Temple of Aššur at Assur
Creators: Jamie Novotny Copyright © The Contributors. Sharing and remixing permitted under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (cc-by).
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https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/457530554
35.4603227228, 43.2627363434
- Representative Locations:
- OSM location of the Temple of Aššur at Assur (2335 BC - 540 BC) accuracy: +/- 20 meters.
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- Eamkurkurra (Sumerian, 2000 BC - 1600 BC)
- Ešarra (Sumerian, 1600 BC - 540 BC)
- Eḫursaggalkurkurra (Sumerian, 720 BC - 540 BC)
- Eḫursagkurkurra (Sumerian, 1600 BC - 540 BC)
- Rīmum (Akkadian, 2000 BC - 1600 BC)
- bīt Aššur (Akkadian, 2000 BC - 540 BC)
- bīt Enlil (Akkadian, 2000 BC - 1600 BC)
- Temple of Aššur at Assur located at Ashur/‘Lamban’?/‘Liba(nai)’? (2335 BC - 540 BC)
- Temple of Aššur at Assur located near Tigris/Diglitus (river) (2335 BC - 540 BC)
- Assur Archive 15 (N 1) located in Temple of Aššur at Assur (720 BC - 540 BC)
- Great Ziggurat of Aššur at Assur located near Temple of Aššur at Assur (2000 BC - 540 BC)
temple
- Evidence:
- See Further:
Pleiades
According to the Götteradressbuch (George 1992: pp. 176–179 no. 20 lines 144–146 = BTTo GAB A lines 1–3), Ešarra was the name of the entire temple, Eḫursaggalkurkurra was the name of Aššur's cella, and Eḫursaggula was the name of the šuḫūru-house. Note that some Assyrian inscriptions, however, give the impression that Eḫursaggalkurkurra was the main temple and that Eḫursaggula was the cella.
There is textual evidence that the following Assyrian kings worked on the Aššur temple at Assur over the course of its long history: Šalim-aḫum, Erišum I, Šamšī-Adad I, Aššur-nārārī I, Erība-Adad I, Adad-nārārī I, Shalmaneser I, Tukultī-Ninurta I, Aššur-rēša-iši I, Ašur-dan II, Tukultī-Ninurta II, Ashurbanipal II, Shalmaneser III, Šamšī-Adad V, Adad-nārārī III, Ašur-dan III, Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal. The plan of the temple changed and expanded over time, most notably during the reigns of the Old Assyrian king Šamšī-Adad I and the Neo-Assyrian ruler Sennacherib.
As part of religious reforms that took place after the sack and destruction of Babylon in late 689 BC, Sennacherib remodeled and rebuilt the central sanctuary of the Aššur temple in an attempt to replicate the Esagil complex at Babylon. A new, multi-room complex, the so-called “Ostanbau,” was built onto the existing structure. That addition was modelled on Esagil’s square-shaped “Sublime Court,” which was, according to inscriptions of his son Esarhaddon (Leichty 2011 Esarhaddon 104 iii 50–51), a replica of the constellation known as the “Field” (ikû, the “Square of Pegasus”). Although Sennacherib himself does not record that the eight-gated complex that he had built onto Aššur’s temple was a replica of a key part of Marduk’s temple, it is clear from later texts that the “Ostanbau” was in fact modelled on Esagil’s “Sublime Court” and its celestial counterpart, the “Square of Pegasus,” and was intended to create a link between heaven and earth, principally since the one at Babylon had been severed in 689 BC. Despite the fact that Sennacherib’s changes to the Aššur temple were very unpopular, his son and immediate successor Esarhaddon refused to revert the plan of the temple back to its pre-689 design.
Jamie Novotny, 'Temple of Aššur at Assur: a Pleiades place resource', Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places, 2022 <https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/457530554> [accessed: 31 August 2024]
{{cite web |url=https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/457530554 |title=Places: 457530554 (Temple of Aššur at Assur) |author=Novotny, J. |accessdate=August 31, 2024 8:42 pm |publisher=Pleiades}}