The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies La Société canadienne des études mésopotamiennes journal Egyptian Reflections on Babylon / Jana Mynářová Reconstructing Ancient Babylon: Myth and Reality / Heather D. Baker What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History / Paul-Alain Beaulieu Notes from the Field / Carnets de recherche Volume 14 • 2019 The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies La Société canadienne des études mésopotamiennes J O U R N A L Volume 14 2019 CONTENTS / TABLE DES MATIÈRES Mot de l’éditeur / A word from the editor ..................................................................................... 3 Egyptian Reflections on Babylon / Jana Mynářová ..................................................................... 5 Reconstructing Ancient Babylon: Myth and Reality / Heather D. Baker................................... 15 What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History / Paul-Alain Beaulieu .... 29 Notes from the Field / Carnet de recherche ................................................................................ 39 © The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 2022 ISSN 1911-8643 Message from the editor—Erratum. The editor would like to apologize to Maynard P. Maidman for a printing error that occurred in his article, Mittanni Royalty and Empire: How Far Back? published in the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Journal Volumes 11 & 12 (2016 & 2017). Although endnotes occur in the article, the numerical notations where they should appear in the text were mistakenly removed before final printing. Interested readers can download a corrected version of the article from Maynard Maidman’s academia.edu account. https://www.academia.edu/49108889/ Mittanni_Royalty_and_Empire_CSMS_Journal_11_12_corrected?email_work_card=title Beaulieu: What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History 29 What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History Paul-Alain Beaulieu University of Toronto Abstract Babylon was known by many names in ancient times. Some were very old, probably originating as designations for localities that later became part of the ever-expanding site, while others emerged as popular etymologies or learned speculations of scribes. Babylon comprised several districts, some of which also became names for the city. This article also considers the names of Babylon in neighboring cultures and the impact of the city’s reputation after its abandonment in late Antiquity. Various examples of cities with alternative names in world history are also briefly discussed. Résumé Babylone était connue par plusieurs noms dans l’Antiquité. Certains remontaient à une lointaine origine et désignaient sans doute des localités incorporées dans la ville au cours de son expansion. D’autres apparurent au gré des étymologies populaires ou des spéculations érudites des scribes. Babylone comprenait plusieurs quartiers, dont certains furent adoptés comme noms pour la ville entière. Le présent article traite également du nom de Babylone dans les cultures avoisinantes et de son impact après l’abandon de la ville à la fin de l’Antiquité. Aussi, quelques exemples historiques de villes connues sous plusieurs noms sont brièvement discutés. he origins of names of cities often bathe in obscurity, and Babylon is no exception. The city was called Babilu in the native Akkadian language of Mesopotamia. This is proven by numerous phonetic writings of that name, which is also supported by the Biblical Hebrew form Babel (‫לבב‬, pronounced Bavel) and the classical Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών), from which it was borrowed into English and other European languages. The earliest mention of Babylon occurs in a fragmentary inscription on a limestone plaque preserved in the Babylonian Collection at Yale University.1 The paleography of the inscription suggests a dating to the Early Dynastic (ED) III period, around the middle of the third millennium BC. The text is written mostly with Sumerian logograms, but the underlying language is probably an early form of Akkadian. It translates as follows: “[o o o], ruler of Babbir, son of Ahu-ilum, man of Ilum-bēli, man of Ur-Kubi, builder of the temple of Marduk, the one who set up [this votive o o o]”. The name of the author of the inscription is lost, but his title, translated here as “ruler of Babbir”, is written with the sequence of signs ÉNSI BAR.KI.BAR. ÉNSI is the Sumerian title for “ruling prince” or “governor”, borrowed as iššiakkum in Akkadian. The order of signs in the ED III period stills shows some freedom and therefore the sequence BAR.KI.BAR can be read BAR.BAR.KI. The sign KI is a determinative, a marker indicating geographic names that was not part of the pronunciation. This leaves BAR.BAR as the name of the city, and this is probably to be read /babbar/ if we follow the phonetic rules of Sumerian reduplication.2 The ruler of Babbar claims to be the builder of the temple of Marduk (dAMAR. UTU), later known as patron god of Babylon. Therefore, it T seems reasonable to assume that Babbar is an early form of the name of Babylon and that it should probably be read Babbir, which would have later become Babbil with swapping of the liquid consonants /r/ and /l/. The meaning of the name Babbar/ Babbir is uncertain. If it is a Sumerian word, then it could mean “shining”, “glowing”, or “white”, since the word babbar carries those meanings in Sumerian.3 Hence Babylon would be “the shining city”, or “the white city”. This would agree with the aspect of the god Marduk as solar deity.4 Babylon was also closely associated with the city of Sippar, located only some 60 km to the north. Sippar was home to the solar god Šamaš, whose temple was named E-babbar, “the shining house” or “the white house”. Thus, Babylon may have been an early center of solar worship. Another possibility is that the name Babbar/Babbir is not Sumerian but belonged to an earlier population stratum sometimes referred to as proto-Euphratic.5 Some Babylonian cities have similar names, including Sippar (originally Sippir, Zimbir). One possibility is that the name Babbar/Babbir was proto-Euphratic but was reinterpreted by the Sumerians