ERIDU
![](eridu.jpg)
Eridu
![](eridu1.jpg)
The
ruins of Eridu
Eridu
(Sumerian: NUN.KI/eridugki; Akkadian: irîtu; modern Arabic:
Tell Abu Shahrain) is an archaeological site in southern Mesopotamia
(modern Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq). Eridu was long considered the
earliest city in southern Mesopotamia. Located 12 km southwest of
Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities
that grew around temples, almost in sight of one another. These
buildings were made of mud brick and built on top of one another.
With the temples growing upward and the village growing outward,
a larger city was built. In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was originally
the home of Enki, later known by the Akkadians as Ea, who was considered
to have founded the city. His temple was called E-Abzu, as Enki
was believed to live in Abzu, an aquifer from which all life was
believed to stem.
History
of research :
![](Eridu_mound4c.8.png)
E-abzu
temple of Eridu
The site at Tel Abu Shahrain, near Basra, has been excavated four
times. It was initially excavated by John George Taylor in 1855,
R. Campbell Thompson in 1918, and H. R. Hall in 1919. Excavation
there resumed from 1946 to 1949 under Fuad Safar and Seton Lloyd
of the Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities and Heritage. These
archaeological investigations showed that, according to A. Leo Oppenheim,
"eventually the entire south lapsed into stagnation, abandoning
the political initiative to the rulers of the northern cities",
probably as a result of increasing salinity produced by continuous
irrigation, and the city was abandoned in 600 BC.
Myth
and legend :
![](eridu2.jpg)
Re-creation
of the port at Eridu
In the Sumerian King List, Eridu is named as the city of the first
kings. The opening line reads,
"[nam]-lugal
an-ta èd-dè-a-ba [eri]duki nam-lugal-la"
When
kingship from heaven was lowered, the kingship was in Eridu
In
Sumerian mythology, it was said to be one of the five cities built
before the Deluge occurred. Eridu, also transliterated as Eridug,
could mean "mighty place" or "guidance place".
The king list continues:
In
Eridu, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alalngar ruled
for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Then Eridu
fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira.
The
king list gave particularly long reigns to the kings who ruled before
a great flood occurred and shows how the centre of power progressively
moved from the south to the north of the country. Adapa, a man of
Eridu, is depicted as an early culture hero. He was considered to
have brought civilization to the city during the time of King Alulim.
In
Sumerian mythology, Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the
god Enki, the Sumerian counterpart of the Akkadian god Ea, god of
deep waters, wisdom and magic. Like all the Sumerian and Babylonian
gods, Enki/Ea began as a local god who, according to the later cosmology,
came to share the rule of the cosmos with Anu and Enlil. His kingdom
was the sweet waters that lay below earth (Sumerian ab=water; zu=far).
The
stories of Inanna, goddess of Uruk, describe how she had to go to
Eridu in order to receive the gifts of civilization. At first Enki,
the god of Eridu, attempted to retrieve these sources of his power
but later willingly accepted that Uruk now was the centre of the
land. This seems to be a mythical reference to the transfer of power
northward.
Babylonian
texts talk of the foundation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first
city, "the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods]
delight".
In
the court of Assyria, special physicians trained in the ancient
lore of Eridu, far to the south, foretold the course of sickness
from signs and portents on the patient's body and offered the appropriate
incantations and magical resources as cures.
History
:
![](640px-Fired_clay_brick_stamped_with_the_name_of_Amar-Sin,_Ur_III,_from_Eridu,_currently_housed_in_the_British_Museum.jpg)
Fired
clay brick stamped with the name of Amar-Sin, Ur III, from Eridu,
currently housed in the British Museum
Eridu appears to be the earliest settlement in the region, founded
c. 5400 BC, close to the Persian Gulf near the mouth of the Euphrates
River. Because of accumulation of silt at the shoreline over the
millennia, the remains of Eridu are now some distance from the gulf
at Abu Shahrain in Iraq. Excavation has shown that the city was
founded on a virgin sand-dune site with no previous occupation.
Piotr Steinkeller has hypothesised that the earliest divinity at
Eridu was a Goddess, who later emerged as the Earth Goddess Ninhursag
(Nin = Lady, Hur = Mountain, Sag = Sacred), with the later growth
in Enki as a male divinity the result of a hieros gamos, with a
male divinity or functionary of the temple.
According
to Gwendolyn Leick, Eridu was formed at the confluence of three
separate ecosystems, supporting three distinct lifestyles, that
came to an agreement about access to fresh water in a desert environment.
The oldest agrarian settlement seems to have been based upon intensive
subsistence irrigation agriculture derived from the Samarra culture
to the north, characterised by the building of canals, and mud-brick
buildings. The fisher-hunter cultures of the Arabian littoral were
responsible for the extensive middens along the Arabian shoreline,
and may have been the original Sumerians. They seem to have dwelt
in reed huts. The third culture that contributed to the building
of Eridu were the Semitic-speaking nomadic herders of herds of sheep
and goats living in tents in semi-desert areas. All three cultures
seem implicated in the earliest levels of the city. The urban settlement
was centered on a large temple complex built of mudbrick, within
a small depression that allowed water to accumulate.
