DILBAT
![](dilbat.jpg)
Dilbat
location in Iraq
Coordinates
: 32°17'44 N 44°27'58 E
Country
: Iraq
Dilbat
(modern Tell ed-Duleim or Tell al-Deylam, Iraq) was an ancient Sumerian
minor tell (hill city) located southeast from Babylon on the eastern
bank of the Western Euphrates in modern-day Al-Qadisiyyah, Iraq.
The ziggurat E-ibe-Anu, dedicated to Urash, a minor local deity
distinct from the earth goddess Urash, was located in the center
of the city and was mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
History
:
Dilbat was founded during the Sumerian Early Dynastic II period,
around 2700 BC. It is known to have been occupied, at least, during
the Akkadian, Old Babylonian, Kassite, Sasanian and Early Islamic
periods. It was an early agricultural center cultivating einkorn
wheat and producing reed products. It lay on the Arahtum canal.
Archaeology
:
![](Stone_tablet,_land_purchase,_from_Dilbat,_Iraq._2400-2200_BCE._British_Museum.jpg)
Stone
tablet, land purchase, from Dilbat, Iraq. 2400-2200 BCE. Excavated
by Hormuzd Rassam. British Museum
The site of Tell al-Deylam consists of two mounds, a small western
mound with 1st millennium BC and Early Islamic remains and a larger
east mound, roughly 500 meters in circumference, with remains from
the 1st to 3rd millennium BC. Dilbat was excavated briefly by Hormuzd
Rassam, who recovered some cuneiform tablets at the site, mainly
from the Neo-Babylonian period. The site was worked in 1989 by J.
A. Armstrong of the Oriental Institute of Chicago. Though Dilbat
itself has only been lightly excavated by archaeologists, numerous
tablets from there have made their way to the antiquities market
over the years as the result of unauthorized digging.
Tutelary
god :
Dilbat, like many other Mesopotamian settlements had its own tutelary
deity, Urash, a male deity distinct from the more well known goddess
Urash associated with Anu. He was regarded as a farming god and
a warror, similar to Ninurta.
Urash
was regarded as the father of Nanaya, a goddess of love from the
entourage of Inanna, as well as the minor underworld deity Lagamar,
worshiped in Susa as an attendant of Inshushinak moreso than in
Mesopotamia. Urash was also the husband of Ninegal ("lady of
the palace"), and they had a joint temple, as attested by an
Assyrian account of its renovation undertaken on the orders of Ashur-etil-ilani.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Dilbat