to mean “white, shining”. This is all very complicated and of course we will never know the answer. I must stress that not everyone agrees with the identification of Babbar/Babbir with Babylon, but I see no better alternative. The next mention of Babylon dates to the 22nd century BC in an inscription of the Old Akkadian king Šar-kali-šarrī. The Old Akkadian (or Sargonic) Dynasty popularized the use of year names for dating. The name of a regnal year of that king mentions his work on two temples in the city: “The year when Šar-kali-šarrī laid the foundations of the temple of the goddess 30 CSMS Journal – Volume 14 Annunītum and of the temple of the god Ilaba in Babylon, and no meaning in either Sumerian or Akkadian, but it resembles defeated Šarlak, the king of Gutium”.6 The name of Babylon in phonetically other alleged proto-Euphratic names like Zimbir/ that year name is spelled with the three cuneiform signs KÁ, Sippir and Babbar/Babbir.12 Therefore, it might also be a very DINGIR and KI. The last sign KI is again the determinative old name for Babylon that resurfaced in the Old Babylonian for place names. The sign KÁ means “gate” in Sumerian and period and eventually became one of the standard designations translates as bābu in Akkadian, while DINGIR means “god” of the city. While Old Babylonian attestations are sparse, TIN. and translates as ilu. The compound KÁ+DINGIR was thus TIR.KI became more common during the Middle Babylonian read as Bāb plus ilu, that is, Bābilu. However, the name of the period and went into general use in the first millennium in all city had nothing to do originally with gates or gods, and the types of texts to designate the city. spelling KÁ.DINGIR is just a playful orthography of Babylon The importance of the name Tintir is also reflected in a based on a reanalysis of its name. However, it became the most traditional scholarly text which constitutes our main source for common writing of the city’s name in cuneiform and was later the names and epithets of Babylon and its topographic features. augmented to KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI, where RA represents the This is the cuneiform series Tintir = Babilu, named after its first Sumerian genitive case /a(k)/ attached to the final consonant entry which translates as “Tintir is Babylon” or “Tintir means /r/ of the nomen rectum DINGIR. In this manner the playful Babylon”. The series Tintir can be reconstructed from a fairly orthography was given a new meaning as “Gate of the God(s)”, large number of Assyrian and Babylonian manuscripts dating bāb-ili. As we move further in the third millennium to the to the first millennium.13 One of the manuscripts even has a 7 Ur III period, we begin to have more mentions of Babylon. transcription of the first segment of the series into Greek letters. The spellings KÁ.DINGIR and KÁ.DINGIR.RA are attested Only about ten lines of this transcription are partially preserved concurrently, but a recently published Ur III text preserved in but they give us precious information on the pronunciation of the State Hermitage Museum shows the syllabic spelling: baAkkadian in its late Babylonian form. Interestingly, it gives ab-bí-lumki.8 The form goes back to babbar > babbir > babbil the late Babylonian pronunciation of the city’s name as Babil and then became babbilum with the Akkadian nominative (βαβιλ), a form almost identical to the Hebrew name Babel/ ending. This confirms that the original form of the name with Bavel. It conforms to the phonology of late Babylonian reduplicated /b/ had not been forgotten despite the growing which tends to drop final short vowels. This transcription currency of the pseudo-etymology bāb-ili. dates probably from the late Seleucid or Parthian period (2nd During the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods, which or 1st century B.C.E.), but the series Tintir is much older. It extend from ca. 2000 until 1600 B.C.E., Babylon rose to was probably compiled in the late second millennium under political significance under the leadership of its first independent the Second Dynasty of Isin, which is reckoned as the fourth dynasty. Hammurabi, who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C.E., Dynasty of Babylon in the native historiography (King List propelled his city to hegemonic status. This became irreversible, A). This was a time of great literary and scientific creativity in and even after the First Dynasty of Babylon lost its power, the Babylonia. The most important text composed at that time was city retained its status as cultural and political capital until the Babylonian Epic of Creation, Enūma eliš, which consecrated its capture by the Persians in 539 B.C.E.. During the Old the status of Marduk as creator and ruler of the organized world Babylonian period the name of the city is almost always spelled and of Babylon as center of the universe. They replaced Enlil KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI. Syllabic spellings, when they occur, no and his city Nippur in that role. The series Tintir was in some longer reduplicate the middle /b/, suggesting that the original respects a companion piece to Enūma eliš. As much as the Epic name had been forgotten in favor of the pseudo-etymology.9 of Creation was a hymn to Marduk, Tintir was a hymn to his However, another designation of Babylon begins to appear at city Babylon. that time: TIN.TIR.KI. For instance, the name of the fifteenth Tintir is divided into five tablets. Tablets I, II and IV each regnal year of the Babylonian king Apil-Sîn, Hammurabi’s comprise 40 to 50 lines or entries. Tablet V has more than a grandfather, mentions the fashioning of a throne for the goddess hundred. Tablet III has not been recovered. The basic format of Ištar of TIN.TIR.KI: “The year that he (Apil-Sîn) made the the series is that of a bilingual lexical list, with the first column throne of Ištar of Babylon (dINANNA TIN.TIR.KI)”. The in Sumerian and the second column giving the Akkadian formula almost certainly refers to the goddess Ištar of Babylon, translation or explanation. The contents of the series are mostly especially as the name of the preceding two years of Apil-Sîn topographical and include the following: celebrate the building