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JOURNAL TITLE: Journal of cuneiform studies
USER JOURNAL TITLE: Journal of cuneiform studies.
ARTICLE TITLE: The Elevation of Marduk Revisited: Festivals and Sacrifices at Nippur during the High Kassite
Period
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VOLUME: 68
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YEAR: 2016
PAGES: 153-180
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THE ELEVATION OF MARDUK REVISITED:
FESTIVALS AND SACRIFICES AT NIPPUR
DURING THE HIGH KASSITE PERIOD
Jonathan S. Tenney (Cornell University)
Abstract
This article edits two previously unpublished Kassite period texts from Nippur. Their contents raise three points
about cultic practice and ideological transmission in Babylonia under Kassite rule. First, they demonstrate that, by
the thirteenth century, akltu celebrations connected to Marduk and the city of Babylon were being held at Nippur,
and therefore contain the earliest, explicit references to the akitu festival of Marduk from a southern Mesopotamian
city that is not Babylon. This discovery forces reappraisals of some aspects of the development of the elevated Marduk
ideology and the proposed Babylon +Nippur/Marduk+Enlil pairing. Second, one of the texts, CBS 10616, presents
clear evidence of rituals and celebrations that have been hinted at in later scholarly works, such as Astrolabe B, OECT
11: 69+70 and the Nippur Compendium, but whose practice heretofore has never been directly attested. Third, these
texts and associated issues ostensibly alter current views on the adoption of Nippur cultic ideology by institutions in
Babylon and Ashur throughout the second and early first millennium. They are particularly germane to the mecha
nisms, timing, and sources by which Babylonian intellectual and religious thought found its way into the written
record of Assyria.
1. Introduction
In 1964, W. G. Lambert proposed that at some point during Kassite rule, the monarchs of Sumer and Akkad ad
vanced a political ideology elevating the city of Babylon over other urban centers in their kingdom. Marduk, as the
patron god of Babylon, would later rise to the head of the entire regional pantheon, replacing a triumvirate of godly
decision-makers: the aloof and ancient sky god, Anu; the originator of secular power, Enlil; and the inventive, in
telligent defender of mankind, Ea. The occasion for this divine reordering was the resurgence of the monarchy in
Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar I, poignantly marked by the return of the divine image of Marduk that had been
plundered by opportunistic outsiders when the sitting king was weak.1The election of Marduk was a new, impe
rialistic variant of a type of political and religious integration first observed in the Early Dynastic historical texts
This article was inspired by reading CBS 10616, called to my attention by J. A. Brinkman who also suggested that I publish the text. In addition
to his help, I would like to thank Nicole Brisch, Jamie Novotny, John Nielsen, Jeremiah Peterson, Andrew George, Jon Taylor, and the unnamed
reviewers of JCS for their direct and indirect assistance at various points during the drafting of this article. Wilfred Van Soldt kindly allowed
me to see his unpublished manuscript of CUSAS 30. CBS 10616 and 11536 are published courtesy of the Babylonian Section, Penn Museum.
Abbreviations follow CAD when available. MUN = Mittelbabylonische Urkunden aus Nippur, referring to numbers assigned to the tablets from
Nippur by L. Sassmannshausen in Beitrage zur Verwaltung und Gesellschaft Babyloniens in der Kassitenzeit, BaF 21 (Mainz: von Zabern, 2001).
153 ICS 68 (2016)

154 JONATHAN S. TENNEY
of Lagash, wherein the divine avatars of individual cities did political acts—for example, established borders and
conducted wars—and symbolically represented the political entity in documents and iconography. *12 As centuries
passed, the state-sponsored cult of Marduk became a symbol of the welfare of the kingdom and was so ingrained
in the ruling ideology that conquerors absconded with its cubic apparatus and installed it in their own capital. 3
For Lambert, the transition to a supreme Marduk was eased by the Kassite rulers of Babylonia, who set a new
precedent of royal investiture by performing the rites conveying rule in the temple of their own dynastic gods,
Suqamuna and Sumaliya, rather than the temple of Enlil. 4 Once the Kassite dynasty fell and this pair no longer en
dowed secular power, the supporters of the Marduk cult in Babylon—noting the religious vacuum at the top of the
pantheon, and the precarious position of a new Isin dynasty whose roots in Babylon had yet to take hold—seized
their opportunity and pushed their agenda shortly after the Marduk statue was returned from the east. 5
Concurrent with this transition was a promotion of a statewide celebration of the akitu of Babylon, which an
nually recognized the elevation of Marduk and renewed the secular authority through ritual.6 Held during the
first month of the year, this festival lasted eleven days, reaching a climax on the eighth day when the statues of
Marduk and the other major members of the pantheon came forth and paraded among the populace.7 It eventu
ally absorbed and incorporated the ancient New Year festival, the zagmukku (ZAG.MU), marking the “border” of
the year while maintaining its place alongside the older akitus of other gods. Like the zagmukku, akitu festivals to
RGTC5= K. Nashef, Die Orts-und Gewdssernamen der mittelbabylonischen und mittelassyrischen Zeit (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1982). MSKH 1 =
J. A. Brinkman, Materials and Studies for Kassite History, vol. 1 (Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1976).
1. The argument was first proposed in “The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A Turning Point in the History of Ancient Mesopotamian Reli
gion,” in The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Honor o f T. J. Meeks, ed. W. Stewart McCullough (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 3-13;
but all of its constituent parts as summarized here appeared in several works throughout Lambert’s career, reaching its fullest form in a 2013
monograph (Babylonian Creation Myths (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns), 273-74).
2. T. Jacobsen, Towards the Image ofTammuz (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 18-21 and W. G. Lambert, “Nippur in Ancient
Ideology,” in Nippur at the Centennial. Papers Read at the 35e Rencontre assyriologique internationale, Philadelphia, 1988, ed. M. dejong Ellis,
Occasional Papers of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 14 (Philadelphia: Babylonian Section, University Museum, 1992), 119.
