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Home , 1st millennium BC, 539 BC, 612 BC, 681 BC, 6th century BC, 7th century BC

CHAPTER FORTY- NINE

The Neo- Babylonian

Heather D. Baker

1 Introduction

The Neo- Babylonian empire spanned the period from the accession of Nabopo- lassar in 626 BC to the conquest of and the defeat of its last native ruler, (555 – 539 BC ), by the Persian Cyrus in 539 BC . During the preceding the rise of the Neo - Babylonian (or “ Chaldean” ) dynasty, Babylonia had been involved in a long - standing struggle for independence from its more powerful neighbor to the north, . When fi nally defeated Assyria with the aid of his Median allies in 612 BC , Babylonia gained control over the Assyrian heartland and what remained of its subject territories. In terms of its material culture assemblage, the Neo - Babylonian empire, which lasted less than 100 , forms a continuum with what went before: it is diffi cult to distinguish it from that of the long period from c.1150 to 626 BC which has been variously termed “ Middle Babylonian” or “ Post - Kassite” (Brinkman 1984a : 3). Sometimes the latter part of this long period has been referred to as “ Assyr- ian ” – for example, Woolley (1965) wrote of “ the period of the Assyrian ” at . However, Assyrian control over the was by no means stable and continuous; moreover, the material culture of the was Babylonian rather than Assyrian, so the term is of purely historical application. It is diffi cult to distinguish not only the beginning of the Neo- Babylonian period proper in material culture terms, but also its end. Historians have repeat- edly stressed the continuity in administration and daily life which marked the

A Companion to the of the Ancient , First Edition. Edited by D.T. Potts. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. The Neo-Babylonian Empire 915 transition to Achaemenid rule over Babylonia. From a material culture perspec- tive, Zettler ( 1979 : 268), for example, noted that typical Neo- Babylonian seal types remained in common use until at least the reign of Darius I (521 – 486 BC ), a quarter of a century after the Persian conquest in 539 BC . As Zettler also noted (1979: 269), we have to consider the possibility that some items of material culture were more easily affected than others by political change. Moreover, when old pottery forms are only gradually superseded by new ones, decisions about dating may rest on the relative proportions of certain types within the overall assemblage. This in turn requires overview of entire assemblages – something often lacking because most of the relevant sites were excavated before the development of modern techniques of excavation and analysis, and selective publication of ceramic types was the norm. Our knowledge of the archaeology of this period in Babylonia itself is domi- nated by monumental buildings located at the heart of the major . In large degree this refl ects the preoccupations of earlier excavators, who were primarily interested in these impressive structures to the neglect of the other (to them) less prepossessing urban features such as residential areas and the margins of settle- ments. This bias of interest has resulted not only in an incomplete picture of the makeup of urban sites; it has also seriously affected our understanding of the settlement hierarchy, since smaller sites, especially villages, remain unex- plored. Further investigation is clearly needed in order to make good these gaps in our knowledge, but in the meantime we have to work with what is available; nevertheless, this of affairs should be kept in mind when reading the overview that follows. For a number of , relatively little is known about the immediate precursors of the Neo - Babylonian cities. Royal building inscriptions, which were typically buried in the foundations of the structures which they commemorated, are an approximate indicator of the level of such activity in a particular period. When found in situ, they serve to date the building level with which they are associated and often to identify a structure by name. The dearth of building inscriptions for the period between the reign of king Adad - apla - iddina (1068– 1047 BC ) and the mid - BC therefore refl ects, in all likelihood, the actual situation: the absence of a powerful central authority with the means and motivation to implement construction projects on any signifi cant scale. During this period, which has been termed a “ Dark Age,” the material culture associated with the Babylonian rulers is dominated by inscribed artifacts, often of bronze, such as arrowheads, generally of uncertain or unknown provenience (on the so - called “ Luristan bronzes,” see Frame 1995 : 3– 4). Even when monumental building activity resumed, the fi rst projects documented after this long interval were those carried out in and by local inhabitants rather than by rulers, during the reigns of - shuma - ishkun (c.760 – 748 BC ) and Nabu- nasir (747– 734 BC ), respectively. We should note also that the inscribed monuments gener- ally known as kudurru s, especially associated with the Kassite dynasty and the 916 The Archaeology of Empire

Middle - Babylonian era (Ch. II.37 ), are known also from the earlier 1st millen- nium, with dated examples spanning the 10th– 7th BC . Yet these artifacts are frequently of unknown or uncertain provenance (Slanski 2003 ). The fi rst Babylonian ruler whose works have been recovered through excava- tion is - apla - iddin II (721 – 710 and 703 BC ), who was responsible for restoration work on the at Uruk, including the shrine of Ningizzida located within the precinct wall. He was followed by a succession of Assyrian kings who sponsored reconstruction works in Babylonia: Sargon II (the Eanna temple at Uruk; the walls of ); (the Processional Way at Babylon); (work on the Marduk temple , the , and the Processional Way at Babylon; the Gula temple at Borsippa; the and Ishtar at ; Eanna at Uruk); Assurbanipal (the city wall at Babylon and the shrines of Ea, Ishtar - of - Babylon, and Ninmah, as well as Esagila and Etemenanki; the Ebabbar temple at ; the city wall and Nabu temple at Borsippa; the ziggurat and Enlil temple at Nippur, and the Eanna temple at Uruk). During the reign of Assurbanipal (668 – 627 BC ) one governor of Ur, - balassu- iqbi, exercised a considerable degree of autonomy and carried out building projects in his own name. These included work on a number of shrines and a well, which have been excavated (Woolley 1965 : 4). Also during the reign of Assurbanipal, the Assyrian king ’ s brother Shamash- shum - ukin, who served as king of Babylon until he revolted in 652 BC , performed work on the city wall and the Ebabbar temple at Sippar and on the Nabu temple in Borsippa. Finally, - etel - ilani, whose precise dates are unknown but who ruled in the 630s BC , carried out work on the Urash temple at and the Enlil temple at Nippur. Most of the aforementioned projects are known from excavation as well as written sources. However, building levels attributable to the period of Neo - Assyrian rule are in general much less well known than the Neo- Babylonian (re)buildings that overlay them.