of her temple Eturkalamma in Babylon.10 Tablet I: names and epithets of Babylon (51 lines) It should be noted, however, that all Apil-Sîn’s other year Tablet II: list of sacred locations (50+ lines) names that mention Babylon refer to the city with the logogram KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI. Therefore, the use of TIN.TIR.KI in that Tablet III: lost specific year name seems idiosyncratic. One could speculate Tablet IV: list of the 43 temples of Babylon (43 lines) that the local form of the goddess Inanna originated from a Tablet V: list of various topographical features: 55 daises place named Tintir which would later have been associated (outdoor shrines), 8 city gates, 2 city walls, 3 rivers with Babylon. Another possibility is that Tintir was originally and canals, 24 streets, and 10 city districts, with 11 a part of Babylon, or perhaps a neighbouring community. Be summation of the entire series (104 lines) that as it may, the origins of the name Tintir are obscure. It has Beaulieu: What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History 31 The parts which are of interest here are Tablet I, which lists This exegesis is particularly significant from the theological the various names and epithets of Babylon, and the last segment and cosmological point of view. According to Enūma eliš, the of Tablet V, which gives the names of the ten districts of the city. god Marduk, after having slain the monster of chaos Tiāmat, The first ten entries of Tablet I read as follows in translation: split her body into two halves, stretched one half to create the vault of heavens, and after organizing the rest of the world “he 1. Tintir = Babylon, on which fame and jubilation are twisted her tail and wove it into the Durmaḫu” (Tablet V line bestowed 59).15 The term Durmaḫu is a loanword from Sumerian and 2. Tintir = Babylon, the seat of plenty means “the great bond”, a palpable reference to the pivot of 3. Tintir = Babylon, the seat of life the universe where Marduk creates Babylon as a station for the 4. Šuanna = Babylon, the might of the heavens gods between heaven, earth, and the nether regions. Until the 5 Sianna = Babylon, the light of the heavens redaction of Enūma eliš the city of Nippur filled that role and 6 Sa’anna = Babylon, the bond of the heavens was hailed as Duranki, which means “the bond of heaven and 7. Sa’anna = Babylon, called into being by the heavens earth” (Akkadian markas šamê u erṣeti).16 8. Uru-sigbi-dubsagga = Babylon, the city whose brickwork Finally, on line 7, the name Sa’anna is written with another is ancient sign carrying the phonetic value /sa/. We name it SA4 to keep it 9. Uru-silla = Babylon, the city of jubilation distinct from the other examples with the same phonetic value. 10. Uru-mebi-kalla = Babylon, the city whose ordinances are Sumerian SA4 means “to call, to name” (Akkadian nabû), and precious on this basis the compilers of the series have extracted the The compositional logic of the list is simple. The first column meaning nibīt šamê “called into being by the heavens”. The gives an alleged Sumerian name or epithet of the city, while the determinate KI is added to all these names, reinforcing the second column explains it in Akkadian as a name of Babylon. fiction that they are indeed place names, that is, alternative The Akkadian explanation is obtained by learned extrapolations names for Babylon. In this manner the list continues until line from the Sumerian name, yielding contrived equivalences which 51 by principles of analogy and accretion. It becomes a hymn have no real etymological basis. They amount to an exegesis of to Babylon simply by enumerating its invented names. Enūma the names of Babylon. This type of exegesis was very popular eliš ends with a similar enumeration and explanation of the among Babylonian scholars. To see how it works we can look names of Marduk, the god of Babylon. Most of these names at lines 4 to 7 more closely. To the standard text are added the were also invented for the occasion. Not surprisingly, the names transcription of the Akkadian column into Greek letters:14 of Marduk number 50 and so do the names of Babylon in Tablet I of Tintir. The theological reform of the Second Dynasty of 4. šu-an-naki =ba-bi-lu e-muq šamê βαβιλ ηουκ σαυη Isin aimed at replacing the god Enlil and his city of Nippur 5. si-an-naki =ba-bi-lu nu-úr šamê βαβιλ νωρ σαυη with Marduk and his city Babylon. We are not surprised that 6. sa-an-naki =ba-bi-lu mar-kás šamê βαβιλ μαρχαθ σ[αυη] the fiftieth and last name of Marduk in Enūma eliš is precisely 7. sa4-an-naki = ba-bi-lu ni-bit šamê βαβιλ νιβειθ σαυη Enlil, and that the fiftieth and last name of Babylon in the series The name Šuanna which appears on line 4 is a traditional Tintir is Dim-kurkur-ra, explained in Akkadian as rikis mātāti name of one of the districts of Babylon. Its etymology is “the bond of the lands”, a standard epithet of Nippur alluding to unknown to us and was probably unknown in ancient times as its focal role, a position now granted to Babylon. well. But this did not stop the scribe who compiled the series Most of these epithets probably never circulated outside from proposing one. He decomposed the term into two parts: scribal academies. Only four of them are attested as functional the first part is ŠU, the Sumerian word for “hand”, which also names for the city: Tintir, which appears on the first three means “strength, might”. In that latter meaning it translates lines; Šuanna, which appears on line 4; Eridu on line 21; and into Akkadian as emūqu. Then we have AN.NA, the Sumerian Kadingirra on line 22. As described above, Tintir is of obscure genitive form of the word “heavens”, translated into Akkadian origin. It is already attested during the Old Babylonian period. as šamê. Thus, the scribe could show that ŠU.AN.NA means Šuanna is equally obscure and is first attested during the Second in fact emūq šamê “the strength of the heavens”. This, of Dynasty of Isin; a text from Nippur dated to the fifth year of course, was certainly not the original meaning of Šuanna. The the king Marduk-nādin-aḫḫē mentions garments brought from next entry on line 5 introduces Sianna. Contrary to Šuanna, Šuanna, in a context where Babylon is