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A City from the Dawn of History: Erbil in the Cuneiform Sources
The city of Erbil, which now claims to be one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, lies on the rich alluvial plains at the foot of the piedmont of the Zagros mountains in a strategic position which from the earliest times made it a natural gateway between Iran and Mesopotamia. Within the context of ancient Mesopotamian civilisation there can be no doubt that it will have been one of the most important urban centres. Yet while the citadel of Erbil is without question a site of exceptional interest, archaeologically the mound has until recently remained virtually untouched. On the other hand rich documentation allows us to understand the context in which the city grew and flourished. This work is dedicated to the cuneiform sources. Together these include hundreds of documents stretching from the late third millennium to the mid first millennium BC. The very first references, in administrative documents from the archives of the royal palace at Ebla, date to ca. 2300 BC. In the eras that follow texts written in Sumerian and then Akkadian attest to the city's periods of independence alternating with its incorporation in the Ur III, Assyrian and Babylonian empires. From the Achaemenid period, while the Elamite texts from Persepolis are mostly unpublished, Erbil does appear both in the famous inscription of Darius I at Behistun and in the celebrated Passport of Nehtihur, an Aramaic document from Elephantine in Egypt. The sources include a wide variety of administrative texts, royal inscriptions, grants, chronicles, letters, votive dedications and oracular pronouncements which together give a unique insight into the history and society of this exceptional city.
148 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 30, 2014
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January 6, 2018
I love books on ancient cities, and my ideal book on an ancient city would include both original written texts and archaeological data, both of which are thin on the ground. Rather good books have been written about Ebla and Mari. I recently reviewed one on Ur. This book focuses on Erbil (anciently known as Irbilum, Urbilum, Urbel, and Arbail) which is located in Iraqi Kurdistan on the Lesser Zab river. It's not my ideal book per the criteria above, but it has enough to keep me interested.
Unlike Ebla, Mari, and Ur, Erbil is still an inhabited city of about 1.5 million people. There is evidence for settlement here as far back as the Ubaid period (C.5000 BC), so Erbil is a contender for the title of the world's oldest continuously inhabited city. Being inhabited, Erbil hasn't been able to benefit from an extensive archaeological program, but with the help of UNESCO it is about to implement one as part of a revitalization program. This book, therefore, focuses on what was anciently written about Erbil in the cuneiform texts from the late 3rd millennium to the time of Alexander the Great.
Check out this wikipedia article to see a picture of the ancient heart of Erbil, located under the citadel on what is obviously an ancient tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel...
This book does a good job of describing the history of the city (such as is possible) through the ancient period. The author makes some educated guesses based on scant resources for the early periods, and those texts are provided in translation. Later texts, from the late Assyrian period, are only summarized, rather than translated, and in this I was a little disappointed - it would have been nice to have more of these written out in full.
One of the more interesting treatments in this book is the analysis of how the name for the city was written during different time periods. The various names are shown in cuneiform, transliterated, and translated, so we can see how not only the name changed, but how cuneiform writing itself changed - and that's a fascinating thing.
For example, by the middle of the 1st millenium, the name of the city is written using the sign for the number 4 (pronounced 'arba') and the sign for god, DINGIR (pronounced 'il'), preceded by the URU determinative (which is not pronounced at all, but used to classify this as a city). In writing, this looks like URU 4 DINGIR, but is pronounced ARBA-IL. And so the city of Arbil earned the nickname "City of the Four Gods" - not because it had four gods, but because of the scribal convention by which its name was written.
The actual city god of Erbil was called Ishtar of Arbail and she was one of the most important goddesses of the Assyrian Empire. Erbil was, at that time, one of the key cities of the Assyrian heartland. Her temple was called E-gashankalamma ("House of the Lady of the Land") and King Esarhaddon of Assyria claimed to have covered it in electrum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esarhaddon
A prominent prophet lived here at that time, and a number of those prophecies appear, translated, in another book I reviewed: Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East by Martti Nissinen.
This really is a niche product. If you're at all interested in this period of history, by all means check this book out. It's a nicely produced book with decent maps and lots of pictures. I'm afraid I don't think there's much here for the casual reader, though, which is why it gets my middling rating.
Unlike Ebla, Mari, and Ur, Erbil is still an inhabited city of about 1.5 million people. There is evidence for settlement here as far back as the Ubaid period (C.5000 BC), so Erbil is a contender for the title of the world's oldest continuously inhabited city. Being inhabited, Erbil hasn't been able to benefit from an extensive archaeological program, but with the help of UNESCO it is about to implement one as part of a revitalization program. This book, therefore, focuses on what was anciently written about Erbil in the cuneiform texts from the late 3rd millennium to the time of Alexander the Great.
Check out this wikipedia article to see a picture of the ancient heart of Erbil, located under the citadel on what is obviously an ancient tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel...
This book does a good job of describing the history of the city (such as is possible) through the ancient period. The author makes some educated guesses based on scant resources for the early periods, and those texts are provided in translation. Later texts, from the late Assyrian period, are only summarized, rather than translated, and in this I was a little disappointed - it would have been nice to have more of these written out in full.
One of the more interesting treatments in this book is the analysis of how the name for the city was written during different time periods. The various names are shown in cuneiform, transliterated, and translated, so we can see how not only the name changed, but how cuneiform writing itself changed - and that's a fascinating thing.
For example, by the middle of the 1st millenium, the name of the city is written using the sign for the number 4 (pronounced 'arba') and the sign for god, DINGIR (pronounced 'il'), preceded by the URU determinative (which is not pronounced at all, but used to classify this as a city). In writing, this looks like URU 4 DINGIR, but is pronounced ARBA-IL. And so the city of Arbil earned the nickname "City of the Four Gods" - not because it had four gods, but because of the scribal convention by which its name was written.
The actual city god of Erbil was called Ishtar of Arbail and she was one of the most important goddesses of the Assyrian Empire. Erbil was, at that time, one of the key cities of the Assyrian heartland. Her temple was called E-gashankalamma ("House of the Lady of the Land") and King Esarhaddon of Assyria claimed to have covered it in electrum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esarhaddon
A prominent prophet lived here at that time, and a number of those prophecies appear, translated, in another book I reviewed: Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East by Martti Nissinen.
This really is a niche product. If you're at all interested in this period of history, by all means check this book out. It's a nicely produced book with decent maps and lots of pictures. I'm afraid I don't think there's much here for the casual reader, though, which is why it gets my middling rating.
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