2 Settlement Patterns

Settlement survey has identifi ed sites datable to the Neo - Babylonian period in several of southern and central : the Diyala region (Adams 1965 ); the “ heartland” region between Nippur and Uruk (Adams 1981 ); the Uruk region (Adams and Nissen 1972 ); the region (Gibson 1972 ); and the Sippar region (Gasche and De Meyer 1980 ). It should be noted that the periodization of surface collections based on ceramic typology is necessarily imprecise, and the dating criteria used to defi ne the period vary between different surveys, making it diffi cult to compare results. Moreover, the most densely settled area may by now have lain somewhat to the west of the most intensively surveyed “ heartland” region (Brinkman 1984b : 175– 6), a diffi culty which may now be partly surmounted using advanced techniques for the study of high - resolution The Neo-Babylonian Empire 917 satellite imagery (Hritz 2004 ). By this time, fairly broad expanses of had been brought under continuous cultivation and the Neo - Babylonian (NB) and Achaemenid (Ach) settlement systems were connected to “ an interlocking, much more ‘ artifi cial’ grid of watercourses that broke large, contiguous areas of cultiva- tion into polygons of fairly uniform size and shape ” (Adams 1981 : 188). Survey evidence indicates a period of sustained population growth, beginning in the 8th century BC . According to this evidence, the Neo- Babylonian period saw a substantial increase in the number of settlements, with 182 sites identifi ed in the “ heartland” area, compared with 134 of Middle Babylonian (MB) date (Adams 1981 : 177). Moreover, average site size increased, to 6.88 hectares (NB/ Ach) compared with 4.6 hectares (MB) (Adams 1981 : 178). While the numbers of sites in all size categories increased, the increase was proportionally greater for sites in the larger size brackets. For NB/Ach, 51 percent of the total occupied area was composed of settlements classifi ed as urban – i.., larger than 10 hectares, as compared with only 36 percent of MB sites (Adams 1981 : 178). Of the 30 NB/Ach urban settlements identifi ed, some two - thirds had no earlier MB occu- pation and thus represent new settlements. Survey in the Diyala region revealed similar long - term trends, though with some variation in matters of detail: new sites tended to be rather small and the total area occupied by sites classifi ed as urban was relatively low (Adams 1965 : 58– 9). Various reasons have been forward for this steady and sustained increase of population, the most signifi cant of which were most likely the relatively stable political conditions and a general increase in prosperity. The population of Babylonia may have been boosted also by the return of groups exiled by the Assyrians and by immigrants resettled there by the Babylonian kings, such as the Judeans and Cilicians (Adams 1981 : 177– 8).

3 Babylonian Urbanism

The Babylonian cities at this time typically combined both planned elements (generally monumental structures of various kinds – see below) and quarters that developed without much (if any) intervention from the central authorities. Among the relatively small areas of street network that have been excavated, we fi nd nothing remotely approaching an orthogonal grid, most likely because streets conformed to centuries - old patterns, bearing in mind that we are dealing with long settled tells whose topography helped to shape subsequent urban development. The best - known city layout in this period is that of Babylon. However, it cannot be taken as typical: as the seat of kingship and the (both actual and cosmic), it received special treatment at the hands of successive rulers. Nev- ertheless, certain key elements were common to most Babylonian cities of this period: a main temple precinct housing the city ’ s patron deity, and a ziggurat , 918 The Archaeology of Empire with other temples and shrines scattered around the settlement; city walls with gates; and residential areas whose integration into the wider city was articulated by a three - tier hierarchy of major public streets, minor public streets, and blind alleys. Some city walls of this period enclosed not only areas of occupation proper, but also unbuilt areas, especially around the lower- lying margins of the , which might be used for intramural gardens and orchards. Within the residential areas, such unbuilt plots as existed were generally part of residential house complexes. According to Van de Mieroop (1999 : 82), residential areas mixed with indus- trial sectors were a key element of the Mesopotamian city. However, while this certainly applies to some cities of the earlier 2nd , from Babylonia evidence of such discrete areas of industrial activity within the city is scarce, for several reasons. First, within the residential areas, craft activity in the private sphere very likely took place at the level of the house- hold rather than in separate areas dedicated to it; archaeological evidence of such activities within the Neo - Babylonian house has not yet been recovered. Second, the urban margins, where some industrial activities such as pottery manufacture are likely to have been located, remain under explored. Third, judging from the written evidence, a signifi cant amount of production took place within the institutional sphere; for example, the temple precincts housed workshops and storerooms where personnel carried out the various activities related to supplying the divine meals and looking after the cultic paraphernalia. Like the residential areas, these too have yet to be investigated with a view to identifying different activity zones.