obviously meant.17 As this name is otherwise unknown and appears in the list only for Eridu, it is also first attested during the Second Dynasty of because it resembles Šuanna phonetically. The Sumerian word Isin. The kudurru of Šitti-Marduk gives the epithet “governor SI basically means “horn”, but it also means “light” (Akkadian of Eridu” (šakkanak Eridu) to king Nebuchadnezzar I, palpably nūru) by analogy with the luminous horns of the lunar crescent. a variant of the traditional royal title šakkanak Babili.18 Eridu Therefore, Sianna can be shown to mean nūr šamê “the light is the name of the oldest Mesopotamian city, dating back to of the heavens”. On line 6 we move from Sianna to another the beginning of the Ubaid period in the 7th millennium. Eridu artificial near homonym, Sa’anna. The Sumerian word SA means was the city of the god Enki, known as Ea in Akkadian. During “muscle” and “joint of the body”. By semantic extension it also the Old Babylonian period the god Marduk was assimilated means “bond” (Akkadian markasu), and therefore Sa’anna can to the god Asalluhi, the son of Enki/Ea. This explains why be shown to mean “the bond of the heavens” (markas šamê). Enūma eliš puts so much emphasis on the role of Enki/Ea as 32 CSMS Journal – Volume 14 father of Marduk, and why his city Eridu then became a name The districts of Babylon that are listed in Tintir are also for Babylon. In Neo-Babylonian date formulas of the first known from other sources.19 The district Kadingirra often millennium the title “king of Babylon” is sometimes replaced occurs in the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar II, who launched with “king of Eridu”, or more simply the logogram for Eridu major building work in that area. Kadingirra included the royal (NUN.KI) becomes at that time also a logogram for Babylon. palace, the Gate of Ištar, and the temple of the goddess Ninmah, It is important to keep in mind that Tintir, Šuanna and Eridu all rebuilt and decorated in grandiose style during his long reign. were not mere epithets, but also alternative names for Babylon. In his East India House inscription, Nebuchadnezzar refers to They could be used as substitutes for Babilu or Kadingirra. that district in a passage commemorating the renovation of the However, Eridu, Šuanna and Kadingirra were also specific royal palace: “In Babylon, the city of my choice that I love, districts of Babylon. This we know from Tablet V of the series (as for) the palace, a building (that was) an object of wonder Tintir, which lists the ten districts of Babylon as follows and for the people, the bond of the land, a holy private room, (and) even gives their ___location. the cella of my royal majesty, in the Kadingirra district, which is in Babylon (ina erṣeti Kadingirra ša qereb Kadingirra)”.20 92. From the Market Gate to the Grand Gate [is called] The writing Kadingirra is identical for the district and the city Eridu (KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI) and the only means of differentiating 93. From the Market Gate to the Uraš Gate is called Šuanna them is the use of the word erṣeti “land, ground” before the 94. From the Grand Gate to the Ištar Gate is called name Kadingirra when it refers to the district. The Gate of Ištar Kadingirra was the main entrance to the city and this may explain why 95. From the Ištar Gate to the temple of Bēlet-Eanna on the Kadingirra “Gate of the God(s)” also became a specific name canal bank [is called] Newtown for that district. We also have sales of real estate from the Neo96. From the temple of Bēlet-Eanna on the canal bank to the Babylonian period which specify that the piece of land or house Marduk Gate [is called] Kullab that is sold is in a particular district of Babylon (erṣet GN ša 97. From the Zababa Gate to the dais “The Gods Pay Heed qereb Bābili “in the district of GN in Babylon”): these include to Marduk” [is called] TE.E.KI not only Kadingirra, but also Kumar, TE.E.KI, Newtown (Alu 98. The six cities of the East Bank eššu), Kullab, and Šuanna.21 Thus, if we were transported to imperial Babylon in the sixth century B.C.E., we could hear 99. From the Adad Gate to the Akus Gate is called [o o o] someone claiming: “I live in Kadingirra” or “I live in Šuanna”, 100. From the Akus Gate to the Enamtila, where Emaš is in the same manner as a resident of New York City would now built, is called Kumar say: “I live in Manhattan” or “I live in Brooklyn”. The legal 101. From the Navel of the Bow of the temple of Bēlet-Ninua and symbolic importance of these districts is underscored by to the river-bank is called Bāb-Lugalirra the fact that Tintir Tablet V sums them up with the logogram for 102. From the Šamaš Gate to the river is called Tuba “cities” (URU.MEŠ = ālānu). Each district was a city in and of 102. The four cities of the West Bank itself, a bit like the five boroughs of New York City. 103. Ten cities whose surrounding fields (yield) abundance One more designation of Babylon appears in the first millennium B.C.E. This is E.KI, which probably has nothing The districts can be easily plotted on a map of Babylon in the to do with the district TE.E.KI. The meaning of E in this sixth century, during the reign of the famous Nebuchadnezzar case is unknown, but the compound E.KI became a common II (Fig. 1). The Newtown district lies in the upper right-hand designation of the city in date formulas of legal documents. The corner; Kullab is just south of it; and TE.E.KI is in the lower most plausible explanation for the emergence of this designation right-hand corner. The reading of the logogram TE.E remains is the following. In date formulas of the late second millennium uncertain. To the left in the south-central portion, we have the word king is often spelled with the two Sumerian logograms Šuanna. In the center of the city, we have the district Eridu, LUGAL.E, where LUGAL is the word for “king” and E is the which includes the ziggurat Etemenanki and the temple Sumerian marker for the ergative subject. This frozen form complex of the god Marduk, the Esagil. The district Kadingirra could have been misunderstood to mean “king of Babylon”, to the north includes the royal palace (“Southern Fortress”) and where the logogram E was reanalyzed as a name