportedly a copy of an original Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC) statue inscription) refers to ships being docked at the quay of Agade, i.e. "Sargon moo[red]

1935-573: A list of the cities of Nimrod in Sumer ( Shinar ). In the early days of Assyriology, it was suggested that the name of Agade is not of Akkadian language origin. Proposals include Sumerian language , Hurrian language or the Lullubian (though that is unattested). The non-Akkadian origin of the city's name would suggest that the site may have been occupied in pre-Sargonic times. A year name of En-šakušuana ( c.  2350 BC ), king of Uruk and

2064-416: A location not far from Eshnunna. After Eshnunna was conquered by Atamrum of Andarig a songstress, Huššutum, was repatriated by Mari and soon reached Agade. "Gumul-Sin brought the woman out of the city gate and departed. (A report is taken back to my lord.) I gave this instruction to the guides, ‘Until YOU safely guide the woman through a frontier town, modify her garment and head-gear.’ But, being negligent,

2193-468: A locative ending in -um in the singular and the resulting forms serve as adverbials . These forms are generally not productive, but in the Neo-Babylonian the um -locative replaces several constructions with the preposition ina . In the later stages of Akkadian, the mimation (word-final -m ) and nunation (dual final -n ) that occurred at the end of most case endings disappeared, except in

2322-643: A palace from the Akkadian period were also excavated. Much effort was also put into the search for E-sikil, temple of Tishpak, without success. In records written in Sumerian the temple is dedicated to Ninazu while those in Akkadian refer to Tishpak. Despite the length of time since the excavations at Tell Asmar, the work of examining and publishing the remaining finds from that dig continues to this day. These finds include, terracotta figurines, toys, necklaces, cylinder seals, and roughly 200 clay sealings and around 1,750 cuneiform tablets (about 1000 of which came from

2451-409: A peace treaty with Eshnunna, with the most famous case being a line from an oracle of Dagan being relayed to Zimri-Lim in three different tablets, that "beneath straw runs water." In particular, Inib-shina (priestess and sister of Zimri-Lim) directly connects the oracle with the king of Eshnunna, and mentions that Dagan will destroy Ibal-pi-El. Lupakhum, someone also connected with the god Dagan, gave

2580-568: A purported brick inscription copy made during the reign of the Neo-Babylonian ruler Nabonidus (556 - 539 BC) many centuries later, the Kassite ruler Kurigalzu I (circa 1375 BC) reported rebuilding the Akitu house of Ishtar at Akkade. Another Nabonidus period copy indicates Kurigalzu (unclear if first or second of that name) left an inscription at Akkade recording his fruitless search for the E.ul.mas (temple of Istar-Annunitum). Nabonidus claimed that

2709-403: A separate East Semitic language. Because Akkadian as a spoken language is extinct and no contemporary descriptions of the pronunciation are known, little can be said with certainty about the phonetics and phonology of Akkadian. Some conclusions can be made, however, due to the relationship to the other Semitic languages and variant spellings of Akkadian words. The following table presents

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2838-605: A straight line east of Baqubah . It was first located by Henri Pognon in 1892 but he neglected to report the location before he died in 1921. It was refound, after antiquities from the site began to appear in dealers shops in Baghdad, and excavated in six seasons between 1930 and 1936 by an Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago team led by Henri Frankfort with Thorkild Jacobsen , Pinhas Delougaz, Gordon Loud, and Seton Lloyd . The expedition's field secretary

2967-604: A temple (dedicated) to him. ... " One year name of Naram-Sin reads "The year the wall of Agade <was built>". Another is "Year in which the temple of Isztar in Agade was built". The location "Dur(BAD₃)-A-ga-de₃" (Fortress of Agade) was frequently mentioned in texts of the Ur III period, noting the indication of deification. It is known from textual sources that the late 19th century BC rulers of Eshnunna performed cultic activities at Akkad. Based on texts found at Mari ,

3096-441: A temple to Shu-Sin in a new lower town. Soon after Shu-Sin's death, Ituria was followed by his son Shu-iliya, who in 2026 BCE got rid of the Ur III calendar and replaced it with a local one. He also stopped calling himself the ensi (governor) of Eshnunna, instead referring to himself as lugal (king) and "beloved of Tishpak ". His seal also mentioned the deities Belat-Shuhnir and Belat-Terraban. His personal seal shows him facing

3225-424: A vague warning about Eshnunna, and reprimanded the goddess Dērītum for counting on a peace treaty with Eshnunna. Regardless, Zimri-Lim signed the treaty with the king of Eshnunna. With the treaty between Zimri-Lim and Ibal-pi-El in Zimri-Lim's 5th year, Mari was able to keep Hit, and Rapiqum was given to Babylon. By the 6th year of Zimri-Lim, then the geopolitical situation had grown very complicated, as shown in

3354-499: A written language, adapting Sumerian cuneiform orthography for the purpose. During the Middle Bronze Age (Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian period), the language virtually displaced Sumerian, which is assumed to have been extinct as a living language by the 18th century BC. Old Akkadian, which was used until the end of the 3rd millennium BC, differed from both Babylonian and Assyrian, and was displaced by these dialects. By

3483-609: Is PaRiStum (< *PaRiS-at-um ). Additionally there is a general tendency of syncope of short vowels in the later stages of Akkadian. Most roots of the Akkadian language consist of three consonants, called the radicals, but some roots are composed of four consonants, so-called quadriradicals. The radicals are occasionally represented in transcription in upper-case letters, for example PRS (to decide). Between and around these radicals various infixes , suffixes and prefixes , having word generating or grammatical functions, are inserted. The resulting consonant-vowel pattern differentiates

