NIPPUR, an ancient sacred city of Mesopotamia. Nippur lay on the bank of the old course of the Euphrates in 32° N., E. The old bed of the river is represented by present Shatt al Nil, whose dry bed now separates the two main groups of ruins. The city lies in the very heart of Sumeria, between the northern cities of Kish, Cutha and Babylon, to whom it is nearest in posi tion, and the cities of the south. It was the centre of the national cult of the god Enlil, and no doubt owing to its position was the ecclesiastical rival of the southern cities, especially Eridu. The possession of Nippur was an essential for every great dynasty, because the rulers of all the cities throughout the whole of Sumer and Akkad ultimately derived their authority from Enlil, and it is essential in studying the ancient geography of Mesopotamia to remember that the monarchy of the region took its rise from prince-priests, and that even the most powerful monarchs could never afford to separate themselves from the powerful and dom inant priesthood. Nippur therefore, although probably never a lay capital, except possibly in later times, throughout its long history always played a very prominent part in Mesopotamian history, and, owing to the passion exercised by the priests for recording every transaction, however minute, on clay tablets, has left us a most complete record both of its life and of the part which it played in national politics. To-day the wide gap between the two rivers has made the irrigation problem a very difficult one but in ancient times the twin rivers approached one another more closely. The narrow strip between the rivers, scarcely more than thirty miles, could be irrigated by water run from the Euphrates to the Tigris and the land between the Euphrates on which there lay a string of cities and the Tigris was of great ag ricultural value. Nippur, therefore, apart from its sacred position was a land of great wealth.
The prehistoric city was built on the west bank of the Euphra tes, and was grouped about the temple of the earth god. The mound now lies on the east bank of the Shatt al Nil. Exten sive remains of cremation have been found in all the earlier pre Sargonic periods and as a matter of comparison it is interesting to note that in the earliest graves at Ur cremation appears to be a purely ritual survival, and that so far at Kish, even in the earliest graves, no signs of cremation have been found. Painted pottery was also found. In the period of Ur-nina, that is, the end of the fourth millennium B.C., the temple area was enlarged and a great rectangular terrace of plano-convex bricks was built. This
terrace extended far beyond the temple area and was large enough to include both the temple and its stage tower (ziggurat) at the southern end. There were also store houses, cloisters and priests' rooms on the terrace and a large court north of the temple. This building had an inner court, which was surrounded by thick walls and included rooms in which the temple archives were stored.
The restoration of the original form of the city, especially in later times, is made possible by the discovery of a tablet of the Kassite period, now unfortunately lost, which had upon it a sketch plan of the city. It shows part of the city east of the river and enclosed within its own walls, like the forbidden city of Peking to-day, which lies within its own walls and surrounded by the city itself. This inner city formed an irregular square, with sides about 90o yards long and was surrounded by canals, with quays along the walls. The inner city was itself also divided into two by a canal. The temple enclosure was oriented, its angles pointing towards the cardinal points of the compass. The tower of the pre-Sargonic period was on the north side of the inner court. On the east side, next to the tower, was the temple of Ekur, with its chapels and other buildings.
All the important kings held this temple in great veneration and considered its repair and reconstruction as a very necessary pious duty. Under the Semitic occupation Naram-sin rebuilt the temple and the city walls. His building was partly destroyed by Ur-Engur, whose restoration gave the area the form in which we have it recorded. His terrace of sundried bricks covered an area of about eight acres. The ziggurat at the northwestern edge was approached by an inclined plane on the south-east side and was made of crude bricks faced with burnt bricks, set in bitumen. It contained three stages. The city walls built by Ur Engur followed the general lines of the walls built by Naram-Sin. The whole sanctuary was later restored by Ashur-banipal of Assyria in the 7th century. The city had previous to this time been allowed to fall into comparative decay, partly owing to the predominance of Marduk, the god of Babylon, when that city was politically dominant, but it enjoyed a period of renewed splendour under the Kassite dynasty, but this was only a tem porary respite. Ashur-banipal's restoration however gave it a form in some ways more magnificent than it had ever enjoyed, his great ziggurat measuring 128 X190 feet. This was the end of Nippur's glories.