Kate
Fielden reports "The earliest village settlement (c. 5000 BC)
had grown into a substantial city of mudbrick and reed houses by
c. 2900 BC, covering 8–10 ha (20–25 acres)". Mallowan
writes that by the Ubaid period, it was as an "unusually large
city" of an area of approx. 20–25 acres, with a population
of "not less than 4000 souls". Jacobsen describes that
"Eridu was for all practical purposes abandoned after the Ubaid
period", although it had recovered by Early Dynastic II as
there was a Massive Early Dynastic II palace (100 m in each direction)
partially excavated there. Ruth Whitehouse called it "a Major
Early Dynastic City". By c. 2050 BC the city had declined;
there is little evidence of occupation after that date. Eighteen
superimposed mudbrick temples at the site underlie the unfinished
Ziggurat of Amar-Sin (c. 2047–2039 BC). The finding of extensive
deposits of fishbones associated with the earliest levels also shows
a continuity of the Abzu cult associated later with Enki and Ea.
Eridu
was abandoned for long periods, before it was finally deserted and
allowed to fall into ruin in the 6th century BC. The encroachment
of neighbouring sand dunes, and the rise of a saline water table,
set early limits to its agricultural base so in its later Neo-Babylonian
development, Eridu was rebuilt as a purely temple site, in honour
of its earliest history.
Architecture
:
![](Eridu_temple_7.jpg)
Large
buildings, implying centralized government, started to be made.
Eridu Temple, final Ubaid period
The urban nucleus of Eridu was Enki's temple, called House of the
Aquifer (Cuneiform: E2.ZU.AB; Sumerian: e2-abzu; Akkadian: bitu
apsû), which in later history was called House of the Waters
(Cuneiform: E2.LAGAB×HAL; Sumerian: e2-engur; Akkadian: bitu
engurru). The name refers to Enki's realm. His consort Ninhursag
had a nearby temple at Ubaid.
During
the Ur III period Ur-Nammu had a ziggurat built over the remains
of previous temples.
Aside
from Enmerkar of Uruk (as mentioned in the Aratta epics), several
later historical Sumerian kings are said in inscriptions found here
to have worked on or renewed the e-abzu temple, including Elili
of Ur; Ur-Nammu, Shulgi and Amar-Sin of Ur-III, and Nur-Adad of
Larsa.
House
of the Aquifer (E-Abzu) :
Level |
Particulars |
XVIII |
Date
(BC) : 5300
Period
: ---
Size
(m) : 3 × 0.3
Note
:
Sleeper
walls |
XVII |
Date
(BC) : 5300 – 5000
Period
: ---
Size
(m) : 2.8 × 2.8
Note
:
First
cella |
XVI |
Date
(BC) : 5300 – 4500
Period
: Early Ubaid
Size
(m) : 3.5 × 3.5
Note
: --- |
XV |
Date
(BC) : 5000 – 4500
Period
: Early Ubaid
Size
(m) : 7.3 × 8.4
Note
: --- |
XIV |
Date
(BC) : 5000 – 4500
Period
: Early Ubaid
Size
(m) : ---
Note
:
No
structure found |
XIII |
Date
(BC) : 5000 – 4500
Period
: Early Ubaid
Size
(m) : ---
Note
:
No
structure found |
XII |
Date
(BC) : 5000 – 4500
Period
: Early Ubaid
Size
(m) : ---
Note
:
No
structure found |
XI |
Date
(BC) : 4500 – 4000
Period
: Ubaid
Size
(m) : 4.5 × 12.6
Note
:
First
platform |
X |
Date
(BC) : 4500 – 4000
Period
: Ubaid
Size
(m) : 5 × 13
Note
: --- |
IX |
Date
(BC) : 4500 – 4000
Period
: Ubaid
Size
(m) : 4 × 10
Note
: --- |
VIII |
Date
(BC) : 4500 – 4000
Period
: Ubaid
Size
(m) : 18 × 11
Note
: --- |
VII |
Date
(BC) : 4000 – 3800
Period
: Ubaid
Size
(m) : 17 × 12
Note
: --- |
VI |
Date
(BC) : 4000 – 3800
Period
: Ubaid
Size
(m) : ---
Note
: --- |
V |
Date
(BC) : 3800 – 3500
Period
: Early
Uruk
Size
(m) : 22 × 9
Note
:
Only
platform remains |
IV |
Date
(BC) : 3800 – 3500
Period
: Early Uruk
Size
(m) : ---
Note
:
Only
platform remains |
III |
Date
(BC) : 3800 – 3500
Period
: Early Uruk
Size
(m) : ---
Note
:
Only
platform remains |
II |
Date
(BC) : 3500 – 3200
Period
: Early Uruk
Size
(m) : ---
Note
:
Only
platform remains |
I |
Date
(BC) : 3200
Period
: Early Uruk
Size
(m) : ---
Note
:
Only
platform remains |
|
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Eridu