3612-588: Is a fusional language with grammatical case . Like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses the system of consonantal roots . The Kültepe texts , which were written in Old Assyrian , include Hittite loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language . Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages ,

3741-442: Is divided into several varieties based on geography and historical period : One of the earliest known Akkadian inscriptions was found on a bowl at Ur , addressed to the very early pre-Sargonic king Meskiagnunna of Ur ( c.  2485 –2450 BC) by his queen Gan-saman, who is thought to have been from Akkad. The Akkadian Empire , established by Sargon of Akkad , introduced the Akkadian language (the "language of Akkad ") as

3870-409: Is marked by the Kassite invasion of Babylonia around 1550 BC. The Kassites, who reigned for 300 years, gave up their own language in favor of Akkadian, but they had little influence on the language. At its apogee, Middle Babylonian was the written language of diplomacy of the entire Ancient Near East , including Egypt ( Amarna Period ). During this period, a large number of loan words were included in

3999-507: Is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c.  2500 BC . It was written using cuneiform , a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the adapted cuneiform script could represent either (a) Sumerian logograms ( i.e. , picture-based characters representing entire words), (b) Sumerian syllables, (c) Akkadian syllables, or (d) phonetic complements . In Akkadian

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4128-501: Is then [awat+su] > /awatt͡su/ . In this vein, an alternative transcription of ⟨ š ⟩ is ⟨ s̱ ⟩, with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. Other interpretations are possible. /ʃ/ could have been assimilated to the preceding /t/ , yielding /ts/ , which would later have been simplified to /ss/ . The rhotic ⟨ r ⟩ has traditionally been interpreted as

4257-417: Is unknown if the statues were taken from Akkad or had been moved to Sippar. Màr-Issâr (Mar-Istar) was assigned by Neo-Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) to the city of Akkad. In one letter from Màr-Issâr to Esarhaddon in 671 BC he reports that the "substitute king" , who was the son of the temple administrator (šatammu) of Akkad, left Nineveh and arrived at the city of Akkad five days later and "sat upon

4386-675: The Jemdet Nasr period , around 3000 BC, Eshnunna was a major city during the Early Dynastic period of Mesopotamia. It is known, from cuneiform records and excavations, that the city was occupied in the Akkadian period though its extent was noticeably less than it reached in Ur III times. Areas of the Northern Palace date to this period and show some of the earliest examples of widespread sewage disposal engineering including toilets in private homes. The first known rulers of

4515-542: The Northwest Semitic languages and South Semitic languages in its subject–object–verb word order, while the other Semitic languages usually have either a verb–subject–object or subject–verb–object order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana ( locative case , English in / on / with , and dative -locative case, for / to , respectively). Other Semitic languages like Arabic , Hebrew and Aramaic have

4644-465: The Old Babylonian period . The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Akkadian, Modern Standard Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew : The existence of a back mid-vowel /o/ has been proposed, but the cuneiform writing gives no good proof for this. There is limited contrast between different u-signs in lexical texts, but this scribal differentiation may reflect

4773-656: The Persian conquest of the Mesopotamian kingdoms contributed to the decline of Babylonian, from that point on known as Late Babylonian, as a popular language. However, the language was still used in its written form. Even after the Greek invasion under Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Akkadian was still a contender as a written language, but spoken Akkadian was likely extinct by this time, or at least rarely used. The last positively identified Akkadian text comes from

4902-598: The consonants of the Akkadian language, as distinguished in Akkadian cuneiform. The reconstructed phonetic value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, alongside its standard ( DMG-Umschrift ) transliteration in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ . Evidence from borrowings from and to Sumerian has been interpreted as indicating that the Akkadian voiceless non-emphatic stops were originally unaspirated, but became aspirated around 2000 BCE. Akkadian emphatic consonants are typically reconstructed as ejectives , which are thought to be

5031-400: The status absolutus (the absolute state ) and the status constructus ( construct state ). The latter is found in all other Semitic languages, while the former appears only in Akkadian and some dialects of Aramaic. The status absolutus is characterised by the loss of a noun's case ending (e.g. awīl < awīlum , šar < šarrum ). It is relatively uncommon, and is used chiefly to mark

5160-471: The third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from the 8th century BC. Akkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic language , is named after the city of Akkad , a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire ( c.  2334 –2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script , originally used for Sumerian , but also used to write multiple languages in

5289-596: The 10th century BC when the Assyrian kingdom became a major power with the Neo-Assyrian Empire . During the existence of that empire, however, Neo-Assyrian began to turn into a chancellery language, being marginalized by Old Aramaic . The dominance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 8th century led to the establishment of Aramaic as

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5418-409: The 10th year of Zimri-Lim. Later, the new king of Eshnunna blocked messengers between Elam and Babylon when the two were trying to reestablish relationships, which likely resulted in a rise in tension between Babylon and Eshnunna. Silli-Sin would later send a letter telling Ishme-Dagan and Hammurabi of Kurda to not send troops to Babylon even if asked and even tried to ask Zimri-Lim to do the same, but

5547-437: The 11th year name of Hammurabi, which celebrated his conquest of Rapiqum. Rapiqum was, however, conquered by Dadusha and then Ibal-pi-El II. Eventually, through the ambitions of both Sumu-la-El of Babylon and Ipiq-Adad II a line of demarcation between the two kingdoms was formed, running somewhere along Sippar-Amnanum. The boundary line changed multiple times after that, with Apil-Sin conquering Ashtabala and other cities along

