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The Location of Bad-Tibira

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Vaughn E. Crawford
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Extract

About thirty years ago clay cones bearing a newly recovered inscription of En-temena appeared in the antiquities market. The inscription is often referred to as the “brotherhood text,” because it relates that friendship was established between En-temena, governor of Lagash, and Lugal-kinishe-dudu, governor of Uruk. Since the inscription was new, it was soon published in a number of journals.

The inscription is of primary importance for the discussion of the location of Bad-tibira because it describes En-temena as the man who built the temple E-mush for the goddess Inanna and the god Lugal-E-mush, an epithet for Dumu-zi. From other texts it is known that E-mush and E-mush-kalama, presumably names for the same temple, were located in Bad-tibira. If the site where the cones had been discovered by robber diggers could be found, then the location of the ancient city of Bad-tibira could be re-established.

Since a vendor of the cones had said that they came from Medain, one of the reasons for the French excavation at a mound called Medain near Lagash was to attempt to locate Bad-tibira. Unfortunately, however, the labours of Ghirshman and Tellier were not successful in ascertaining the site of Bad-tibira.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 22 , Issue 1-2: Ur in Retrospect. In Memory of Sir C. Leonard Woolley , Spring-Autumn 1960 , pp. 197 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1960 

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References

1 n a m. š e š. Col. II 10 of transliteration of text given on p. 199.

2 Gadd, C. J., R.A. XXVII (1930), pp. 125–126 Google Scholar; de Genouillac, H., Ravue de l'histoire des religions 101 (1950) pp, 216–220 Google Scholar; Krückmann, O., Analecta Ortentalia 12 (1935), p. 200 Google Scholar. A list of variants from eight cones in the Yale Babylonian Collection was published by F. Stephens, J., Votive and Historical Texts from Babylonia and Assyria (YOS IX), in 1937 Google Scholar. Soll-berger, E. republished the text in his Corpus des inscriptions “royales” présargoniques de Lagaš, cf. Clou B, pp. XII–XIII, XVI note *, 43Google Scholar.

3 Col. I 1–Col. II 1 of transliteration of text given on p. 199.

4 Zimmern, H., Z. A. NF 5, p. 259 Google Scholar.

5 Poebel, A., University of Pennsylvania, The University Museum Publications of the Babylonian Section, Vol. V 157 I 5Google Scholar.

6 Falkenstein, A., A.f.O. XIV, p. 129 Google Scholar.

7 de Genouillac, H., Fouilles de Telloh II, p. 139 Google Scholar.

8 Goetze, A., Sumer XI (1955), pp. 127–128 Google Scholar and the map following p. 128; Jacobsen, Thorkild, “Mesopotamian Mound Survey,” in Archaeology VII No. 1 (03 1954), pp. 53–54 Google Scholar taken from Newsletter No. 6 of the American Schools of Oriental Research for the season 1953–54. The dateline of the letter is Nippur, November 25, 1953.

9 Goetze, op. cit., map following p. 128.

10 The personnel of the team consisted of Professor Thorkild Jacobsen, Annual Professor of the Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research for 1953–54, as Director; Sayid Fuad Safar, Director of Archaeological Research of the Iraq Department of Antiquities; Sayid Ahmed Mahdi, Inspector of Antiquities at Nasiriyeh; and the writer, Fellow of the Baghdad School for 1953–54.

11 Through the courtesy of Professor F. J. Stephens the writer has had access to the eight original cones in the Yale Babylonian Collection which contain this text.

12 The letters outside the brackets in Col. II of the transliteration represent the signs or portions of signs preserved in the four cone fragments given in the copies.