3. As demonstrated by the Akitu Chronicle, where the celebration of this festival is dependent upon the ability of cultic statues to safely
travel to Babylon and for Marduk to go out of the city in procession (A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, TCS 5 (Locust Valley,
NY: Augustin, 1975), 131-32.
4. Initial comments appearing in “Nebuchadnezzar I,” 8; revisited in Creation Myths, 267-68. At the heart of his argument is a poem con
cerning a Kurigalzu, since republished by W. Sommerfeld, “Der Kurigalzu-Text MAH 15922,” AfO 32 (1985) 1-22.
One would be hard pressed to find any other evidence that Suqamuna and Sumaliya carried more weight than Enlil in the political sphere.
Enlil was by no means a forsaken god under the Kassites. If this prayer is indeed attributable to Kurigalzu I, he would be the same king who
built a new capital and chose Enlil as its patron deity.
5. Lambert, “Nebuchadnezzar I,” 9. It is unclear if the Marduk agenda was a founding principle of the dynasty. At Nebuchadnezzar’s ac
cession, the dynasty already had been in power for over three decades. If royal naming practice is an indication of the royal perspective on
religion, then it is worth pointing out that from Isin II onwards the names of the gods of Babylon (Marduk, Nabu) dominated the monarchical
onomasticon.
6. The near consensus opinion being that the akitu of Marduk did not have any significance beyond Babylon prior to Isin II, and that it was
much like the akitus attested for Ur, Uruk, Nippur, and other cities (M. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East [Bethesda, MD:
CDL, 1993], 406-17). This changed under Nebuchadnezzar I. From his reign onwards, the festival was recognized throughout the kingdom and
required the attendance of native kings, foreign conquerors, and divine images from other Babylonian cities with their priestly entourages (note
10 this article, S. Pallis, The Babylonian Akitu Festival [Copenhagen: Hovedkommissionaer: A. F. Host, 1926], 140-41; B. Pongratz-Leisten,
“Mesopotamia,” in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions, ed. B. S. Spaeth [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013], 45, and A. Kuhrt, “Usurpation, Conquest, and Ceremonial,” in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed.
David Cannadine and Simon Price [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 31). For these reasons, it could be considered a national
festival even though its celebrations were confined to Babylon, Borsippa, and the route connecting the two cities. George believes there was
no inherent need for the cult statues of Anu and Enlil to travel all the way from Uruk and Nippur because symbols of these gods were already
installed in the Esagil (“E-sangil and E-temen-anki, the Archetypal Cult-Centre,” in Babylon: Focus mesopotamischer Geschichte, Wiegefriiher
Gelehrsamkeit, Mythos in der Moderne, CDOG 2[Saarbriicken: Saarbrucker, Druckerei und Verlag, 1999], 70-72. As Marduk’s son, Nabu in
Borsippa would come to play an ever more important role in these proceedings, mimicking the way that Ninurta, Enlil’s son, rose in signifi
cance during the centuries of Kassite rule at Nippur.
7. This is the standard narrative. For alternate days, see W. G. Lambert, “Processions to the Akitu House,” RA 91 (1997) 53.
FESTIVALS AND SACRIFICES AT NIPPUR 155
several gods or akitus in general are attested in Mesopotamian cities at various times of the year from the third mil
lennium onwards, but none of these ever achieved the status of (pseudo-) national festival.8 The akltu of Marduk
required the king to be present at least in proxy, and he featured as a principal actor in the rituals that are preserved
for us today.
Lambert had also proposed that during the akltu of Babylon a reenactment of the battle between Marduk and
Tiamat was held, ending with the statue of Marduk symbolically sitting upon a dais representing the defeated
sea.9 The story of this conflict and Marduk’s elevation were celebrated in a propagandistic epic poem, Enuma elis,
recited on the fourth day of the akltu festival and probably composed during a wave of textual production during
the late second millennium BCE. This florescence was cultivated by the interests of a revived Babylon, which spun
off an entire corpus of literary, literary-historical, and poetical works (i.e., akin to a Marduk-Babylon cycle) as well
as exhaustive cataloguing and commentary on the cultic topography of Babylon. 10 Likewise, several potentially
fraudulent documents supporting the economic interests of post-Kassite elements are either clearly dated or pos
sibly date to this general time period (e.g., the Agum-kakrime text, Kurigalzu I Donation, the Kadasman-Harbe
I kudurru), and elements of the Marduk theology are sometimes observable in their language. They assert a legal
precedent for property, income, and tax exemptions that were initially established by a distant, obscure, Kassite
king—perhaps taking advantage of a general acknowledgement that any records verifying the claim had been lost
in the turbulent passage of the preceding centuries.
The braiding of these four threads—the connection of the city of Babylon with political rule in the second mil
lennium, the merging of Marduk with the royal figure as sole decision maker, the penetration of the Babylonian
akltu into the cultic calendars of other regions, and the creation of a great literary epic celebrating this union—into
a single narrative was one of Lambert’s most perceptive achievements and is now ubiquitous in the secondary
literature of Assyriology. In fact, it can be difficult to imagine one of these elements existing without the rest. A
reference to Enuma elis must be proof of the wider celebration of the akltu of Babylon, and one wouldn’t expect
an Enuma elis if the central government was not based in the city of Marduk . *11 For Lambert, establishing a date
for the elevation of Marduk would likewise provide a terminus a quo for the composition of the poetical work . 12
Lambert admitted that his hypothesis relied on circumstantial evidence. 13 It sprung from his mastery of the
Mesopotamian literary and religious corpus, and was in large part a response to scholarship proposing that the cult
was elevated in the time of Hammurabi. He considered this position invalidated by the wording in royal inscrip
tions pointing to Marduk’s dominance over humanity alone (rather than the gods) and studies on the popularity
of theophoric elements in Old Babylonian personal names, year-names, and on seals. 14 Since so little of the Kassite
period corpus had been published, Lambert was mostly working in darkness as he established the timeline for
these momentous religious changes. His assumption seems to have been that since the texts that express the pri-
8. A. Falkenstein, “akiti-Fest und akiti-Festhaus,” in Festschrift Johannes Friedrich, ed. Richard von Kienle (Heidelberg: Winter, 1959),
147-82 and W. Sallaberger, “Neujahr(sfest). A. Nach sumerischen Quellen,” in RIA 9 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 291-94.