4 The Babylonian Cities and Towns

In this section I shall focus only on those sites that have yielded a certain amount of information about their urban structure as a result of controlled excavation. These include Babylon, Borsippa, Kish, and Sippar in northern Babylonia; and Nippur in central Babylonia; and , Tell al - Lahm, Ur, and Uruk in the south. The main double city wall of Babylon enclosed a rectangular area of c.450 hectares, bisected by the north– south course of the Arahtu (i.e., ) river. The center of settlement, as evidenced by the concentration of occupation mounds, was on the eastern of the river; the western site of the city remains unexplored. Within the city walls on the east side, the principal excavated features include the South Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II (604 – 562 BC ), to its south the religious precinct comprising the ziggurat Etemenanki and its enclosure, and, still further to the south, the Esagila or temple of Marduk. The Processional Street separated the palatial and religious sectors from a substantial residential district to the west, known today as the Merkes quarter. The excavated part of The Neo-Babylonian Empire 919

Merkes represents an area of high - status housing; beyond it to the south the excavators traced the street network for several further blocks. In addition to these three key areas within the city, several other temples were excavated which were integrated into the local residential areas, although – with the exception of the temple of Ishtar- of - in Merkes – their immediate surroundings have not been explored. The city wall of Borsippa can still be traced for much of its course; it encloses a roughly rectangular area measuring c.220 hectares, with its long axis oriented roughly northeast– southwest. Within the walls are two main mounds separated by an ancient watercourse. Off the mounds are ample lower lying areas enclosed by the city wall, especially on the southeastern side of the site. The smaller mound, Birs , is the site of the ziggurat and the Ezida, temple of the city god Nabu. The larger mound to its northeast, Tell Ibrahim al - Khalil, remains unexplored. Investigations at the site have focused almost entirely on the main temple precinct and ziggurat , and very little is known about the remainder of the city. The impressive, vitrifi ed remains of the ziggurat were long identifi ed by early travelers and archaeologists with the of Babel (e.g., Peters 1921 ), and Borsippa was thought to be a mere suburb of Babylon. The results of the soundings made by Hormuzd Rassam in the Ezida on behalf of the between 1879 and 1882 have been summarized and evaluated by Reade (1986b). An additional, brief campaign of excavation was carried out on Ezida by German archaeologists in 1901 – 2 (Koldewey 1911 : 50 – 9, Taf. XII; further details in Jakob- Rost 1989 , especially regarding the excavated objects and inscrip- tions). In recent decades excavations have been carried out on the ziggurat and Ezida by an Austrian team (Allinger - Csollich 1991, 1998; Trenkwalder- Piesl 1981 ; Trenkwalder 1997– 8, 1999– 2000). Their work has shown that the Ezida temple uncovered in earlier excavations is not actually Neo - Babylonian, as previ- ously thought, but, rather, a later rebuilding (Allinger - Csollich et al. 2010 : 32 – 3). Thanks to a foundation cylinder found in situ, the ziggurat is known to have been rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar (Allinger - Csollich 1991 : 494– 8). Its destruction was attributed by Boehmer (1980) to ’ suppression of revolts which took place early in his reign (484 BC ), but it is now known to have hap- pened more than a millennium later (Allinger - Csollich et al. 2010 : 32). Kish is made up of an extensive area of at least 40 discrete mounds. Excava- tions were carried out by H. de Genouillac in 1912 – 14, and then again in 1923 – 33 by a joint expedition from Oxford University and the Field Museum (Chicago). The results of these later seasons have been re - evaluated by Gibson (1972) and Moorey (1978) , focusing on the fi nds and records housed in Chicago and Oxford, respectively. A new project aiming at the complete publication of all the relevant material from these excavations is currently being conducted by the Field Museum in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford). Japa- nese archaeologists have also worked at the site, uncovering part of what may be a Neo - Babylonian house (Matsumoto 1991 : 276 – 80). At the western end of the 920 The Archaeology of Empire site, on the mound known as Tell Uhaimir, one of the of Kish was located. This is traditionally identifi ed as that of the main city god, , and associated with his temple Edubba; the latter is known to have been rebuilt by Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar II. Investigation of the ziggurat revealed a phase attributable to Nebuchadnezzar II (Moorey 1978 : 25 – 6, and plan facing p. 24). Within the rooms fl anking the ziggurat to the southeast, as well as in the temple area to the northeast, Neo - Babylonian remains were scarce, perhaps owing to erosion; the extant plan dates to the Old Babylonian period. Aside from the ziggurat and temple precinct, Uhaimir seems to have been unoc- cupied in the 1st millennium (Moorey 1978 : 28– 9), though one wonders whether here too erosion might have affected preservation. The main center of Neo - Babylonian occupation at Kish was in the part of the city known as Hursagkalamma, identifi ed with Tell Ingharra in the eastern part of the site. A Neo - Babylonian temple partly