KUTHA
![](kutha.jpg)
Kutha,
Cuthah, Gudua shown within Iraq
![](kutualsoknownaskuth.gif)
Kutu
also known as Kutha
Location
: Babil Governorate, Iraq
Region
:
Mesopotamia
Coordinates
: 32°45'36.1 N 44°36'46.3 E
Type
: tell
Site
notes :
Excavation
dates :
1881
Archaeologists
:
Hormuzd Rassam
Kutha,
Cuthah, Cuth or Cutha (Sumerian: Gudua), modern Tell Ibrahim, formerly
known as Kutha Rabba, is an archaeological site in Babil Governorate,
Iraq. Archaeological investigations have revealed remains of the
Neo-Babylonian period and Kutha appears frequently in historical
sources such.
History
of archaeological research :
The first archaeologist to examine the site, George Rawlinson, noted
a brick of king Nebuchadrezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire mentioning
the city of Kutha. The site was also visited by George Smith and
by Edgar James Banks. Tell Ibrahim was excavated by Hormuzd Rassam
in 1881, for four weeks. Little was discovered, mainly some inscribed
bowls and a few tablets.
Kutha
and its environment :
Kutha lies on the right bank of the eastern branch of the Upper
Euphrates, north of Nippur and around 25 miles (40 km) northeast
of Babylon. The site consists of two tells or settlement mounds.
The larger main mound is 0.75 miles (1.21 km) long and crescent-shaped.
A smaller mound is located to the west. The two mounds, as is typical
in the region, are separated by the dry bed of an ancient canal,
the Shatt en-Nil.
Kutha
in textual sources :
According to the Tanakh, Cuthah was one of the five Syrian and Mesopotamian
cities from which Sargon II, King of Assyria, brought settlers to
take the places of the exiled Israelites (2 Kings 17:24–30).
II Kings relates that these settlers were attacked by lions, and
interpreting this to mean that their worship was not acceptable
to the deity of the land, they asked Sargon to send an Israelite
priest, exiled in Assyria, to teach them, which he did.
The
result was a mixture of religions and peoples, the latter being
known as "Cuthim" in Hebrew and as "Samaritans"
to the Greeks.
Kutha
is also the name of the capital of the Sumerian underworld, Irkalla.
In
the Assyrian inscriptions "Cutha" occurs on the Shalmaneser
obelisk, line 82, in connection with Babylon. Shulgi (formerly read
as Dungi), King of Ur III, built the temple of Nergal at Cuthah,
which fell into ruins, so that Nebuchadnezzar II had to rebuild
the "temple of the gods, and placed them in safety in the temple".
This agrees with the Biblical statement that the men of Cuthah served
Nergal. Josephus places Cuthah, which for him is the name of a river
and of a district, in Persia, and Neubauer says that it is the name
of a country near Kurdistan.
The
so-called "Legend of the King of Cuthah", a fragmentary
inscription of the Akkadian literary genre called narû, written
as if it were transcribed from a royal stele, is in fact part of
the "Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin", not to be read as history,
a copy of which found in the cuneiform library at Sultantepe, north
of Harran.
Sumu-la-El,
a king of the 1st Babylonian Dynasty, rebuilt the city walls of
Kutha. The city was later defeated by Hammurabi of Babylon in the
39th year of his reign.
Ibn
Sa'd in his Kitab Tabaqat Al-Kubra writes that the maternal grandfather
of Abraham, Karbana, was the one who discovered the river Kutha.
In
The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Wahshiyya and His Nabatean Agriculture,
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila says :
"One
might also mention the rather surprising story, traced back to 'Ali,
the first Imam of the Shiites, where he is made to identify himself
as “one of the Nabateans from Lutha” (see Yaqut, Mu'jamIV:
488, s.v. Kutha). It goes without saying that the story is apocryphal,
but it shows that among the Shiites there were people ready to identify
themselves with the Nabateans. Thus it comes as no surprise that
especially in the so-called ghulàt movements (extremist Shiites)
a lot of material surfaces that is derivable from Mesopotamian sources
(cf. Hämeen-Anttila 2001), and the early Shiite strongholds
were to a great extent in the area inhabited by Nabateans.
"Yaqut
also notes, "the identification of Kutha as the original home
Shiah Muslims believe to be the Abrahamic roots of Islam. Yet the
identification of Kutha, and by extension also Abraham, with the
Nabateans is remarkable."
Al-Tabari
says in The History of Prophets and Kings that the prophet Ibrahim
was the son of his mother Nuba or Anmatala, who was the daughter
of Karita who dug the river Kutha, named after his father Kutha.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Kutha