9. Lambert’s comments were specific to the akltu in Babylon under the “Late Babylonian kings,” but he must have thought the practice
was older than the seventh century based on his use of earlier evidence ("The Great Battle of the Mesopotamian Religious Year: The Conflict in
the Akltu House,” Iraq 25 [1963] 189). It is now clear that at least in the time of Nebuchadnezzar II, perhaps as early as Nebuchadnezzar I, the
gods assembled in the Ubsu’ukkina (a plaza/courtyard), within which was set the throne of destinies, also known as the Duku(g), the seat of
Marduk during the decreeing of the fates. The Duku(g) was originally a location in Nippur where Enlil performed the same act, later removed
to Babylon after Marduk’s promotion. See the first-millennium ritual of the Esagil in Lambert, “Processions,” 60-61; A. R. George, “Studies in
Cultic Topography and Ideology,” BiOr 53 (1996) 374, and “E-sangil and E-temen-anki,” 73,77, and 83.
10. A. K. Grayson, Babylonian Historical-Literary Texts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 44-45 and A. R. George, Babylonian
Topographical Texts, OLA 40 (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 6.
11. J. A. Black, “The New Year Ceremonies in Ancient Babylon: ‘Taking Bel by the Hand’ and a Cultic Picnic,” Religion 11 (1981) 50.
12. Lambert, Creation Myths, 443.
13. Lambert, “Nebuchadnezzar I,” 10.
14. Lambert originally cited H. Schmokel, “Hammurabi und Marduk,” RA 53 (1959) 202-3, and reiterated his position as late as 2013
(Creation Myths, 260-63,270-71).
macy of Marduk, including Enuma elis, reached their final form around 1100-1000 BCE and because these same
themes cannot be identified in Old Babylonian sources, then this literature and the Marduk-Babylon ideology
must have coalesced in the late Kassite or post-Kassite periods.15 Lambert also believed that the very late second
millennium was a period of consolidation and standardization of Akkadian literary and scholarly works in gen
eral, and the time of founding for some of the most famous Babylonian scribal families of the first millennium who
would compose and preserve these same important texts.16
Since the elevation narrative was proposed, elements of it have been refined and disputed. The post-Nebuchad
nezzar I Marduk doctrine has been identified in further sources, especially the cultic topography and installations
of Babylon and Nippur. These new data have revealed some of the steps taken by political and religious establish
ments to affect Marduks promotion. It is now clear that statues of Marduk were emplaced in the temples of Enlil
and Ninurta in Babylon as physical representations of Marduk’s rise and Enlil’s demotion. Similarly in Nippur,
Marduk sat upon the throne of Enlil in the Ekur and took up several of Enlil’s lofty titles, such as Bel-matati (“Lord
of the Lands”).17 Qagirgan and Lambert later published a text proving that in the first millennium Enuma elis was
recited on the fourth day of Kislimu as part of a ritual in the Esagil and therefore was not exclusive to the akitu at
the advent of each new year.18 Stephanie Dailey articulated a substantial rebuttal by arguing that there were mul
tiple cult statues of Marduk, and the removal of one of them by the Elamites was not a catastrophic blow to the
Mesopotamian psyche. Its return under Nebuchadnezzar I was not a momentous occasion, nor was it a catalyst
for religious change. Furthermore, she revived the earlier position concerning the date of composition of Enuma
elis and the promotion of Marduk, placing them precisely in the reign of Hammurabi. This explained why some
of the themes of Enuma elis—Marduk as a storm god, the heroic defeat of the sea—are consistent with Amorite or
western traditions. The sage of Nebuchadnezzar I merely revised an existing myth to fit the developing interests of
parties in Babylon.19 In 2014, Lambert indirectly countered part of Daileys’ critique by pointing out that tales of
the defeat of the deluge and mastery of the sea were already present in the late third millennium literary corpus of
Sumer concerning Ningirsu/Ninurta, and that this feat by the son of Enlil was eventually transferred to Marduk as
part of the general assimilation of the Nippur-Enlil mythology by Babylon-Marduk.20
At present, there is precious little longitudinal data on how the Marduk festival developed and the different
ways it was celebrated throughout time. Nearly all of its events and schedule have been reconstructed from a pair
of Seleucid or Arsacid duplicates or from Middle or Neo-Assyrian texts drawn up after periods of conquest, when
the Assyrian victors had reason to record and use the Babylonian ritual to dominate the south. Most germane has
15. Following Lambert, Black placed the composition of Enuma elis in the twelfth century with the earliest extant copies from no earlier
than 1000 BCE (note 11). Jacobsen allowed for an earlier origin of Enuma elis because he felt it was a literary expression of a military conflict
between a dynasty of Babylon (Marduk) and a dynasty of the Sealand (Tiamat). He provided two chronological data points for its date of com
position, but it is not clear if he thought this was a product of the late Old Babylonian or early Kassite period. He stated that this war happened
in the early half of the second millennium, which could only be a reference to Babylon I vs. Sealand I because the Kassite takeover most
likely happened very close if not right after the millennium’s midpoint. But the dynasty of Hammurabi lost this war, a fact that clashes with the
triumph of Babylon and Marduk in the myth. One must then assume that he was referring to the conflict between Sealand I and the Kassites,
which agrees with his second chronological marker, the military activity of Ulam-Burias (“Religious Drama in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Unity
and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East, ed. Hans Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1975), 76. For additional arguments, see Lambert, Creation Myths, 439-44. Note his comment that the evidence for
a Kassite period date is “vague.”