excavated by de Genouillac was investigated further by the Oxford/Chicago team; it turned out to be a double temple, built by either Nebuchadnezzar or Nabonidus. The temple itself cut into the fabric of two ziggurats made of plano - convex ; these were probably ruined by this time, though they may have been intended to be rebuilt (Moorey 1978 : 85). It seems likely that these can be identifi ed with the two ziggurats of Hursagkalamma named in temple lists of the later – namely, those of and Enlil (George 1993 : 45 – 56) – and that the temple itself is that of Ninlil/Ishtar, called Ehursagkalamma (despite Jursa 2005 : 103, who considered its identifi cation as the Zababa temple to be “ virtually certain” ). The site of Sippar is rectangular in shape, enclosed on three sides by the city wall and on the fourth (southwest) side by a watercourse. The wall comprises a continuous earthen rampart with no evident breaks for gates; access to the inte- rior was probably via ramps. The mound itself stretches along the site ’ s long axis from the canal on the southwest to the city wall on the northeast side. The wall also enclosed lower - lying areas, along the northwestern side of the tell and at the eastern corner of the site. In the Neo - Babylonian era, much of the tell ’ s south- western end was occupied by the great Ebabbar temple, dedicated to the city god Shamash. Elsewhere, excavations on the mound have mostly encountered Old Babylonian (or earlier) occupation immediately below the surface, thus tending to support what the written sources also suggest, namely that the walled city was rather sparsely occupied during the Neo - Babylonian period and that settlement was concentrated in an area known as the Quay of Sippar. This quay has yet to be located, but it must have lain outside of the city walls on a major watercourse, probably the King ’ s Canal to the north. Early excavators at Sippar (Rassam in 1881– 2, Scheil in 1894) concentrated on the Ebabbar temple (see Walker and Collon 1980 for details of Rassam’ s work and the fi nds, without precise provenance, from the temple). In 1972 –3 a sounding was dug into the city wall on the northeastern side, on the basis of which Belgian excavators deter- mined that the earthen rampart had served as a fl ood barrier. Their report The Neo-Babylonian Empire 921 includes a contour plan of the site, plus a plan of the Ebabbar temple (De Meyer 1980 : Plan 2). Among the episodes of heightening the wall which the excavators identifi ed in the city wall sounding, the penultimate one may be identifi ed with work known to have been carried out by Shamash - shum - ukin, while the latest may be late Neo - Babylonian in date (Baker forthcoming). Iraqi archaeologists working in the northwestern part of the Ebabbar precinct in 1985 – 6 discovered a library with tablets lying in situ in niches built into the walls of the room (Pedersé n 1998 : 194 – 7 for details and further refs.). In 2002 further exca- vations by Iraqi archaeologists revealed fragmentary building remains dated to the Neo - Babylonian era, as well as a couple of graves of the same period or pos- sibly later (Fadhil and Alsamarraee 2005 ). The site of Isin was excavated between 1973 and 1989 by archaeologists from Munich University. Near the Gula temple they found a dog cemetery dated to the early 1st millennium BC (the dog was a symbol of the goddess Gula) (Hrouda 1977 : 18 – 19; Livingstone 1988 ). The Gula temple itself is known to have been restored by Nebuchadnezzar II, whose stamped bricks were found in and around the building (Hrouda 1987 : 151). In other soundings, remains of this period were too poorly preserved to shed much light on the Neo - Babylonian settlement, although a near - complete house was excavated in Nordabschnitt III (Ayoub 1981 ). Nippur consists of two areas of high mounds bisected by an ancient northwest– southeast watercourse, once a branch of the Euphrates. On the northeastern side are the temples of Enlil (the ) and and the North Temple, as well as soundings TA, TB, and TC. To the southwest of the ancient watercourse soundings WA and WB were excavated on the high mound, while the WC soundings were located at the low - lying, southernmost extremity of the site. Excavations at Nippur by a team from the University of Pennsylvania began in the late . In the mid - work was undertaken jointly by archaeologists from the universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago, and subse- quently (1972 onward) by a team led by McG. Gibson of the Oriental Institute (Chicago). According to his account of the settlement ’ s history, Nippur was a mere village from the 11th to the 8th century BC , but then underwent a revival during the 8th and especially the BC (Gibson 1992 : 46– 9). The Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (and his brother, the Babylonian regent Shamash - shum - ukin) implemented major construction projects, including the rebuilding of the city wall and the restoration of several temples. The con- struction of the wall was similar to that of Babylon, with an inner and outer wall surrounded by a moat, in this case apparently a dry one (Gibson et al. 1998 : 26 – 7). Though none of the city gates has been excavated, the names of several which are known from everyday documents of the mid- 1st millennium BC feature on the so- called “ Kassite city map” of Nippur (Ch. I.28 and Fig. 28.8 ), suggest- ing that the general layout of the city at this time resembled that of the later 2nd millennium. In contrast to the attention it received at the hands of the 922 The Archaeology of Empire

