Late Old Babylonian Temple Archive from Dur-Abiesuh

A collection of sealed tablets emanating from a fortress on the Tigris called Dūr-Abiešuḫ provides us with substantial Old Babylonian texts and information on the affairs of the city as well as on its relations to Nippur during a period when Nippur appears to have been partially abandoned, after the 30th year of the reign of Samsuiluna (1749-1738 BCE). What transpired at Nippur when Samsuiluna lost control? Until now we had only scarce data suggesting that most of the population left the city and moved further to the North, just as what happened in the other cities to the South, such as Uruk and Larsa. This group of texts housed at Cornell University and published in this volume contain exciting information concerning the partial abandonment of Nippur and how the clergy built a new Ekur (temple) dedicated to Enlil, thus giving credibility to the thesis that the religious institutions might have transferred from Nippur to Babylon. The probable location of Dūr-Abiešuḫ in northern Babylonia, not far from Ḫarradum is argued along with a discussion of changes in the history of Mesopotamian watercourses, particularly the possible extension of the Ḫammurabi-nuḫuš-nišī canal to the North which would have explained the building of a Dam on the Tigris at Dūr-Abiešuḫ in order to insure the continued supply of water to the cities in the South. One of the tablets indeed mentions that Nippur could still be reached by boat using the 30 km canal between Dūr-Abiešuḫ and Nippur.