16. W G. Lambert, Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity,” JCS 11 (1957) 1-14, 112. Other useful observations can be found in his intro
duction, esp. xiii-xviii, to the second volume of Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum o f Art: Literary and Scholastic Texts o f the First
Millennium B.C. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005).
17. A. R. George, “Marduk and the Cult of the Gods of Nippur at Babylon,” Or 66 (1997) 67-68.
18. The text is also a Seleucid copy of an earlier text; see G. qagirgan and W. G. Lambert, “The Late Babylonian Kislimu Ritual for Esagil,”
JCS 43-45 (1991-93) 96, esp. lines 62-65.
19. S. Dailey, “Statues of Marduk and the Date of Enuma elis,” AoF 24 (1997) 163-71.
20. Lambert, Creation Myths, 236-37.
been the geographic context of a ritual found in Assur, VAT 16345. It has been assumed to be the record of an akitu
to Marduk adopted in Assur after one such invasion; but the rites recorded seem more at home in Babylon and
the Esagil, probably written down by an Assyrian observer. The main questions on the development of the Marduk
akitu include its origins and rituals prior to the first millennium, the relationship of VAT 16435 to the akitu prac
ticed in Babylon around 1225 BCE when Tukulti-Ninurta invaded from the north, the time frame during which
the ritual recorded on the Seleucid or Arsacid period copies was actually practiced, and the number of akitus held
in the Esagil each year.21Assyriologists have been interested in these questions for some time, but have been unable
to make headway until now because an akitu specific to Marduk or Babylon that had greater regional significance
had not been clearly attested in native documents written prior to the first millennium.22
2. New Evidence from the Kassite Period
Presented here are two administrative documents from Nippur, CBS 10616 and 11536, which were composed dur
ing the roughly thirteen decades of administrative record keeping attested at the site (1360-1224).23 The date for
mula of CBS 11536 omits the royal name, but its regnal year (12) points to the reigns of Burna-Burias II, Kurigalzu
II, Nazi-Maruttas, Kadasman-Turgu, or Sagarakti-Surias—the only kings with twelve or more regnal years attested
at Nippur. Prosopography combined with evidence for the temple of Marduk and other scanty material lead me to
propose that Nazi-Maruttas was the most likely of the Kassite kings to be sitting on the throne when CBS 11536
was written, so one can very cautiously propose 1295 BCE as its year of composition.24 The most important text
21. th e late duplicates are DT 15+109+114 and MNB 1848. For the implications and geographic location of the ritual VAT 16435, see
F. Kocher, “Ein mittelassyrisches Ritualfragment zum Neujarhsfest,” ZA 50 (1954) 192-202; G. van Driel, The Cult o f Assur (Assen: Van Gor-
cum, 1969), 52-54; Cohen, Cultic Calendars (1993), 418-20; A. R. George, “Four Temple Rituals from Babylon,” in Wisdom, Gods, and Lit
erature: Studies in Assyriology in Honour ofW. G. Lambert, ed. A. R. George and I. L. Finkel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 262-63 n.
17, and B. Pongratz-Leisten, Ina Sulmi irub: Die Kulttopographische und ideologische Programmatik der akitu-Prozession in Babylonien und As-
syrien im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr (Mainz: von Zabern, 1994), 40-41. Other important literature includes Lambert, Creation Myths, 248-63, who
discussed Marduk’s origins, including his early connections to exorcism and the city of Eridu; Black, “New Year Ceremonies,” 42, who noted
that the ritual preserved on the late tablet was of “considerably older date and cannot have taken place for 200 years”; S. W. Cole, “The Crimes
and Sacrileges of Nabu-suma-iskun,” ZA 84 (1994) 227, who pointed out that the travel of Nabu to Babylon is reminiscent of the akitu in the
eighth century and the destruction of temples that appear in the later akitu text; and C. Ambos, Der Konig im Gefdngnis und das Neujahrsfest
im Herbst (Dresden: Islet, 2013), 128-34, who presented the evidence for two akitus in Babylonia. For reconstructions of the akitu proces
sion, see Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi irub, Lambert, “Processions,” 49-80, and George, “Cultic Topography’ 363-95. An exhaustive analysis of
current thought on New Year celebrations from the later periods of Babylonian history was presented in A. Zgoll, “Konigslauf und Gotterrat:
Struktur und Deutung des babylonischen Neujahrsfestes,” in Festtraditionen in Israel und im Alten Orient, ed. E. Blum and R. Lux (Giitersloh:
Giitersloher Verlagshaus, 2006), 11-80.
22. The pre-Kassite evidence for the festival is slim and doesn’t point to widespread celebration outside of Babylon. Samsuiluna dedicated a
new statue to Adad of Babylon to be used for an akitu in an unspecified location. Generations later during the reign of Ammisaduqa, an akitu
house, deity unspecified, is attested at Babylon (Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 406-53). The akitu of Marduk and Nabu is also mentioned in an Old
Babylonian Letter (see note 60).
23. Here I speak in only the most general of terms concerning the bulk of the attested tablets, fully acknowledging that chronological outli
ers from various genres exist in the tablet record, e.g., a few texts from the reigns of early kings (Kadasman-Harbe I, Kurigalzu I, Kadasman-
Enlil I), a small number of documents from circa 1186 and 1167 BCE, etc.