Neo - Assyrian kings, Nippur appears to have been neglected by the Neo- Babylo- nian rulers, who left scarcely any trace of major works at the site. This may well have been a matter of deliberate policy whose background lay in the downgrading of the city ’ s major deity, Enlil, in favor of the god Marduk, now head of the Babylonian pantheon, with his seat in Babylon (Baker forthcoming). In spite of this royal neglect, the city remained occupied and remains of housing dated to the 7th and 6th centuries, such as the houses (Buildings A and B) excavated in the WC- 2 area (Gibson et al. 1983 ; Baker 2010 : 190 – 3), have been uncovered. Housing was also excavated in the TA sounding. Armstrong ’ s (1989) re- evalua- tion of its stratigraphy has made a vital contribution to clarifying the ceramic sequence for the earlier 1st millennium. Neo - Babylonian remains at Larsa have been mainly uncovered in the area of the Shamash temple, Ebabbar, and the ziggurat . When Nabonidus rebuilt the ziggurat , he was the fi rst ruler to carry out work on it since the Old Babylonian period (Bachelot and Castel 1989 : 75). In the 2nd millennium the ziggurat precinct was separated from the mound on which the Ebabbar temple was situ- ated by two substantial courtyards, but these seem not to have been rebuilt in Neo - Babylonian . The Ebabbar was the focus of building activity by Neb- uchadnezzar, who, in addition to rebuilding it, constructed an oval enclosure wall around the small mound on which it was situated (Huot 1985 ; Huot et al. 1987 ). Nabonidus also carried out some work on the temple. Tell al- Lahm (ancient Kissik) was excavated by Iraqi archaeologists in the 1940s (Safar 1949 ). Of the two mounds which make up the site (Wright 1981a : 345, nos. 172 and 173), the more northerly one was found to contain signifi cant remains of the 1st millennium BC . On the basis of seven soundings there, three levels were identifi ed: the lowest was dated to the late Neo- Assyrian period, the middle to the Neo - Babylonian era, and the latest to the Achaemenid period. The Neo - Babylonian level yielded a cylinder of Nabonidus commemorating his recon- struction of a temple of , presumably located at the site (though not excavated). An area of Neo- Babylonian housing was uncovered comprising partial plans of two adjacent structures, together with some graves of this period, but beyond this little is known about the character of the urban settlement. The extent of Neo- Babylonian occupation at Ur has been estimated at c.40 hectares (Wright 1981a : 338, no. 10). During the period of Neo - Assyrian domination, a substantial amount of rebuilding work was carried out by Sin - balassu- iqbi, a governor during the reign of Assurbanipal (Woolley 1965 : 4). Both Nebuchadnezzar II and Nabonidus also carried out various construction projects at Ur (Woolley and Mallowan 1962 ). However, the remains of this period were badly eroded, to the extent that their poor state of preservation has hampered understanding of the excavated levels. Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt a number of major shrines within the religious center dedicated to the - god, which he surrounded with a massive temenos wall. Nabonidus rebuilt the ziggurat of Sin and the Ningal temple Enunmah, and constructed the Egipar for the newly installed Entu - priestess (his daughter). He is also credited with having built the The Neo-Babylonian Empire 923 palace next to the North Harbor. A small area of private housing crossed by streets was excavated in the AH area southeast of the temenos ; House 1, with a triple courtyard layout, is one of the largest houses known from this period. Evidence has also been found for the rebuilding of the city wall during this period; its rather insubstantial remains have been ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar (Woolley 1974 : 63). The vast site of Uruk, with its city wall originally enclosing an area of 550 hectares, has been the subject of many seasons of investigation by German archae- ologists, beginning in 1912. The Neo - Babylonian levels are scheduled for publication by A. Kose; in the meantime, a series of preliminary reports is avail- able (UVB), as well as the fi nal reports, such as the one on graves (Boehmer at al. 1995), which include discussion of Neo - Babylonian material. At the center of Neo - Babylonian Uruk lay the great Eanna temple precinct, including its ziggurat , dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. Within Eanna, various building operations were carried out by Merodach- baladan II, Sargon II, Esarhaddon, and Nebuchadnez- zar. Areas of residential housing have been excavated immediately to the west and southwest of the main temple precinct; these were, in turn, located within a greater walled enclosure associated with the temple complex. Judging from the contents of the tablets in archives excavated in this housing area, it was occupied by mid - level temple personnel. Another ziggurat , that of the god , located some distance west of Eanna, was rebuilt by Esarhaddon (Kose 1998: 133). Beyond this central area of the city occupied by the temple and associated housing, little is known of the settlement of this period. An house (where the New ’ s was celebrated) located outside of the city wall is known to have been rebuilt by Nabonidus. The city wall seems to have lain in ruins by this time, though it survived as a monument and the written sources show that it was still used by the inhabitants to distinguish urban space from the steppe beyond. Aerial photography has revealed the presence of intramural canals at Uruk; these are diffi cult to date, but textual sources confi rm that some canals in the city were certainly in use at this time.