5676-493: The 12th century BC the Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nakhunte conquered Eshnunna and carried back a number of statues, ranging from the Akkadian period to the Old Babylonian period, to Susa. Because of its promise of control over lucrative trade routes, Eshnunna could function somewhat as a gateway between Mesopotamian and Elamite culture. The trade routes gave it access to many exotic, sought-after goods such as horses from

5805-448: The 13th year of the Neo-Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC) it states: "Ibna son of Šum-ukin, of his own free will, sold Šahana and her three-year-old daughter Ša-Nana-bani to Šamaš-dannu son of Mušezib-Marduk descendant of the priest of the city of Akkad for one-half mina five shekels of silver, the price agreed upon. ..." Cyrus the Great (c. 600–530 BC), after conquering Mesopotamia, wrote "... all of them (kings from

5934-561: The 1st century AD. The latest known text in cuneiform Babylonian is an astronomical almanac dated to 79/80 AD. However, the latest cuneiform texts are almost entirely written in Sumerian logograms. The Akkadian language began to be rediscovered when Carsten Niebuhr in 1767 was able to make extensive copies of cuneiform texts and published them in Denmark. The deciphering of the texts started immediately, and bilinguals, in particular Old Persian -Akkadian bilinguals, were of great help. Since

6063-701: The 20th century BC, two variant dialectic forms of the same language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively. The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age . In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering a vast textual tradition of religious and mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, personal correspondence, political, civil and military events, economic tracts and many other examples. Centuries after

6192-460: The 21st century BC Babylonian and Assyrian, which were to become the primary dialects, were easily distinguishable. Old Babylonian, along with the closely related dialect Mariotic , is clearly more innovative than the Old Assyrian dialect and the more distantly related Eblaite language . For this reason, forms like lu-prus ('I will decide') were first encountered in Old Babylonian instead of

6321-622: The Abu Temple at Tell Asmar (Eshnunna) went through a number of phases. This included the Early Dynastic Archaic Shrine, Square Temple, and Single-Shrine phases of construction. They, along with sculpture found there, helped form the basis for the three part archaeological separation of the Early Dynastic period into ED I, ED II, and ED III for the ancient Near East. A cache of 12 gypsum temple sculptures, in

6450-522: The Amorite king Shamshi-Adad (1808–1776 BC), in the final years of his reign, went to the cities of "Rapiqum and Akkad" (they having been captured earlier by his son Yasmah-Adad) as part of one of his military campaigns, in this case against Eshnunna . The prologue of the Laws of Hammurabi (circa 1750 BC) includes the phrase "the one who installs Ištar in the temple Eulmaš inside Akkade city". It also holds

6579-466: The Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) had rebuilt the E.ul.mas temple of Istar-Annunitum at Agade. The Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nakhunte (1184 to 1155 BC) conquered part of Mesopotamia, noting that he defeated Sippar. As part of the spoils some millennium old royal Akkadian statues were taken back to Susa including the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin and a statue of the Akkadian ruler Manishtushu. It

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6708-487: The Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire when in the mid-eighth century BC Tiglath-Pileser III introduced Imperial Aramaic as a lingua franca of the Assyrian empire. By the Hellenistic period , the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD. Mandaic spoken by Mandean Gnostics and

6837-469: The Old Babylonian dialect of the Akkadian language , termed "archaic Old Babylonian". They are roughly in two groups a) earlier primarily from the reigns of Bilalama, Nur-ahum and Kirikiri and b) later primarily from the reigns of Usur-awassu, Ur-Ninmar, and Ipiq-Adad I. From 2001 until 2002, Iraqi archaeologists worked at Tell Asmar. Excavation focused on an area of private houses in the southern part of

6966-625: The Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, has also been suggested. A proposed location of Agade is Ishan Mizyad (Tell Mizyad), a large (1,000 meters by 600 meters) low site 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northwest from Kish and 15 kilometers east-northeast of Babylon. Excavations have shown that the remains at Ishan Mizyad date to the Akkadian period (about 200 Old Akkadian administrative texts were found, mainly lists of workers), Ur III period , Isin-Larsa period, and Neo-Babylonian period, including an archive of cuneiform tablets from

7095-542: The Tigris, which was reversed by Naram-Sin of Eshnunna. Naram-Sin, the successor of Ipiq-Adad II, also continued to use the divine determinative before his name and used similar ambitious epithets. Naram-Sin was also mentioned in Assyrian King List in the section on Shamshi-Adad, being the one who forced Shamshi-Adad into exile. The Laws of Eshnunna and the building of the Naram-Sin audience hall were from

7224-731: The Ur III period. Until Neo-Babylonian times a canal ran from Kish to Mizyad. On the Kassite Land grant to Marduk-apla-iddina I by Meli-Shipak II (1186–1172 BC) the recipient is given cultivated land in the communal land of the city of Agade located around the settlement of Tamakku adjacent to the Nar Sarri (Canal of the King) in Bīt-Piri’-Amurru, north of the "land of Istar-Agade" and east of Kibati canal. Based on an Old Babylonian period itinerary from Mari which places Akkade between

7353-492: The Yaminite chief Yaggih-Addu took Assur and Ekallatum, and the event was described in a letter to Zimri-Lim how "Assur, Ekallatum and Eshnunna have now become one house." Ishme-Dagan seemed to have left the capital to go to Babylon before Ekallatum was invaded. Eshnunna succeeded in capturing Shubat-Enlil, which seemed to have caused the submission of several kings in the region to Eshnunna. Eshnunna laid siege to Kurda after