24. The evidence for the temple (note 27) sets a range of earliest attestation between 1339 and 1287 BCE, about 38% of this span was dur
ing the reign of Nazi-Maruttas. Three personal names are written on CBS 11536. Ilu/l-iddina is far too common to be of analytical use, but
the suggested and attested dates for this name at Nippur cover the reigns of Kadasman-Enlil I, Burna-Burias II, Kurigalzu II, Nazi-Maruttas,
and Sagarakti-Surias. Ill-ismanni is attested at Nippur during Kadasman-Harbe II 0 and regnal years 10 and 18 (Holscher suggested Nazi-
Maruttas for the texts with years 10 and 18). Mudammiq-Adad is attested at Nippur during Nazi-Maruttas 4, 8, 20 (mentioned, not official
date), Kadasman-Turgu 8 (mentioned), and regnal years 7, 8,18 (Holscher = Nazi-Maruttas), and 25 (twice, must be Buma-Buriai, II or Nazi-
Maruttas). The weight of this unsatisfying documentation leans towards Nazi-Maruttas as the most likely of the aforementioned five reigns, but
it also does not rule any of them out. Both CBS 10616 and 11536 could even date to as late as Sagarakti-Surias. For the evidence, see applicable
entries in Holscher, Personennamen (1996) and CBS 11442: 5, Ni. 1185: 3,1854: 30', 2256:1, and 6750: 5.
for our discussion, CBS 10616, has no preserved date, although an event mentioned on obv. 16' matches an entry
on a tablet from a nearby region dating to the first year of Sagarakti-Surias (1245 BCE).25 CBS 10616 was written
by a fine hand. The signs are shallow and include tiny internal wedges normally omitted in Kassite administrative
script. The writing is slanted, but not to a degree that would warrant a later Kassite period date.
The new evidence consists of simple entries in administrative texts demonstrating that by the thirteenth cen
tury Nippur was holding akitu celebrations connected to Marduk and the city of Babylon. The king was involved
in celebrations recorded on both texts. In CBS 10616, the akitu fell on the eighth day of Nisaunu—the critical time
in the first-millennium ritual—while the zagmukku was still recognized as a separate cubic event. A “battle” or
battlefield observance was held in the middle of the second month. Rams released from the countryside in the
seventh month for an akitu associated with Babylon and the king is the pertinent information in CBS 11536. An
abbreviated entry in CBS 10616 might be a reference to this same akitu in Tasritu; and the evidence for the Nisannu
and Tasritu celebrations at Nippur is reminiscent of a letter from the chief exorcist to the Assyrian king describing
aspects of the seventh century ritual at Babylon.26
Since a temple and field for Marduk,27 an akitu garden and an akitu gate are attested at Nippur,28 it is likely that
these akitus were indeed celebrated in Nippur, and the allotted goods were consumed locally rather than shipped
for celebrations at Babylon. A general awareness of the akitu among the residents of the city is likewise corroborat
ed by several personal names referencing the festival, for example, Ris-akitu, Akitu-risat, Akitu, and RIs-bel-akIti.29
These observations come as no surprise. Lambert understood that the efforts that brought about the elevation
of Marduk should be examined at the nexus of the transfer of power from Nippur to Babylon.30 He noted that a
25. See discussion for obv. 16'.

26. See commentary for lines rev. 7-8.
27. The temple of Marduk at Nippur might be attested as early as the mid-fourteenth century. References include disbursals of oil and
sesame in a year 17 (BE 14: 148, 13) and oil in a year 21(CBS 11533: 5), king unspecified. Since the BE 14 text must date to Burna-Burias II,
Kurigalzu II, Nazi-Maruttas, or Kadasman-Turgu and the unpublished CBS text to the same kings minus Kadasman-Turgu, the range of first
attestation falls somewhere between 1339 and 1287 BCE. Critical to the location of the Marduk temple is a map from Nippur (fig. 1), which
provides a schematic of the location of the temple and its field relative to other agricultural areas (J. J. Finkelstein, “Mesopotamia,” JNES 21
[1962] 80-81). It is difficult to say how close the area covered by the map was to the city of Nippur, since the only region that appears with
any regularity in Nippur provincial records is Hamri/u. The location of Hamri/u is not precisely known, nor is it certain that it was a singular
location. The toponym spelled rURU/£(?)1 KAR-dPA.KU on the same map could be the well-known toponym of Kar-Nuska —drawn on CBS
10434, another map—or a reference to the estate belonging to Etir-Nuska appearing in connection with a field on CBS 13885. One cannot put
much confidence in the scribes deliberate use of the masculine personal name and geographic name determinatives on this map, and therefore
the reading is ambiguous. While I was writing this article, CBS 13885 was not available for collation because it was on loan to a Canadian
museum. It should also be pointed out again that Finkelstein published the map with the wrong number, CBS 13865 rather than 13885, and
persons are still referencing the text erroneously, e.g., Paulus, AOAT 51, 202-3. The museum number is correct in CDLI (P230841).
28. These akitu need not be connected to Marduk. References to a garden of the akitu (GlS.KIRI6 d-ki-ti) are: 1) CBS 2128:5, a tax register
suggesting that the garden of the akitu was a place of barley production and that it was subject to taxation; 2) Ni. 2942:1, a text listing gardens,
probably involving the receipt or expenditure of some product; 3) Ni. 12449 rev. 5', a small fragment mentioning a GIS/KIRI^ d-ki-ti in dam
aged context, the presence of Hanigalbatians and Arraphians on the text is suggestive of servile workers. The great gate connected to an akitu
appears in PBS 2/2 106: 27 (KA.GAL a-ki-te) as a site for collections or allocations to singers. MUN 57:1 might mention the same gate ([KA.
GA]L d-ki-ti). Sassmannshausen’s copy is accurate: the traces could indicate GAL and KA is completely missing. The genitive ending, akiti,
requires a preceding noun, so this reconstruction is acceptable. Ni. 667:1, a text concerning wood distributed for door work (hinges, pivots,
etc.), may have a reference to the akitu in its heading, but the text may not date to this period and the building is spelled “a-ki-ti,” i.e., al. There
are references to akitus, location and/or divinity unexpressed, throughout the corpus, e.g., CBS 3748: 23’ is an administrative text that m en
tions a disbursal for the sacrifice of the akitu (1.16') and Parak-mari (1. 9'), a common cultic place in Nippur texts appearing also in CBS 10616.