5 Monumental Architecture

Monumental architecture clearly encompasses palaces, temples and ziggurats , city walls, and processional streets, but we should also take into account other large - scale construction projects which involved a signifi cant investment of labor, resources, and planning, such as artifi cial waterways (canals, whether urban or rural, and their associated features such as embankments) and cross - country defensive structures. The building (or rebuilding) of monumental structures was essentially the prerogative of the ruler. Rare exceptions to this involve the (re) construction of temples by local offi cials, generally at times when central govern- ment was relatively weak. 924 The Archaeology of Empire

The only royal palaces to have been excavated are those located in Babylon (Kuhrt 2001a ; Miglus 2004 ). Heinrich (1984 : 198– 231) discussed the Neo- Babylonian palaces in the context of the Mesopotamian architectural tradition of palace building. Several palaces situated in other cities are mentioned in cunei- form sources (Jursa 2004a ), though with one exception (see below) none has yet been identifi ed and excavated. Nothing is known of any palace in the capital Babylon prior to the reign of Nabopolassar, fi rst builder of the South Palace ( S ü dburg ) in the area of the later Westhof . Nabopolassar’ s work was continued by his son Nebuchadnezzar, who extended the South Palace as as the Processional Street. The building comprised a linear arrangement of fi ve units, each with its own central courtyard. The functions of these courtyard units encompassed administration and storage at the eastern end of the palace, with the central unit housing the throne room suite and residential suites situated in the units to the west. The South Palace occupied a corner formed by the Euphrates river to the west, and the city wall to the north; it was heavily fortifi ed at its western end where it adjoined the river. On the other side of the city wall Nebuchadnezzar built another palace, the so - called North Palace (Hauptburg ). The remains of this building were badly preserved and the plan of the palace is poorly understood. It too adjoined the Processional Street to the east, where its course extended northward beyond the . A third Summer Palace was built some distance to the north of the main city walls, in the corner formed by the which Nebuchadnezzar built to the east of the city. The only building which can be identifi ed with some certainty as a local gov- ernor ’ s palace is the so- called “ Palace of the Entu- priestesses” or “ Palace of - shalti - Nannar” at Ur (Woolley and Mallowan 1962 : 41 – 3, Pl. 70) which shares certain design features with the South Palace at Babylon, though it was built on a considerably smaller scale (c.5,743 square meters, compared with more than 43,000 square meters for the South Palace). The building occupied a roughly trapezoidal plot by the North Harbor of Ur, and was surrounded by a substantial outer wall with a corridor running around much of its internal face, except for on the north side and at the southeast corner, where a number of rooms were built up against the wall ’ s inner face. The corridor in turn enclosed the palace building proper, comprising four courtyard suites, the largest of which occupied the southwest sector of the building. The surviving fl oor of the building was paved with bricks of Nabonidus, but these came from another building. The temples of this era fall into two categories: the main temple of a city’ s patron deity which lay within its own walled enclosure (and which might well incorporate the shrines of a good many other deities), and other freestanding temples which were scattered around the city, often in residential quarters, and which had no precinct of their own. This distinction is important not merely from the point of view of the typology of cultic structures, but also for the spatial organization of the cultic activities associated with the care and feeding of the gods. The great temple precincts housed substantial working areas where such The Neo-Babylonian Empire 925 activities were performed, whereas the free - standing temples were relatively restricted as to the facilities they could accommodate. The ziggurat , comprising a massive stepped tower with a shrine on top, was normally located within the precinct of the city ’ s major temple, though at Babylon the ziggurat Etemenanki had its own enclosure, which was separated from that of the great Marduk temple, Esagila, by the east – west stretch of the Processional Street leading to the east bank of the river. Some cities are known to have had two ziggurats . Cultic pedestals and daises were also located in the streets (Baker 2009 : 96– 7). The layout of the Neo- Babylonian temple consisted of the same basic elements as the palace at one end of the scale and the typical residential house at the other: a central courtyard enclosed on all sides, with the principal room(s) – in this case the cella(s) – normally situated on the south side. Some temples contained smaller, subsidiary courtyards (e.g., the Ishhara temple, Babylon), while others were single - courtyard affairs (e.g., the temple, Babylon). The main entrance was often located on the side opposite the cella(s) and its exterior was marked by projecting decorated with pilasters. A number of ceremonial streets are known from Neo- Babylonian textual sources (Miglus 2006 ), but only one of these has so far been excavated, namely the Processional Way at Babylon. It ran along the eastern side of Nebuchadnez- zar ’ s South Palace and exited the city wall via the Ishtar Gate, continuing northward past the North Palace ( Hauptburg ) and beyond. To the south of the South Palace, it continued past the ziggurat precinct, turning to the west at its southeast corner and running as far as the bridge over the Euphrates built by Nabopolassar (or possibly his son). The excavated levels of the Processional Way were built by Nebuchadnezzar, but some of the limestone blocks with which its surface was paved were reused: they bore inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar on the upper side, but inscriptions of Sennacherib (704 – 681 BC ) on their underside; the Assyrian king was probably responsible for an earlier phase of construction. Turning to the question of defensive structures, among the great monuments planned and constructed by Nebuchadnezzar II were two cross - country walls aimed at strengthening the defenses of the realm. One of these, running some distance to the north of Sippar, stretched between the Euphrates and rivers at around the point where their courses ran closest together. Part of this massive baked structure, known as Habl as- Sahr, has recently been excavated (Black et al. 1987 ). The other cross- country wall, situated to the east of Babylon in the vicinity of Kish, is known from textual sources but has not been located for certain on the ground (see Reade 2010 for a discussion of various landscape features in this vicinity and their possible identifi cation with projects described in Nebucha- dnezzar’ s inscriptions). Nebuchadnezzar’ s strategy in focusing on the defense of Babylonia ’ s northern borders – presumably perceived as the most likely direction from which an exter- nal threat might come – is evident not only in the construction of these massive 926 The Archaeology of Empire cross- country walls, but also in the treatment of the walls of the Babylonian cities: those of the key cities of northern Babylonia (Babylon, Borsippa, Kish, ) were rebuilt and kept in good order, while archaeological evidence indicates that those of the south (Ur, Uruk) were not (Baker forthcoming). This seems to refl ect a considered policy of concentrating resources on fortifying the northern part of the Babylonian heartland, near to its point of entry, while neglecting the south. Royal construction projects involving watercourses may be divided into two groups: canals in the rural hinterland, and watercourses and related structures in and around cities. The former have generally not yet been the subject of detailed archaeological research (see Cole and Gasche 1998 for the current state of knowl- edge, and Reade 2010 on Nebuchadnezzar’ s lagoons to the east of Babylon). Nabopolassar canalized an old branch of the Euphrates just north of Sippar, the so - called King ’ s Canal (Brinkman 1998 – 2001 : 15). In an urban context, water- related structures include river embankments, bridges, intramural canals, and moats; examples of all of these have been excavated at Babylon (see the references given above).