7482-660: The agreement satisfactory, as he wanted to control the Suhum, and rejected the offer. The need to evacuate people from the Suhum in the 2nd year of Zimri-Lim could imply a renewed offensive by Eshnunna. Mari and Eshnunna would be at war between the 3rd year and the 5th year of Zimri-Lim. Eshnunna captured Rapiqum in the 3rd year of Zimri-Lim, which was celebrated in Ibal-pi-El's 9th year name. Later Ibal-pi-El sent an ultimatum to Zimri-Lim that he would take Shubat-Enlil . The army of Eshnunna, lead by former king of Allahad Atamrum and

7611-404: The archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use both of cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence. Old Babylonian was the language of king Hammurabi and his code , which is one of the oldest collections of laws in the world. (see Code of Ur-Nammu .) Old Assyrian developed as well during the second millennium BC, but because it

7740-558: The base fragment of an Old Akkadian statue (now in the British Museum ) found there. The statue is of black stone and was originally three meters high and thought to be of ruler Rimush. The upper portion of the statue was reportedly destroyed by a local imam for idolatry. The site in question has been partially eroded away by the Tigris and is located between Samarra and the confluence of the Tigiris and ʿAdhaim rivers. The fragment

7869-514: The border of their respective kingdoms at Harradum and to renew the relationship between Mari and Eshnunna from the time of the Mariote king Yahdun-Lim. He informed his benefactor Yarim-Lim, king of Yamhad (Aleppo) that although Eshnunna wanted to forge an alliance, Zimri-Lim always turned the envoys down, which may not have been the case as there were several discussions between him and Eshnunna during this time. Ultimately, Zimri-Lim did not consider

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7998-479: The case would have meant that Der had attempted to break up the alliance between Elam and Eshnunna. The reigns of the successors Azuzum, Ur-Ninmarki and Ur-Ningishzida appeared to have been peaceful. There followed a period of political uncertainty in the Diyala. Ipiq-adad II was the first king of Eshnunna to put the divine determinative before the name since Shu-Iliya, and took on the titles "mighty king" "king of

8127-496: The cities of Sippar ( Sippar and Sippar-Amnanum ) and Khafajah (Tutub) on a route to Eshnunna , Akkad would be on the Tigris just downstream of the current city of Baghdad , near the crossing of the Tigris and its tributary Diyala River . Mari documents also indicate that Akkad is sited at a river crossing. During the reign of Rîm-Anum , ruler of Uruk (c. 1800 BC) prisoners of war from Akkad were grouped with those of Eshnunna and Nērebtum. An Old Babylonian prisoner record from

8256-409: The city of Akkad and also opens the possibility that its location shifted over time, as sometimes happened when the Tigris or Euphrates river moved. It has been proposed, based on kudurrus from the reigns of Kassite ruler Marduk-nadin-ahhe (1095–1078 BC) and Second Dynasty of Isin ruler Nebuchadnezzar I (1121–1100 BC), that Akkad had been renamed sometime in the 2nd millennium. The kuduru suggests

8385-473: The city rejected the peace offerings, but they failed the siege and had to fall back to Andarig. They also supported the Yaminites against Zimri-Lim, who had to deal with a revolt by them earlier in his reign. Zimri-Lim, in his 4th year, stayed at Ashlakka for a while, a city which he took in his 3rd year, likely using the city as a base of operations to attack the Eshnunnian army. Then, Eshnunna withdrew from Shubat-Enlil leaving Yanuh-Samar behind as king with

8514-559: The city were a series of vassal governors under the Third dynasty of Ur . Eshnunna may have had special relationships to the royal family. For example, Shulgi's wife Shulgi-Simtum showed devotion to two goddesses closely connected with the governor's dynasty at Eshnunna, and Shu-Sin's uncle Babati temporarily lived in Eshnunna. Ituria is attested as the governor of Eshnunna under Ur from at least Su-Sun year 9 to Ibbi-Sin year 2. He erected

8643-647: The confluence of the Tigris river and Diayalla river, an area significantly covered by the large modern city of Baghdad , and 2) the confluence of the Tigris river and the Adheim river (later known as the Radānu) south of Samarra. Almost all of the proposals for the location of the city of Akkad place it on the Tigris river . A problem is that the Tigris, from Samarra south, has shifted its banks over time with its historical course being an open question. This complicates locating

8772-485: The dialects of Akkadian identified with certainty so far. Some researchers (such as W. Sommerfeld 2003) believe that the Old Akkadian variant used in the older texts is not an ancestor of the later Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, but rather a separate dialect that was replaced by these two dialects and which died out early. Eblaite , formerly thought of as yet another Akkadian dialect, is now generally considered

8901-457: The dialects spoken by the extant Assyrians ( Suret ) are three extant Neo-Aramaic languages that retain Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features, as well as personal and family names. These are spoken by Assyrians and Mandeans mainly in northern Iraq , southeast Turkey , northeast Syria , northwest Iran , the southern Caucasus and by communities in the Assyrian diaspora . Akkadian

9030-401: The earlier stages of the language, the dual number is vestigial, and its use is largely confined to natural pairs (eyes, ears, etc.). Adjectives are never found in the dual. In the dual and plural, the accusative and genitive are merged into a single oblique case . Akkadian, unlike Arabic , has only "sound" plurals formed by means of a plural ending. Broken plurals are not formed by changing

9159-589: The entire world) brought their heavy tribute and kissed my feet in Babylon. From (a region) as far as the city of Assur and the city of Susa, the city of Agade, the land of Esnunna, the town Zamban, the town Me-Turnu, the city of Der , as far as the land of the Gutis, (these) sacred cities across the Tigris ..." Scholars have worked to identify the location of the city of Akkad since the earliest days of Assyriology. The proposals essentially all fall into two areas 1) near