for the city. the gate of Ištar. Then on the West Bank of the Euphrates from And indeed, in the following centuries we see the writing south to north we have the three districts Tuba, Kumar, and LUGAL E.KI become common for the title “king of Babylon” Bab-Lugalirra, and one district whose name is lost. One notes (Akkadian šar Babili). I must stress that this theory does not that only the three central districts along the East Bank of the meet with unanimous acceptance. We even have a dynasty of Euphrates became alternative names for the entire city: namely Babylon, counting as its eighth dynasty in King List A, named Kadingirra, Eridu, and Šuanna. It is therefore possible that these BALA E, that is to say, “Dynasty of E”, where E means again three districts corresponded to the oldest parts of Babylon. This Babylon. But the E could also be an Akkadian plural marker claim cannot be verified, however, as the archaeology of the for palê “dynasties” (BALA-e), since that eighth dynasty was city is very poorly known prior to the first millennium because made up of a succession of unrelated families and individual of the high water-table in that area. rulers or usurpers. Indeed, another historiographic document, the Dynastic Chronicle, breaks that “Dynasty of E” into several Beaulieu: What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History Figure 1. Plan of Babylon in the 6th Century B.C.E. (adapted from Jona Lendering available through CC0 1.0 Universal licence, https://www.livius.org/pictures/a/maps/map-of-babylon/). smaller ruling houses, although some of its kings still retain that designation, which suggests that E.KI was indeed understood as a designation of Babylon. Some confusion seems to have arisen with all these names. For instance, we have sales of real estate which locate the land in the district of Tintir in Babylon or in the district of E.KI in Babylon, but these two designations apply normally only to the entire city and not to its districts.22 Yet the playfulness of scribes knew no limits. One text even has the appellation KÁ.TIN.TIR.KI for the city, mixing the forms KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI and TIN.TIR.KI and playing on the assonance of DINGIR with TIN.TIR.23 All that confusion did not escape the neighbours of the Babylonians, and I will now turn to the ancient Hebrew name for Babylon, which in Biblical exegesis is explained precisely as “confusion”. This occurs in the celebrated story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis Chapter 11: (1) Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. (2) And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. (3) And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. (4) Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ (5) The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. (6) And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. (7) Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ (8) So, the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. (9) Therefore, it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; 33 34 CSMS Journal – Volume 14 and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earliest known name for Babylonia, which up to that point all the earth.24 was known as the lands of Sumer and Akkad. The English term Babylonia goes back in fact to the Greek word Babylonia This story has many purposes within the Biblical narrative. (Βαβυλωνία), which is attested among Greek writers starting in One of them is to explain the name Babylon by means of an the Persian period to refer to the land of Babylon. The concept etiology, a narrative which explains the origins of an institution, may have been borrowed from the Persians, who named the or in this case the origins of a name. If that city is called Babel, region Babirus and created a province of Babylon comprising it is because God confused the speech of its people so they most of the lands between the Tigris and the Euphrates, that would stop building the city. The explanation is based on the is, Mesopotamia. Thus, Babylon eventually gave its name assonance between Babel and the Hebrew verb balal which to the country, Babylonia. There are some modern parallels means “to mix, to confuse”, a meaning shared by the cognate to this phenomenon. In the early 19th century C.E., when the Akkadian verb balālu. This pun was destined to a long afterlife. Vice-Royalty of New Spain became independent, it took the In Judeo-Christian thinking Babylon became a symbol of all name of its capital Mexico. As a result, the name of the capital confusions, the archetype of error and moral decay. However, was no longer Mexico, but La Ciudad de Mexico, translated this is not the only word play with Babel in the Hebrew Bible. into English as Mexico City. In Canada, there is a similar Another name for the city is Šešak. It appears only twice in the example, with the city of Quebec having given its name to an Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 25 verse 26: “All the kings of the entire province. North Africa has three well-known examples: north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of Marrakesh gave its name to Morocco, Algiers to Algeria, and the world that are on the face of the earth. And after them the Tunis to Tunisia. king of Šešak shall drink”; and Chapter 51 verse 41, where it In this manner, Babylon became known as the capital of occurs side by side with the name Babel: “How Šešak is taken, Babylonia as it reached the end of its history. Under the foreign the pride of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become rule of the Achaemenid Persians and the Graeco-Macedonian an object of horror among the nations!”