6 Domestic Architecture

Houses of this period typically comprised a single, unroofed central courtyard enclosed on all four sides by suites of rooms; occasionally they might contain two courtyards, and more rarely even three, in the case of exceptionally large houses. Each side of the courtyard had a centrally placed doorway by which the main room on that side of the house was accessed. Often these main rooms gave access to further, smaller rooms, the whole forming a self - contained suite. Houses were generally orientated southeast – northwest, and the largest room/suite – presum- ably the main living area – was typically the one situated at the southeast side of the courtyard, while the second - largest room/suite was the one facing it on the northern side of the house. The exterior wall presented a blank, unadorned faç ade to the outside world, without windows and normally with a single entrance located at the farthest end of the house from the main living room. Sometimes adjacent houses shared a party wall; this seems to be connected with status, since the larger, better appointed houses tended to be free - standing, even when they were situated right next to another house. Neo - Babylonian houses were constructed of sundried ; baked brick was reserved for certain features such as the paving of the courtyard and of rooms which were exposed to water, and for built drains, toilet installations, and the like. The roofs were made using locally available timbers, which could span rooms of up to c.3.5 – 4 meters in width. These beams were overlain with reeds or reed matting, which was in turn overlain by a slab of straw - tempered mud (Baker 2007 : 70– 2; 2010, 2011, forthcoming). The Neo-Babylonian Empire 927

7 Material Culture and Long- Distance Trade

The written sources attest to a wide variety of commodities imported into Baby- lonia over a long distance, including metals (Cypriot copper, Cilician iron); alum (); dyes, mordants, and colored textiles (the ); wines and aromatics (); timber for construction (); and aromatics (Arabia and the east) (Jursa 2004b : 129– 132). Many of these were, of course, perishable, and actual fi nds of imported goods tend to be restricted to the kinds of precious items found in graves, such as items of jewelry made of gemstones and/or precious metals. Other products of skilled craftsmanship include the inlaid wood and ivory box found in Grave 423 at Uruk (Boehmer et al. 1995 : Taf. 158– 159). Cylinder seals and stamp seals were also, of necessity, usually made of imported materials (on their iconography, see Collon 1987 : 80– 3, with further discussion in Collon 2001 ). The few rare cylinder seals that are provenienced come mostly from Ur and Uruk (Collon 2001 : 1; note also M. Sax’ s summary of the materials identi- fi ed on p. 19, and the discussion of the provenience of the materials used in Babylonian seals on pp. 33 – 4). Locally made artifacts include anthropomorphic fi gurines such as those excavated at Babylon (Klengel- Brandt and Cholidis 2006 ).

8 Beyond Babylonia

Outside Babylonia itself, the effects of Babylonian can be seen more in the destruction levels that can occasionally be related to the conquests of its rulers than in any evidence for a governmental infrastructure imposed from the center. Evidence of the process of post - conquest integration is conspicuous by its absence, thus it is extremely diffi cult to develop anything approaching a model for the archaeology of empire at this period, since Babylonian rule left so few material culture traces in the areas under its control. After the fall of Assyria at the end of the 7th century BC , it seems clear that Babylonia (rather than ) exercised control over northern Mesopotamia, as well as over the northern Levant, and in recent years increasing attention has been paid to the Neo - Babylonian presence in the former Assyrian heartland. The evidence remains scanty because of the more or less complete collapse of urban life at this time, which means that no substantial, post - Assyrian occupation levels have been detected at any of the former major urban sites. Moreover, potentially relevant fi nds are diffi cult to evaluate because it is rarely possible to distinguish remains datable to the period of Neo - Babylonian control from those of the Ach- aemenid period which followed, hence the catch - all label “ post - Assyrian” that has been applied to the material culture, especially the ceramics, of northern 928 The Archaeology of Empire