29. Some examples can be found in the entries for Ris-akitu and Akitu-risat in Holscher, Personennamen, and M UN 148:23' and CBS 3640
ii’ 11'. Note that in nearly all of these instances, these personal names may belong to servile laborers.
30. More specifically the nexus of Nippur, the akitu of Marduk, and Enuma elis. Lambert felt that in earlier periods the gods met in Nippur
to decree the destinies, but in the first millennium this was decided during the akitu in Babylon: “The transfer of this assembly from Nippur to
Babylon was an essential point of Marduk’s ‘elevation’ ... the same festival witnessed a battle between Marduk and Tiamat in the akitu house”
(Lambert, Creation Myths, 458). Also telling are passages in Enmesarra’s Defeat and Enuma elis denigrating the Enlil regime (ibid., 283, 287).
At one time, the seventh-century letter ABL 42 was considered evidence of an akitu celebrating a marriage of Assur and Ninlil (Enid's wife)
and therefore a survival of the transition from Enlil to Marduk as Assur assumed Marduk’s place post-conquest. Parpola has since changed both
Fig. 1. CBS 13885: Kassite period drawing from N ippur illustrating the locations o f the
temple and field of M arduk (A, B), U R U /E l?)1 KAR-dPA.KU (C), the Town and Canal
of H am ri/u (D, E), and the “Field of the Palace”(F). See note 28.
struggle between pro-Enlil and pro-Marduk supporters can be identified in the kudurru corpus, especially in sec
tions invoking divine support and retribution. Recently, one such passage on a kudurru has been used as proof that
Marduk’s elevation occurred near the advent of Kassite rule over Babylonia (ca. 1400), but this argument relies on
a date for the artifact that is untenable.31
the name of the female divinity—rendering dNIN.LIL as a logogram for Mullissu (one could still argue this as a survival of Marduk’s triumph
over Enlil)—and the location of the ceremony to the Esara (AOAT 5/1: 311/SAA 10:98). See also S. Maul, “Die altorientalische Hauptstadt: Ab-
bild und Nabel der Welt,” in Die orientalische Stadt, ed. G. Wilhelm, CDOG 1 (Saarbriicken: Saarbriicker Druckerei und Verlag, 1997), 121-22;
A. R. George’s review of O. R. Gurney’s OECT 11, in ZA 80 (1990) 157; and W. Meinhold, Istar in Assur: Untersuchung eines Lokalkultes von ca.
2500 bis 614 v. Chr., AOAT 367 (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2009), 191-93.
31. Both the argument for the early date and text publication can be found in Susanne Paulus, Die babylonischen Kudurru-Inschriften
von der kassitischen bis zur friihneubabylonischen Zeit, AOAT 51 (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014), KH I 1 and p. 284, esp. n. 134. The object in
question, YBC 2242, purports to be a record of a grant of land by Kadasman-Harbe I to a diviner. Historicity of the royal donation aside, YBC
2242 is likely a product of the eleventh century and post-Nebuchadnezzar I, when an object promoting the first millennium dogma of Marduk
would not be out of place (J. A. Brinkman, “Dating YBC 2242, the Kadasman-Harbe 1 Stone,” N.A.B. U. (2015) 19-20). As Brinkman comments
and stated earlier, this kudurru may belong to the category of post-Kassite documents with questionable veracity, which are still being used
Why the king and the populace would celebrate an akitu of Marduk in Nippur cannot be answered with these
texts alone. From other sources it is known that Kassite kings, Nazi-Maruttas and Kudur-Enlil in particular, vis
ited Nippur around the beginning of the year.32 This is puzzling in comparison to the only other account of a royal
religious procession set in the Kassite period. According to a historical-literary text the late Kassite king, Adad-
suma-usur, made a circuit from Babylon to Borsippa to Cutha as penance for neglecting Marduk.33 The choice of
sites and deities (Marduk, Nabu, and Nergal) visited as atonement for his failings as king reflect what has been
traditionally identified as the first millennium, post-Nebuchadnezzar I royal ideology. One could resolve the in
congruity by questioning the historicity of this event. The text on which this conclusion is based is a late copy and
most likely was composed after Nebuchadnezzar I as part of the general efforts of later scribes to use the deeds
of Kassite kings to advance the Marduk agenda. The rebellion that spurred Adad-suma-usur s pilgrimage is also
not mentioned in any of the extant chronicles. Absent outside evidence, one can posit a number of possible ex
planations to bring the new evidence from Nippur into alignment with the standard Marduk narrative, even if the
transition to a supreme Marduk now seems to be more complex and gradual than Lambert originally proposed.
Perhaps akitu celebrations to Marduk at Nippur were an early attempt to rectify and appease older, entrenched tra
ditions (i.e., Enlil and Nippur’s role in electing rulers) with a new political reality (the king of the region was now
in Babylon and Marduk was its god), or there were parallel Marduk akitus held during the same time in various
places each celebrated with a local twist, or lastly, perhaps the monarch traveled the kingdom celebrating a singular
akitu of Marduk at different times.
However, it has been argued that the post-Nebuchadnezzar I dogma of Enuma elis, characterized by its severe
attacks on Enlil, was a reaction to an established syncretism of Marduk+Enlil and by extension Babylon+Nippur.
Like most of the record of the later second millennium, all clear testimony of this earlier thought has been lost and
has been gleaned from late copies of much older texts.
One piece of evidence can be found in a few lines of the bilingual Hymn to Nippur and Babylon linking Enlil to
both Nippur and Babylon and unifying the political decisions of both places:
Nippur is the city of Enlil; Babylon is his favorite.