. The name Šešak dynasty of the Seleucids, Babylon became gradually results from a cipher. It is obtained by giving new values to the marginalized, and Babylonia absorbed an increasingly diverse three consonants of the name Babel, namely B, B, and L. The population. The city elites who controlled the traditional new values Š, Š and K are simply those of the letters which Babylonian temples now lived side by side with Greeks, have the same order as B, B, and L in the Hebrew alphabet Western Semites, including Jews, also Persians and numerous when it is read backwards. In other words, B become Š because other peoples who had migrated to southern Iraq forcibly or B is the second letter of the alphabet, and when you read the voluntarily. The old cuneiform culture died out when the alphabet backwards the second letter is Š. The same applies to last temples were closed under the rule of the Parthians, and the switch from K to L. The vowels are also reversed. In the by the second century C.E., Babylon had become all but a later rabbinic tradition this type of cipher is called an atbash, a deserted site. At that point the memory of Babylon’s names word made up of the letters Aleph Tau Beth and Shin, the first, and districts became almost completely lost. However, the last, second, and second to last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. northern part of the site preserved the name Babil. This was Some Biblical scholars assume that the cipher Šešak does not the site of the summer palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, a smaller originate with Jeremiah since it is not attested in the Septuagint residence which the famous king built for himself. According but could be a later exegesis dating to the Hellenistic period, as to a royal inscription of Nebuchadnezzar this new palace was it is partly preserved in 4QJer Chapter 25, the main manuscript called “Nabium-kudurru-uṣur liblut lulabbir zānin Esangil”, 25 of Jeremiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls. which means “May Nebuchadnezzar Stay in Good Health If we go back to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis and Grow Old as the Provider of the Esagil”.26 The name of 11, we see that it also reveals another name for Babylon: Nebuchadnezzar’s cherished capital city survived in that very “Shinar” (Šinar). More precisely, this is the name for the land precise ___location. around Babylon. The origin of the name Shinar has long eluded The mound of Babil became the sole reminder of the historians. Ran Zadok (1984) proposed to identify it with the ___location of Antiquity’s most famous city. Yet, medieval and term Samharû, which designates one of the Kassite tribes that early modern travelers to the Near East often sought the contributed to the fall of the First Dynasty of Babylon in the ___location of Babylon in other places, sometimes mistaking the th early 16 century and eventually joined forces with others to rule ruins of a tall structure for the tower of Babel. The ruins of th Babylonia until the middle of the 12 century. The same term Borsippa and Dur-Kurigalzu, the latter the royal residence occurs with the writing KUR URU Šanḫaru as a designation of of the Kassite kings near modern Baghdad, were thought by Babylon in Hittite texts alongside URU KÁ.DINGIR.RA and some to conceal the remains of ancient Babylon because the URU Kar(an)duniaš (see Francia 2020). These designations remains of their ziggurats could still be distinguished. The are all preceded by the sign URU, the determinative denoting once thriving districts of the ancient city eventually received cities. The term Karduniaš was borrowed from the Kassites, new names that one can see on maps of Babylon’s excavations. th th who ruled Babylonia from the 16 until the 12 century Kadingirra became known as Kasr, Eridu became Sahn and B.C.E. and eventually gave that name to their kingdom. The Amran, and the New City became Homera, and so on. None of etymology of Karduniaš is unknown. It is probably a Kassite these names can be linked convincingly to any of the ancient word that was obscure to the Babylonians. Nevertheless, it is Beaulieu: What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History 35 designations of the city, which remained hidden under layers of Šuanna, the etymologies of Montreal’s Indigenous names are deposit until the German excavations of 1899 to 1917 revealed disputed and likely to remain obscure. it again to the world in all its complexity and vanished glory. However, during the two millennia when the real Babylon lay BIBLIOGRAPHY buried in the ground, its name undertook a long symbolic career Beaulieu, P.-A. which has not ceased to this day. We can follow the trajectory 2020 The God List CT 24 50 as Theological Postscript to Enūma of this myth of Babylon from its very inception, and study its Eliš”. Pp. 109–28 in Des polythéismes aux monothéismes. growth and transformation in details. It began with the assault Mélanges d’assyriologie offerts à Marcel Sigrist. eds. U. Gabbay and J.J. Pérennès, Leuven: Peeters. of Nebuchadnezzar II against the kingdom of Judah in the early decades of the sixth century B.C.E., the destruction of Edzard, D.O. and Farber, G. the temple of Jerusalem and the “Babylonian captivity”, the 1974 Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der Zeit der 3. Dynastie deportation of parts of the Judean population to Babylonia. von Ur. Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes Babylon then became the continuous target of rhetorical attacks II; Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. by prophets and writers, not only Jewish but eventually also Englund, R. Christian, and by the time of the fall of Rome - hailed as a 2014–2016 Uruk. A.I. Philologisch. 4.-3. Jahrtausend. Pp. 446–49 new Babylon — it had become a cipher for tyranny, corruption, in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen and moral decay. In late Antiquity St-Augustine embedded the Archäologie Vol. 13, ed. M. Streck, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. cipher in his City of God, endowing it with perennial life. The City of God is Jerusalem, and the City of Man is Babylon, and Frame, G. all human beings must chose to live in one or the other.27 The 1995 Rulers of Babylonia: from the Second Dynasty of Isin name “Babylon” no longer referred to an actual place. It had to the End of Assyrian Domination (1157-612 BC) The become a mere symbol. Ironically, the city once hailed as “the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Babylonian Periods, Volume 2, Toronto: University of Toronto. Gate of the God(s)” became the antithesis of the City of God. It is remarkable that the small and temporally remote Francia, R. provincial settlement called Babbir was promised to such 2020 The Name of Babylon in Hittite Texts. Pp. 175–92 in longevity and metamorphous semantics. But was Babbir really talugaeš witteš. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, the original name of Babylon? Perhaps it was only one of its eds. M. Cammarosano, E. Devecchi, and M. Viano, names, or the name of one part of it that eventually became Münster: Zaphon. accepted as a designation for the entire settlement. Indeed, as Frayne. D.R. we have seen, Tintir and Šuanna could also claim to be very ancient names of Babylon, and there may be others. That the 1993 Sargonic and Gutian Periods (2334–2113 BC). The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods, Volume 2, same city could be known by many designations throughout Toronto: University of Toronto. its history is not uncommon, and in fact one can point to some 2008 Presargonic Period (2700–2350 BC). The Royal parallels in ancient Mesopotamia: Uruk (Sumerian Unug), Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods, Volume 1, 28 Kullab and Eanna (Akkadian Ayyakum); or Umma and Gišša. Toronto: University of Toronto. Examples from around the world abound, including Lutetia and Gelb, I.J. Paris; Tenochtitlan and Mexico; Edo and Tokyo. This was often 1955 The Name of Babylon. Journal of the Institute of Asian the result of official renaming or refoundation, as in the case Studies 1: 1–14; reprinted Pp. 266–69 in I Studied of Byzantium becoming Constantinople and finally Istanbul. In Inscriptions from Before the Flood. Ancient Near Eastern, some cases, and Babylon belongs to that category, the multiple Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11, ed. names survived as alternative designations for the city or as names R.S. Hess and D.T. Tsumura, Sources for Biblical and of districts and institutions. We have such examples in Canada. Theological Study 4, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Toronto was initially called Fort Rouillé but was renamed Fort Gelb, I.J. and Kienast, B. Toronto, and then Fort York after the British takeover of the 1990 Die Altakkadischen Königsinschriften des dritten region. Finally, it became simply York when officially founded Jahrtausends v. Chr. Freiburger Altorientalische Studien 7, as a city, eventually to retrieve its Indigenous name of Toronto Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. in the early 19th century. Yet the designation York still applies to George, A.R. one part of the city and gave its name to a university. The case 1992 Babylonian Topographical Texts. Orientalia Lovaniensia of Montreal may be the closest parallel to Babylon. Indigenous Analecta 40, Leuven: Peeters. th names recorded by the first French explorers in the 16 century 1997 Bond of the Lands: Babylon, the Cosmic Capital. Pp. include Hochelaga and Tutonaguy. The city was founded in 125–45 in Die Orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, 1642 as Ville-Marie, but the name Montréal, probably derived Bruch, ed. G. Wilhelm, CCDOG 1, Saarbrücken: SDV. from Mont-Royal, its most prominent geographic feature, 2014–2016 Tintir (Dintir, Tenter). Pp. 56–57 in Reallexikon der eventually imposed itself. Yet to this day both Ville-Marie and Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, Vol. 14, ed. M. Streck, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. Hochelaga have remained current in the names of districts and various buildings and institutions. And like Tintir, Babbir, and 36 CSMS Journal – Volume 14 Groneberg, B. 1980 Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der altbabylonischen Zeit. Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes III, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Horsnell, M.J.A. 1999 The Year-Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon, 2 vols. Hamilton, ON: McMaster University. Horowitz, W. 2011 Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 2nd ed. Mesopotamian Civilizations 8; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Kienast, B. 1979 The name of the city of Babylon. Sumer 35: 246–48. Koslova, N. 1998 Eine syllabische Schreibung des Namens Babylon in einem Ur-III Text aus Umma. Nouvelles assyriologiques brèves et utilitaires, no. 21. Trenkwalder, H. 1979 Some Remarks on the Place Name Babil. Sumer 35: 237–40. Vanderhooft, D. 2020 Babylon as Cosmopolis in Israelite Texts and Achaemenid Architecture. Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 9: 41–61. Zadok, R. 1984 The Origin of the Name Shinar”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 74: 240–44. 1985 Geographical Names According to New- and LateBabylonian Texts. Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes VIII, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. NOTES 1. Lambert, W.G. 1984 Studies in Marduk. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47: 1–9. 1990 The Names of Umma. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49: 75–80. 2013 Babylonian Creation Myths. Mesopotamian Civilizations 16, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Nashef, Kh. 1982 Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der mittelbabylonischen und mittelassyrischen Zeit. Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes V; Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. 2. Radner, K. 2020 A Short History of Babylon. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 3. Reynolds F.S. 2019 A Babylonian Calendar Treatise. Scholars & Invaders in the Late First Millennium BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4. Scheil, A. 2016 Babylon Under Western Eyes: A Study of Allusion and Myth. Toronto: University of Toronto. Sommerfeld, W. 1982 Der Aufstieg Marduks. Die Stellung Marduks in der babylonischen Religion des zweiten Jahrtausends v.Chr. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 213, Kevelaer and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Verlag Butzon & Bercker and Neukirchener Verlag. Steiner, R. 1996 The Two Sons of Neriah and the Two Editions of Jeremiah in the Light of Two Atbash Code-Words for Babylon. Vetus Testamentum 46: 74–84. Stephens, F.J. 1937 Votive and Historical Texts from Babylonia and Assyria. Yale Oriental Series. Babylonian Texts, Vol. 9. New Haven: Yale University Press. 5. 6. 7. 