9288-509: The eponym of Nimer-Sin, Shamshi-Adad's troops would join Eshnunna and Babylon's in a campaign against Malgium. After the death of Shamshi-Adad, his kingdom split into two with Ishme-Dagan as king in Ekallatum and Yasmah-Addu as king in Mari . However, Zimri-Lim would take the throne of Mari and Yasmah-Addu would disappear. Ibal-pi-El entered negotiations with Zimri-Lim, proposing to draw

9417-527: The fall of the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian, in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties, was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires ( Old Assyrian Empire , Babylonia , Middle Assyrian Empire ) throughout the later Bronze Age, and became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse c.  1150 BC . However, its gradual decline began in

9546-420: The first one bears stress. A rule of Akkadian phonology is that certain short (and probably unstressed) vowels are dropped. The rule is that the last vowel of a succession of syllables that end in a short vowel is dropped, for example the declinational root of the verbal adjective of a root PRS is PaRiS- . Thus the masculine singular nominative is PaRS-um (< *PaRiS-um ) but the feminine singular nominative

9675-855: The four quarters together revolted against him, ... In view of the fact that he protected the foundations of his city from danger, (the citizens of his city requested from Astar in Eanna, Enlil in Nippur, Dagan in Tuttul, Ninhursag in Kes, Ea in Eridu, Sin in Ur, Samas in Sippar, (and) Nergal in Kutha, that (Naram-Sin) be (made) the god of their city, and they built within Agade

9804-507: The four quarters, Shu-iliya (is) his...". Kirikiri then ousted Nur-ahum from power. Not having ties to the previous ruler, he was likely an usurper, and a fire destroyed the northwestern part of the Su-Sin temple. However, he still called himself “ensi of Eshnunna” on behalf of Tishpak. An alternative view is that Kirikiri was actually the brother of Nur-ahum. Kirikiri established a new line of rulers with his son Bilalama. Bilalama formed

9933-540: The fricatives *ʕ , *h , *ḥ are lost as consonants, either by sound change or orthographically, but they gave rise to the vowel quality e not exhibited in Proto-Semitic. The voiceless lateral fricatives ( *ś , *ṣ́ ) merged with the sibilants as in Canaanite , leaving 19 consonantal phonemes. Old Akkadian preserved the /*ś/ phoneme longest but it eventually merged with /*š/ , beginning in

10062-497: The god Tishpak, who is holding a rod and ring in one hand and an axe in the other while standing on two subdued enemies. After the fall of the Ur III empire there was a period of chaos in Akkad with numerous city-states vying for power. Eshnunna was briefly seized by Subartu who may have ousted Shu-iliya. Ishbi-Erra (in his 9th year, circa 2010 BC) of the southern Mesopotamia city of Isin defeated Subartu and installed Nur-ahum as

10191-455: The imperial seal (unqu) be sent to them (that) they should pass my letter along from one to another and bring it to the king, my Lord!" Akkadian language Akkadian ( / ə ˈ k eɪ d i ən / ə- KAY -dee-ən ; Akkadian: 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑(𒌝) , romanized:  Akkadû(m) ) is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia ( Akkad , Assyria , Isin , Larsa , Babylonia and perhaps Dilmun ) from

10320-447: The king of Eshnunna his lord. Dadusha, the king of Eshnunna during this time, also sent an invitation to Hammurabi of Babylon to join him in the expedition to Maniksum, which Hammurabi refused. Dadusha also launched an offensive to the middle-Euphrates, but Ishme-Dagan reassured Yasmah-Addu that there are plans for a counter-attack. A peace treaty was eventually signed between Shamshi-Adad and Dadusha. Both would eventually cooperate in

10449-443: The king. He names some of the post stations between Akkad and Nineveh. None of them are currently known though there have been proposals. "Along the roadside the (personnel) of the postal stations pass my letters along from one to another (and thus) bring them to the king, my lord. (Yet) for two or three times (already) my letter has been returned from (the postal stations) Kamanate, Ampihapi, and [ ... ]garesu! Let an order sealed with

10578-789: The language from Northwest Semitic languages and Hurrian . However, the use of these words was confined to the fringes of the Akkadian-speaking territory. From 1500 BC onwards, the Assyrian language is termed Middle Assyrian. It was the language of the Middle Assyrian Empire . However, the Babylonian cultural influence was strong and the Assyrians wrote royal inscriptions, religious and most scholarly texts in Middle Babylonian, whereas Middle Assyrian

10707-482: The languages as a Sprachbund . Akkadian proper names are first attested in Sumerian texts in the mid-3rd millennium BC, and inscriptions ostensibly written in Sumerian but whose character order reveals that they were intended to be read in East Semitic (presumably early Akkadian) date back to as early as c.  2600 BC . From about the 25th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By

10836-454: The last syllable is superheavy, it is stressed, otherwise the rightmost heavy non-final syllable is stressed. If a word contains only light syllables, the first syllable is stressed. It has also been argued that monosyllabic words generally are not stressed but rather function as clitics . The special behaviour of /V̂/ syllables is explained by their functioning, in accordance with their historical origin, as sequences of two syllables, of which

10965-404: The latter being used for long vowels arising from the contraction of vowels in hiatus. The distinction between long and short is phonemic , and is used in the grammar; for example, iprusu ('that he decided') versus iprusū ('they decided'). There is broad agreement among most Assyriologists about Akkadian stress patterns. The rules of Akkadian stress were originally reconstructed by means of

11094-599: The location of Akkad. In modern times most of the attention has focused on an area roughly defined by 1) near Eshnunna , 2) near Sippar , 3) not far from Kish and Babylon , 4) near the Tigris River , and 5) not far from the Diyala River - all within roughly 30 kilometers of modern Baghdad in central Iraq. There are also location proposals as far afield as the Mosul area in northern Iraq. The main goddess of Akkad