Nippur and Babylon, their meaning (umus/temu) is the same. 34
These lines justified the proclamations given in the text absolving Babylonians from taxes and providing them
special legal protections. The only substantial exemplar of this text is a first-millennium copy found in Assur, but
whose original composition has been placed in Babylonia at the end of the second millennium. Marduk+Enlil
can also be glimpsed in 7mh'r=Babylon, which certainly fits into the same creative context as Enuma elis but lacks
a caustic relationship with Enlil. Tintir has come down to us only in late copies as well, but its modern editor is
certain of its Second Isin origins and allows for Kassite period precursors.35 In both the hymn and Tintir, Marduk
without reservation as sources for early Kassite period history. A date of ca. 1400 BCE for the elevation of Marduk is not impossible, but YBC
2242 should not be used to prove this assertion. Other curiosities in the text of YBC 2242 include its opening, which is suspiciously insistent in
placing the grant in a distant, perhaps legally unverifiable and barely documented past, and the presence oiamassu la uttakkar (“his (Marduks)
words cannot be changed”) among its invocations, a phrase which is reminiscent of the great declaration of Marduk in Enuma elis (la uttak
kar mimmu abannii andku) that first spurred Lambert to assert his major thesis. While noteworthy, this last point is surely no proof of date.
Amatu+ld nukkuru was already known in the Kassite period, having appeared in royal contexts and with Enlil at least as early as the code of
Hammurabi, and is present in kudurrus.
32. I am here referring to the ele sarri and arad sarri year dates; for choice of transcription and translation, see R. D. Biggs, “A Letter from
Kassite Nippur,” JCS 19 (1965) 96 and MSKH 1 (1976), 411-14.
33. A. K. Grayson, Babylonian Historical-Literary Texts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 56-77.
34. KAR 1: 8 ii 6-9. Lambert believed that the small fragment BM 72030 belonged to a late version of the same text. See the improved edi
tion and comments in Lambert, Nippur in Ancient Ideology,” 123-26, and George, “Topographical Texts,” 350.
35. Ibid. 4,7.
and Babylon are ascending, but the respect granted Enlil illustrates their inclusion of both the pre- and post-
Nebuchadnezzar I ideologies.
Marduk+Enlil was expressed in monumental construction. At least by the Second Isin Dynasty, the double
fortification walls of Nippur and Babylon were in place and bore parallel names invoking the gods of the other city:
Fortification Walls of Nippur = Imgur-Marduk and Nimit-Marduk

Fortification Walls of Babylon = Imgur-Enlil and Nimit-Enlil
In the words of Andrew George, the two cities were cosmological twins that mirrored each other and acted as one
in political and religious spheres.36 The new evidence presented in this article could be used to bolster this claim.
A temple of Marduk was founded in Nippur during the Kassite period as Marduk’s counterpart to the Enamtila in
Babylon, which long had been a site of worship for Enlil and his family.37The rites of Marduk and Enlil could then
be performed in their rightful sacred spaces in both cities. There is also a potential pairing of akitu celebrations
during Nisannu and Tasritu, which points to a strong interest in maintaining the proper place on the calendar
for celebrations at both sites. This calendrical matching of festivals might have been dropped once the elevated
Marduk became the “national” doctrine. Moreover, the homage paid to the gods of Babylon during Adad-suma-
usur’s pilgrimage would not directly contradict other parts of Kassite royal doctrine and political practice, even if
the composition of the text recounting his travels and the language by which it is expressed fits in a post-Kassite
context. In this light, one could further argue that Lamberts evidence for an Enlil-Marduk conflict in second mil
lennium kudurrus points towards syncretism rather than a struggle for dominance.
Nevertheless, the Nippur texts presented here are critical data points in the development of the Marduk cult
and could be viewed as support for the core of Lamberts hypothesis, if not the exact timeline. The process leading
to a supreme Marduk may have begun a few centuries before Nebuchadnezzar I, closer to the time when Lambert
believed Babylon was assuming its leadership role among the cities. The mechanism for this change could have
been an earlier or more deliberate spread of the akitu of Marduk attributed to the syncretic efforts of Kassite kings
or even a movement among some portion of the populace. It has been proposed that southern Babylonia in the
seventeenth to fifteenth centuries was de-urbanized, with most of its religious cults and institutions lost, scattered,
or underfunded.38 The cultic administration of Enlil may have fled Nippur for Dur-Abi-Esuh, and after a ten-year
period (1638-1628 BCE) moved north to Babylon after the fortress fell.39 If this is indeed the correct narrative,
then the religious situation in the region was malleable, and interested parties would have had the opportunity
to introduce religious change. In that respect, this Marduk akitu appears to be a Kassite period introduction at
Nippur, long represented as a place of religious syncretism and the “original model of the national cult-centre.”40
It should also be pointed out that one aspect of Lamberts criticism of the Old Babylonian rise of the Marduk
cult—the infrequency of Marduk as a theophoric element in personal names—is certainly not the case during the
time in which these two Middle Babylonian texts were written. Marduk is especially and unexpectedly common in
the onomasticon of Nippur, the supposed center of Marduk resistance. The personal name Marduk-sar-ill (“Mar
duk is King of the Gods”), whose appearance was likewise crucial to Lambert’s argument, is not nearly as fleeting
36. Ibid., 349-50 and George, “Marduk and the Cult of the Gods of Nippur,” 68.
37. Ibid., 67.
38. M. Gibson, “Patterns of Occupation at Nippur,” in Nippur at the Centennial, 42-54; J. A. Armstrong and H. Gasche, Mesopotamian Pot
tery: A Guide to the Babylonian Tradition in the Second Millennium B.C. MHET 2/4 (Chicago: University of Ghent and Oriental Institute of the
University of Chicago, 2014), 2; R. Pientka, Die Spataltbabylonische Zeit, IMGULA, vol. 2 (Munster: Rhema, 1998), 190-96, and D. Charpin,
Mesopotamien: Die altbabylonische Zeit, ed. D. Charpin, D. O. Edzard, and M. Stol, OBO 160/4 (Fribourg: Academic Press; Gottingen: Van-
denhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 361.
39. A. R. George, Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schayen Collection, CUSAS 10 (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2009), 137-38.