8. The text was originally published by F. Stephens (1937) as YOS 9: 2. Editions and discussions include Sommerfeld (1982: 19–21); Gelb and Kienast (1990: 34–35); and Frayne (2008: 443–44). Both Gelb and Kienast, and Frayne emend the place name to BAR.KI, disregarding the second BAR as redundant, and consequently do not identity the place name as Babylon. Sommerfeld considers the identification of BAR.KI.BAR as Babylon speculative. However, it is accepted by Lambert (1984: 8–9). The identification is also accepted by Radner in her recent survey of the history of Babylon (2020: 14). For example, the reduplication of the Sumerian verbal stem in the marû imperfective conjugation results in the shortening of the stem. Thus, for a typịcal CVC stem the reduplication would follow the patterns CV-CV or CV-CVC. As pointed out by Lambert (1984: 9), the form /babbar/ may have survived in the Middle Babylonian forms *Babalum and *Pambalu, which might be Kassite names for Babylon (references collected in Nashef 1982: 47). The solar aspect of Marduk is discussed by Lambert (1984: 7–9). The Babylonian Creation Epic Enūma eliš contains clear allusions to it, especially in Tablet I 101–02, where Marduk is hailed as “Mari-Utu, Mari-Utu, the Son, the SunGod, the Sun-God of the gods” (mari’utu mari’utu māri šamši šamši ilī); see the edition by Lambert (2013: 56–57). This is the view advocated by Trenkwalder (1979). However, she does not take the Yale inscription into consideration but claims that the original form of the name was /babil/ on the basis of the occurrence of a similar name in third millennium documents (giš.tir ba.bìl/bil4 “wood/ forest of Babil”). The same view is advocated by Gelb (1955). However, this Babil is unlikely to have anything to do with Babylon. The year name is quoted and discussed in Frayne (1993: 183). However, the author’s contention that this year name can be correlated with inscription E2.1.5.5 of Šar-kališarrī seems purely speculative, as the inscription mentions neither Babylon nor the gods occurring in the year name. The references are collected in Edzard and Farber (1974: 21–22). More attestations have surfaced since that publication. The text is published by Koslova (1998), who points out that the original name of the city, *Bab(b)ilum, may not have been entirely forgotten yet during the Ur III period. Beaulieu: What’s in a Name? Babylon and its Designations throughout History 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. This can be seen in the few syllabic spellings collected in Groneberg (1980: 32). All the information on these year names of Apil-Sîn can be found in Horsnell (1999: 85–87). One may note in this connection the occurrence of a god Nergal of Tintir in an Ur III document (Edzard and Farber 1974: 194 s.v. TIN.TIR). However, it is unlikely that this is a reference to Babylon. There may have been more than one locality called Tintir and the Ur III attestations could refer to a village near Umma (George 2014–2016). This is the view put forward by Kienast (1979), who tentatively links the logogram TIN.TIR to the “Kish tradition of writing”. The complete edition of the series can be found in George (1992: 1–72). The facsimile of the tablet with the transcription in Greek letters is published in George (1992: Plate 6, manuscript c = BM 34798). According to Lambert (2013: 100–01). This question is discussed by George (1997); for the Durmaḫu see also Horowitz (2011: 119–20). 17. Reference in Nashef (1982: 250, s.v. Šuanna). 18. For the edition of this kudurru see Frame (1995: 34, line 3). The title GÌR.NÍTA URU.DÙG must be understood as GÌR. NÍTA eri-du10 (šakkanak Eridu). 19. 20. For instance, see the late Calendar Treatise recently edited by Reynolds (2019: 64–68). According to the edition in ORACC: http://oracc. museum.upenn.edu/ribo/babylon7/corpus/ (inscription Nebuchadnezzar II 002: r VII 34–41). 21. Many examples are collected by Zadok (1985: 39–58). 22. Examples are collected by Zadok (1985: 52, top of page; 55, bottom). 23. This we see in the colophon of the god list CT 24 50 (Beaulieu 2020: 110). 24. Biblical quotations follow the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. 25. Recent discussions of this atbash include Steiner (1996) and Vanderhooft (2020: 54). The inscription is edited in ORACC: http://oracc. museum.upenn.edu/ribo/babylon7/corpus/ (inscription Nebuchadnezzar II 023, III 28–29). 26. 27. 28. A recent survey and analysis of this transformation of Babylon can be found in Scheil (2016). For Umma see Lambert (1990), and for Uruk see Englund (2014–2016). In both cases it seems that the various names referred originally to different agglomerations that later joined in a conurbation. The same may have been true of Babylon. 37 The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies La Société canadienne des études mésopotamiennes T L Following are the Society’s areas of activity: • PUBLIC LECTURES • EXHIBITIONS • RESEARCH • ARCHAEOLOGY* Voici la liste des activités de la Société: • CONFÉRENCES • EXPOSITIONS • RECHERCHE • ARCHÉOLOGIE* * as former Co-sponsor of The Canadian Expedition to Syria * en tant qu’ancien co-commanditaire de la Mission canadienne en Syrie For further information about the Society, write: c/o RIM Project, University of Toronto, 4 Bancroft Avenue, Toronto, Ontario • M5S 1C1 or telephone (416) 978-4531. Pour plus d’informations au sujet de la société, veuillez écrire à: a/s RIM Project, Université de Toronto, 4, Bancroft Avenue, Toronto, Ontario • M5S 1C1 ou téléphoner au: (416) 978-4531. www.chass.utoronto.ca/csms www.chass.utoronto.ca/csms he purpose of the Society is to stimulate interest among the general public in the culture, history and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia, in particular the civilizations of Sumer, Babylon and Assyria, as well as neighbouring ancient civilizations. The Society is a chartered, non-profit organization with no political or ideological affiliations or functions. e but de la Société est de stimuler l’intérêt parmi le grand public pour la culture, l’histoire et l’archéologie de la Mésopotamie. La Société est une organisation sans but lucratif et sans aucune affiliation ni fonction politique ou idéologique. ISSN 1911-8643 Volume 14 • 2019