11223-434: The locative. Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapsed to -u and in Neo-Babylonian most word-final short vowels were dropped. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However, many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings, although often sporadically and incorrectly. As the most important contact language throughout this period

11352-631: The men did not modify (the attire) but added three to four (other women) along with her. Having stocked up, they left and reached Agade. They drank beer and, having the woman ride a mule, they led her all the way through the square in Agade. The woman was recognized and she was seized. When news of her capture reached Atamrum in Ešnunna, a troop of 30 men armed with bronze spears surrounded Gumul-Sin saying, ‘Your lord has conveyed to you 5 manas of silver, yet you keep on selling women from Ešnunna." Tell Muhammad (possibly Diniktum ) in

11481-410: The messenger was intercepted and the incident was reported to Zimri-Lim. Troops from Mari were still stationed in Babylonian territory from the previous war with Elam, and Zimri-Lim wished to recover those. Hammurabi, when asked later to send the troops back to Mari, cited concerns with Eshnunna as the reason for why he was reluctant to do so. Charpin suggests that the territorial demands from Hammurabi

11610-634: The new name was Dur-Sharru-Kin, "on the bank of the river Nish-Gatti in the district of Milikku". This is not to be confused with the Dur-Sharukin built by the Neo-Assyrians in the 8th century BC: the most likely site would be Dur-Rimush (a cult center of the god Adad), nine kilometers north of Dur-Sharukin (Tell el-Mjelaat). The area of the Little Zab river, which originates in Iran and joins

11739-422: The new ruler of Eshnunna. Bricks were found with his standard inscription "Nur-ahum, beloved of the god Tispak, governor of Esnunna". Rulers of Eshnunna after Shu-iliya would call themselves the steward of Eshnunna on behalf of Tishpak, and Tishpak even took on traditional titles usually attested by kings. The seal of Shu-iliya had him ruling under Tishpak ie "Tišpak, mighty king, king of the land Warum, king of

11868-463: The north, copper, tin, and other metals and precious stones . In a grave in Eshnunna, a pendant made of copal from Zanzibar was found. A small number of seals and beads from the Indus Valley civilization were also found. The remains of the ancient city are now preserved in the tell , or archaeological settlement mound, of Tell Asmar, some 50 miles northeast of Baghdad and 15 km in

11997-536: The older la-prus . While generally more archaic, Assyrian developed certain innovations as well, such as the "Assyrian vowel harmony ". Eblaite was even more so, retaining a productive dual and a relative pronoun declined in case, number and gender. Both of these had already disappeared in Old Akkadian. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets in Old Assyrian have been recovered from the Kültepe site in Anatolia . Most of

12126-516: The oldest realization of emphatics across the Semitic languages. One piece of evidence for this is that Akkadian shows a development known as Geers's law , where one of two emphatic consonants dissimilates to the corresponding non-emphatic consonant. For the sibilants, traditionally ⟨ š ⟩ has been held to be postalveolar /ʃ/ , and ⟨ s ⟩, ⟨ z ⟩, ⟨ ṣ ⟩ analyzed as fricatives; but attested assimilations in Akkadian suggest otherwise. For example, when

12255-464: The original meaning of the root. The middle radical can be geminated, which is represented by a doubled consonant in transcription, and sometimes in the cuneiform writing itself. The consonants ʔ , w , j and n are termed "weak radicals" and roots containing these radicals give rise to irregular forms. Formally, Akkadian has three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and three cases ( nominative , accusative and genitive ). However, even in

12384-439: The palace). Because only inexperienced laborers were available many of the tablets were damaged or broken during the excavation. A project to clean, bake, and catalog all the tablets did not occur until the 1970s. The tablets from the Akkadian period were published in 1961. While most of the Eshnunna tablets are of an administrative nature 58 are letters which are rare in this time period. The letters are written in an early form of

12513-463: The possessive suffix -šu is added to the root awat ('word'), it is written awassu ('his word') even though šš would be expected. The most straightforward interpretation of this shift from tš to ss , is that ⟨ s, ṣ ⟩ form a pair of voiceless alveolar affricates /t͡s/ /t͡sʼ/ , ⟨ š ⟩ is a voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/ , and ⟨ z ⟩ is a voiced alveolar affricate or fricative /d͡z/~/z/ . The assimilation

12642-420: The predicate of a nominal sentence, in fixed adverbial expressions, and in expressions relating to measurements of length, weight, and the like. Eshnunna The tutelary deity of the city was Tishpak (Tišpak) though other gods, including Sin , Adad , and Inanna of Kiti ( Kitītum ) were also worshiped there. The personal goddesses of the rulers were Belet-Šuḫnir and Belet-Terraban . Inhabited since

12771-461: The prepositions bi/bə and li/lə (locative and dative, respectively). The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown. In contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative : ḫ [x] . Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages. Until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated . Old Akkadian

12900-440: The presence of a diplomat from Eshnunna was remarkable as Eshnunna and now an indirect enemy of Andarig and Karana for supporting Ishme-Dagan, and suggests that they were tolerated as observers as they were not officially enemies. Eshnunna seemed to have finally concluded a peace treaty with Babylon, and so dropped their support of Ishme-Dagan. Hammurabi and Silli-Sin also had a diplomatic marriage, where one of Hammurabi's daughters

13029-413: The region including Eblaite , Hurrian , Elamite , Old Persian and Hittite . The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian went beyond just the cuneiform script; owing to their close proximity, a lengthy span of contact and the prestige held by the former, Sumerian significantly impacted Akkadian phonology, vocabulary and syntax. This mutual influence of Akkadian and Sumerian has also led scholars to describe