Mesopotamia at this time. Beyond the heartland this problem is being addressed by study of the ceramic material found in situ at Dur- Katlimmu (mod. ) in the valley, where the so - called “ Red House” continued in use throughout the BC . Kreppner (2008) determined that there was continuity in ceramic production at the site from the mid - 7th to the early BC , although he detected a decline in general living standards over the course of the 6th century. Thus, he concluded that the term “ post - Assyrian” is of merely historical signifi cance and has no application in the sphere of ceramics. The northern Mesopotamian evidence for the presence of, or contact with, Babylonians is rather limited. It includes sparse fi nds of tablets, such as the Assyrian tablets found at Dur - Katlimmu which were dated to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II according to the Babylonian convention. Babylonian tablets written after the fall of Assyria were also found at Guzana (). In the case of other items identifi ed (however tentatively) as Neo- Babylonian, in the absence of an unequivocal, well- stratifi ed context it cannot necessarily be assumed that they refl ect a post - 612 BC Babylonian presence, since they could equally well represent either imports or the personal effects of Babylonian immigrants or visi- tors during the later decades of the Assyrian empire. Remains which might be indicative of Babylonian infrastructure are lacking. Two small, post - Assyrian temples at Assur have been assigned to the Neo - Babylonian period, with a Parthian- period rebuilding (Andrae 1977[1938] : 164– 6). This has generally been followed by subsequent authors (e.g., Haider 2008 : 194 – 5), while Czichon ( 1998 – 2001 : 205) attributes them specifi cally to Nebuchadnezzar II, without adducing any evidence. However, there are no grounds for dating the construc- tion of these shrines to the Neo - Babylonian period. Curtis (2003 : 161) cited a suggestion by M. Roaf that they may have been founded in the Parthian era, though an Achaemenid or Seleucid date seems equally possible. was the last refuge of the Assyrians following the conquest of their heartland. However, remains of this era (late 7th century BC ) have not been excavated, except for monuments of the last Neo - Babylonian ruler. Four stelae dating from the reign of Nabonidus were found, unfortunately not in their origi- nal contexts but reused as part of the fabric of the Great (Gadd 1958 ). Two bore the well- known inscription of Nabonidus’ s mother, Adda - guppi, in which it is claimed that she lived for 104 years until her death in the ninth year of her son’ s reign; the other two were inscribed with a text of Nabonidus himself. Additional fragments of inscriptions found by D.S. Rice in deep soundings in the area of the Great Mosque suggest that it was indeed the site of the earlier Sin temple which Nabonidus rebuilt and which is where the stelae may originally have stood (Saggs 1969 ). Turning to the Levant, inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar II have been found in Lebanon, at Nahr - Kelb and Wadi Brissa (new studies are being The Neo-Babylonian Empire 929 prepared by R. da Riva). In , a poorly preserved Neo - Babylonian rock and inscription recently discovered at ’ near Buseirah has been tenta- tively attributed to Nabonidus and perhaps refl ects the route taken by that king on his way to (Ch. II.43 ) (Dalley and Goguel 1997 ). Dalley goes on to suggest that the destruction levels found at Buseira, Tawilan and Tall al - Khalayfi may be related to Nabonidus’ s subjection of (Dalley and Goguel 1997 : 175). These monuments are clearly testimony to Neo- Babylonian political domina- tion of the region. However, apart from the destruction levels found at a number of sites which have been attributed to the actions of Nebuchadnezzar ’ s army, other material traces of a Babylonian presence are remarkably scarce. In this respect it is diffi cult to reconcile the archaeological remains with the historical record, which suggests rather a fi rm grip on the region (Katzenstein 1997 : 335). It is often assumed that Neo - Babylonian rulers simply took over the previously existing Neo - Assyrian governmental infrastructure, though Vanderhooft (2003 : 236 – 7) noted that by 605 BC direct Assyrian control over Judah had been defunct for two, if not three, decades. Stern ( 2001 : 348 – 50) wrote of a vacuum during the Neo - Babylonian period, with settlements that were destroyed during the Neo - Babylonian conquest being rebuilt only in the Persian period. He concluded that in the archaeology of “ there is virtually no clearly defi ned period that may be called “ Babylonian,” for it was a time from which almost no material fi nds remain” (Stern 2001 : 350; cf. Vanderhooft 2003 : 253). Nabonidus, the last Neo - Babylonian king (556 – 539 BC ), is known to have stayed for 10 years in the oasis city of Tayma (Ch. II.43 ) in northwestern Arabia (Dandamayev 1998 – 2001 : 8). Recent excavations at the site have uncovered evidence for the Neo - Babylonian presence there, including a fragment of a of Nabonidus (Eichmann et al. 2006 ). However, the palace which the king is known from written sources to have built there has not yet been found. In the vicinity of Tayma a handful of rock inscriptions bear the names of members of Nabonidus’ military entourage; these particular individuals seem not to have been of Babylonian extraction, judging from their personal names (M ü ller and al- Said 2002 ). As for the region, a votive inscription on a bronze vessel found on Failaka (part of ancient ) indicates that the local temple Ekarra, known from earlier periods, was in use during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar; it was very likely dedicated to the god Shamash of Larsa. A stone slab with an inscription identifying it as belonging to the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has also been found on Failaka; however, it was probably en route to Babylon when it was deposited and does not refl ect the presence of a royal palace on Dilmun itself (Ferrara 1975 ; cf. Potts 1990 : 348– 9; Glassner 2008 : 190 – 1, 193). Burials of Neo - Babylonian type have also been found on (Potts 1985 : 702 with refs.). 930 The Archaeology of Empire

GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

This chapter draws heavily on the author’ s forthcoming study of Babylonian cities of the 1st millennium BC , where a more detailed treatment of the archaeological and written evidence for each site can be found (Baker forthcoming). To date, no general account of Neo - Babylonian material culture has been written; for a recent introduction to the art of the period, see Hrouda (1998 – 2001) . On kudurrus , see Slanski (2003 ; with additional comments and corrections by Charpin 2002 and Brinkman 2006 ). On burial practices, see Baker (1995) and especially the detailed publication of Neo- Babylonian graves from Uruk in Boehmer et al. (1995) . For a general discussion of the factors infl uencing the physical form of the Babylonian city, see Baker (2007) , and for a discussion of the various categories of unbuilt urban land at this period, see Baker (2009) . For a detailed overview of Neo- Babylonian temple architecture, see Heinrich (1982 : 243 – 82). The same author discusses the Neo- Babylonian palaces in the context of the Mesopotamian architectural tradition of palace building (Heinrich 1984 : 198– 231). A comprehensive overview of Babylonian housing in early 1st millennium BC , with numerous illustrations, can be found in Miglus ( 1999 : 177– 213). On Neo- Babylonian settlement patterns, see the invaluable critique of Brinkman (1984b) , who examines the survey data in the light of the written documentation for the period 1150 – 625 BC . See also Cole and Gasche (1998) on the watercourses of northern Babylonia. For a summary of the results of the German excava- tions at Babylon, see Koldewey (1990) ; Oates (1988) is also a good general introduction. In addition, several recent volumes have been devoted to the archaeology and history of Babylon, including Renger (1999) and the well- illustrated books accompanying the major exhibitions held in , Paris, and (Marzahn 2008 ; André - Salvini 2008 ; and Finkel and Seymour 2008 , respectively). The Neo- Babylonian presence in Assyria is treated in detail by Curtis (2003) , with further relevant discussion in Curtis (2005b) .