13158-585: The region of Puzurran from Eshnunna. Pongratz-Leisten suggests that the political power of Eshnunna extended to cultural influence with its neighbors, which could be seen from the similarities in style between the Dadusha stela, Mardin stela and the Yahdun-Lim's building inscriptions, which may have in turn influenced Assyria's ideology later. After the death of Naram-Sin, three kings, Iqish-Tishpak, Ibbi-Sin, and Dannum-tahaz, ruled in short succession. Out of

13287-417: The reign of Naram-Sin of Eshnunna. Mari, during the reign of Yahdum-Lim, adopted the writing system from Eshnunna with its sign usage and tablet shape, and a later letter addressed from Ibal-pi-El II to Zimri-Lim at the beginning of the latter's reign mentioned that Yahdun-Lim called the king of Eshnunna "father" which indicates a superior position on the part of the king of Eshnunna. Yahdum-Lim also bought

13416-514: The reign of king Dadusha of Eshnunna and appear to not be official copies. When the actual laws were composed is unknown. They are similar to the Code of Hammurabi . Rulers from the Early Dynastic period and governors under the Akkadian empire are currently unknown. Eshnunna was ruled by vassal governors under Ur III for a time, then was independent under its own rulers for several centuries, and finally controlled by vassal governors under Babylon after

13545-483: The same syllable in the same text. Cuneiform was in many ways unsuited to Akkadian: among its flaws was its inability to represent important phonemes in Semitic, including a glottal stop , pharyngeals , and emphatic consonants . In addition, cuneiform was a syllabary writing system—i.e., a consonant plus vowel comprised one writing unit—frequently inappropriate for a Semitic language made up of triconsonantal roots (i.e., three consonants plus any vowels). Akkadian

13674-404: The script practically became a fully fledged syllabic script , and the original logographic nature of cuneiform became secondary , though logograms for frequent words such as 'god' and 'temple' continued to be used. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum ('god') and on the other signify the god Anu or even the syllable -an- . Additionally, this sign

13803-404: The ships of Meluhha Magan, and Tilmun] a[t the quay of] Ag[ade].". List of slaves from the Old Babylonian city of Sippar include two female slaves who, based on the standard naming scheme, are either from Akkad or were owned by someone from Akkad, ie "Taram-Agade and Taram-Akkadi". The former was also the name of a daughter of Akkadian ruler Naram-Sin several centuries beforehand. According to

13932-419: The site. Nineteen cylinder seals, two very damaged, were recovered. One seal is inscribed "Azuzum Governor of the (city of) Eshnunna Atta-ilī Scribe, your/his slave". Another reads "Bilalama! beloved [of the god Tishpak] ruler of the (city of) Eshnunna Ilšu-dan on of Ur-Ninsun the scribe (is) your/his servant". The final report from that excavation is in the publication process. During the Early Dynastic period,

14061-492: The south-eastern suburbs of Baghdad near the confluence of the Diyala River with the Tigris, has been proposed as a candidate for the location of Akkad. No remains datable to the Akkadian Empire period have been found at the site. Excavations found remains dating to the Isin-Larsa, Old Babylonian, and Kassite periods. A site, locally called El Sanam (or Makan el Sanam), near Qādisiyyah (Kudsia), has been suggested based on

14190-407: The superimposition of the Sumerian phonological system (for which an /o/ phoneme has also been proposed), rather than a separate phoneme in Akkadian. All consonants and vowels appear in long and short forms. Long consonants are transliterated as double consonants, and inconsistently written as such in cuneiform. Long vowels are transliterated with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū) or a circumflex (â, ê, î, û),

14319-591: The texts contained several royal names, isolated signs could be identified, and were presented in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend . By this time it was already evident that Akkadian was a Semitic language, and the final breakthrough in deciphering the language came from Edward Hincks , Henry Rawlinson and Jules Oppert in the middle of the 19th century. In the early 21st century it was shown that automatic high-quality translation of Akkadian can be achieved using natural language processing methods such as convolutional neural networks . The following table summarises

14448-470: The three, Iqish-Tishpak was unrelated to Ipiq-Adad II and was probably a usurper. The sequence of these three rulers has not been established with certainty. After these three rulers, Dadusha, a brother of Naram-Sin, became king of Eshnunna. Shamshi-Adad I had multiple conflicts with the kingdom of Eshnunna, especially over the cities of Saduppum and Nerebtum. A letter addressed to the later king of Mari Zimri-Lim described how Shamshi-Adad had once called

14577-571: The throne" and was buried there. In another letter he states: "Concerning the lunar éclipsé about which the king, my lord, wrote to me, it was observed in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa and Nippur. What we saw in Akkad corresponded to the other (observations). A bronze ket[tledrum] was set up (played)." In 674 BC Esarhaddon reports returning the gods (cult statues) of the city of Akkad to that city from Elam, possibly taken by Shutruk-Nakhunte five centuries earlier though more likely taken in an Elamite raid that occurred in 675 BC. A slave sale document from

14706-467: The time of Rīm-Anum of Uruk in the 18th century BC implies that Akkad is in the area of Eshnunna , in the Diyala Valley north-west of Sumer proper. It has also been suggested that Akkad was under the control of Eshnunna in that period. It is also known that the rulers of Eshnunna continued cult activities in the city of Akkad. A text from the reign of Zimri-Lim (c. 1775–1761 BC) also suggests

14835-434: The word stem. As in all Semitic languages, some masculine nouns take the prototypically feminine plural ending ( -āt ). The nouns šarrum (king) and šarratum (queen) and the adjective dannum (strong) will serve to illustrate the case system of Akkadian. As is clear from the above table, the adjective and noun endings differ only in the masculine plural. Certain nouns, primarily those referring to geography, can also form

14964-419: The world" and "king who enlarged the kingdom of Eshnunna." The Mari Chronicles mentions that he defeated Aminum of Assur but was defeated by Elam. Later, he effectively brought the Diyala region under the control of Eshnunna. Ipiq-Adad II may have also conquered Rapiqum , but the year-name had been suggested by other scholars to instead read "Rapiqum and its surroundings," and that it is an alternative form of

15093-549: The world: when he conquered Ansan and Sirihum, had ... ships cross the Lower Sea. ... He quarried the black stone of the mountains across the Lower Sea, loaded (it) on ships, and moored (the ships) at the quay of Agade" The inscription on the Bassetki Statue records that the inhabitants of Akkad built a temple for Naram-Sin after he had crushed a revolt against his rule. "Naram-Sin, the mighty, king of Agade, when

15222-476: Was Aramaic , which itself lacks case distinctions, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon. As is also the case in other Semitic languages, Akkadian nouns may appear in a variety of "states" depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. The basic form of the noun is the status rectus (the governed state), which is the form as described above, complete with case endings. In addition to this, Akkadian has

15351-488: Was Ishtar-Annunitum or ‘Aštar-annunîtum (Warlike Ishtar), though it may have been a different aspect, Istar- Ulmašītum . Her husband Ilaba was also revered. Ishtar and Ilaba were later worshipped at Girsu and possibly Sippar in the Old Babylonian period . The city is possibly mentioned in the Hebrew Bible ( Genesis 10:10 ) where it is written אַכַּד ‎ ( ʾAkkaḏ , classically transliterated Accad ), in

15480-574: Was Mary Chubb . The primary focuses of the Chicago excavations were the palace and the attached temple (28 meters by 28 meters with 3 meter wide walls) of Su-Sin (termed by the excavators The Palace of the Rulers and The Gimilsin Temple respectively). The palace was built during the time of Ur III ruler Shugi and the Temple by governor Ituria to the deified Ur III ruler Su-Sin during his reign. The palace

15609-461: Was a purely popular language — kings wrote in Babylonian — few long texts are preserved. It was, however, notably used in the correspondence of Assyrian traders in Anatolia in the 20th-18th centuries BC and that even led to its temporary adoption as a diplomatic language by various local Anatolian polities during that time. The Middle Babylonian period started in the 16th century BC. The division

15738-404: Was first observed and described by Claudius Rich in 1821. This location had been suggested much earlier by Lane. More recently this site has been identified in a regional survey (site N) as lying not far south of the site of Samarra on the Tigris river by an old citadel. Màr-Issâr (Mar-Istar), agent of the Neo-Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon in the city of Akkad, was having trouble getting reports to

15867-460: Was formed, and Elam was forced to retreat back, but not before sacking the city of Eshnunna. Hammurabi would later write a letter to the sukkalmah that he did say the people of Eshnunna "would not fail to live up to their reputation as rebels." Silli-Sin , who was not related to the previous royal family of Eshnunna, was installed as king in Eshnunna by the Eshnunnian troops. Hammurabi and Silli-Sin exchanged tablets with each other to swear oaths in

15996-492: Was given control of Shubat-Enlil. Atumrum seemed to have kept his old allegiance to Eshnunna, since Eshnunna was listed as one of his allies. However, the relationship between them seemed to have deteriorated as Atumrum later moved the troops from Eshnunna to a new quarters, which the soldiers complained was "a city in ruins." Representatives of Eshnunna was present in a treaty talk between Atamrum (king of Andarig and Allahad) and Ashkur-Addu (king of Karana). Heimpel remarks that

16125-519: Was married to Silli-Sin. In 1762 BC, in Year 31 of Hammurabi of Babylon, the Babylonians occupied the city of Eshnunna. He returned the titular deity of Assur which had been removed when Eshnunna captured the city of Assur. The fate of Silli-Sin is unknown, as the Mari archives would end 4 months later. In his 38th year name, Hammurabi would claim to have destroyed Eshnunna with a flood. In

16254-439: Was partially destroyed during the reign of Bilalama but was eventually fully restored. The remaining excavation efforts were directed to the Abu Temple whose beginnings went back to the Early Dynastic I period and which had undergone a series of major changes over the centuries. A large Southern Building was discovered, believed to be from the time of Ipiq-Adad II, of which only the foundations remained. A number of private houses and

16383-417: Was to discourage the new king of Eshnunna, as he would not conclude peace with Eshnunna if he's not given Upi, Shahaduni and the banks of the Tigris. Silli-Sin seemed to have rejected these proposals. Silli-Sin may have also called for a mobilization of troops, which would have worried Hammurabi. Ishme-Dagan also forsook his past alliance with Mari and Babylon and allied with Eshnunna, perhaps because Atamrum

16512-441: Was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a well defined phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ , do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities. Nor is there any coordination in the other direction; the syllable -ša- , for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA , but also by the sign NĪĜ . Both of these are often used for

16641-505: Was used mostly in letters and administrative documents. During the first millennium BC, Akkadian progressively lost its status as a lingua franca . In the beginning, from around 1000 BC, Akkadian and Aramaic were of equal status, as can be seen in the number of copied texts: clay tablets were written in Akkadian, while scribes writing on papyrus and leather used Aramaic. From this period on, one speaks of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian . Neo-Assyrian received an upswing in popularity in

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