40. A. R. George, “Cultic Topography,” 364. Cohen believes that the people of Nippur prior to our texts seem to have followed the akitu
tradition of Ur, celebrating akitus in months IV and XII (Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 401-3).
an occurrence as he believed in 1964 and now can be dated to as early as the reign of Kudur-Enlil.41 Other gods
have similar titles in Kassite period personal names, for example, Adad-sar-ili, Samas-sar-ill, which further erodes
support for this part of his argument because it subtracts most of its gravity. Lambert eventually came to note this
fact, but downplayed its significance.
Several of the questions raised are elaborated in the commentary below, which delves further into the general
cultic calendar of Nippur during the height of Kassite rule. The principal text of discussion is the remarkable offer
ing list CBS 10616, which records allocations of milk, ghee, and significant quantities of an unidentified commodi
ty measured by unit count (perhaps filled jars) for festivals, sacrifices, and other religious observances. Some of the
events celebrated had very old roots at Nippur, like the zagmukku, sacred mound, and brazier festivals, while other
celebrations are reflective of movements in religious practice that until now were hinted at in Astrolabe B and pri
marily represented in late first-millennium scholarly works, like OECT 11: 69+70 and the Nippur Compendium.42
3. The Offering List CBS 106 1643
CBS 10616 is a single-column tabular register with five subcolumns.44 The tablet is missing any introduction, con
clusion, and subcolumn headings that it may once have had. Roughly 55 to 60 percent of the tablet is preserved
and the reverse is heavily worn.45 A passage summarizing a single section on the obverse suggests that the broad
function of the entire register was to anticipate future cultic expenditures or to tabulate expected or usual deliver
ies to be used as cultic expenditures. The recording institution is likewise unclear, but explicit and implicit connec
tions to the cult of Ninurta are conspicuous in much of the ritual activity recorded,46 followed by that of Istar and
Marduk. A celebration specific to Enlil is mentioned only once, the Duku(g), which seems to have been taken over
41. For Marduk as a theophoric element in Kassite period personal names, see W. Sommerfeld, Der Aufstieg Marduks (Neukirchen-
Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982), 203-14 and applicable entries in M. Holscher, Die Personennamen der Kassitenzeitlichen Texte aus Nippur,
IMGULA 1 (Munster: Rhema, 1996), L. Sassmannshausen, BaF 21 (2001), and W. Van Soldt, Middle Babylonian Texts in the Rosen Collection
at Cornell University, CUSAS 30 (Bethesda, MD: CDL, in press).
42. These later texts are cited frequently in the following analysis; for the sake of brevity full references are given here and only abbreviated
entries will appear in the remainder of the article. Second-millennium Astrolabe B has two main exemplars, VAT 17081 and KAV218, and line
citations follow the KAV text unless otherwise noted. VAT 17081 was found in Babylon and thought to date to the twelfth century (W. Horow
itz, “VAT 17081: A Forerunner to the Menology of Astrolabe B”, in Studies Presented in Honour ofVeysel Donbaz, ed. $. Donmez (Istanbul: Ege,
2010), 183-88). Bilingual KAV218 is about a century younger and its provenance was Assur. All line citations of KAV218 utilize the translitera
tion by E. Reiner and D. Pingree (Babylonian Planetary Omens 2: EnumaAnu Enlil, Tablets 50-51, BiMes 2/2 [Malibu: Undena, 1981], 81-82).
With the very late Babylonian text perhaps from Kish, OECT 11: 69+70, the pertinent references include both the original publication (O.
R. Gurney, Literary and Miscellaneous Texts in the Ashmolean Museum, OECT 11 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1989] and its review by A. R. George,
ZA 80 [1990] 155-60). Line references for the Nippur Compendium, extant in numerous Neo- and Late-Babylonian exemplars from several
places in Mesopotamia, can be found in the complete text edition by A. R. George, Topographical Texts, 143-62. Note that the original date of
composition for both of these texts is likely much earlier, perhaps within a few centuries of the Astrolabe B texts.
43. L. Sassmannshausen mentioned CBS 10616 in BaF 21 (2001), 159 (similar statement on page 161): “In einer unpublizierten Opferliste
werden Lieferungen von kabre (ein Nahrungsmittel) an das Ekur, das Eki’ur, das Esumesa und den Tempel des Nuska erwahnt.”
44. For the typology for Middle Babylonian tabular registers used in this article, see J. Tenney, Life at the Bottom of Babylonian Society:
Servile Laborers at Nippur in the 14th and 13th Centuries B.C., CHANE 51 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 9-12.
45. I have examined every drawer in the Babylonian section looking for fragments that may belong to the upper part of the text without
success. Perhaps joins could be found in Istanbul. As an exercise, we could try and estimate the number of entries that may have preceded obv.
1'. If one examines the first section dealing with annual disbursals, subcolumn a has no entries other than PAP, d is almost complete as is (only
two more identical entries would be required in lines corresponding to 1' and O’), c could have its only non-total entry in l ’(uncertain), and
only b would require more lines than what may have been recorded in a line O’—there a “3” would be enough to justify the total in line 5', but
this would still be short 1656 liters to agree with the total in 10’. If a mere one or two entries are lost, then the first section was preceded by
another section of entries and/or had a lengthy introduction (or significant empty space).
46. These include lsinnu rabu (Gusisul), Parak-mari, the Esumesa, and probably a tusaru, an akitu, and a festival in Arahsamnu.
by Marduk in first-millennium Babylon. The significance of these observations has yet to be determined. The text
is incomplete and all three temples of the chief gods of Nippur (Enlil, Ninlil, and Ninurta) are mentioned.
The tablet originally had at least two major sections. Section one lists regular or ordinary disbursals (obv.
1'—10') and ends with a double horizontal line and a total for the ginu kunnu sa satti, “established, customary of
ferings (or dues) for the year.” The second part and bulk of the text calculates extraordinary disbursals for singular
events: temples, festivals, days of the month, meals of the king (kurummat sarri), or other religious occasions. The
text does not mention extraordinary entries during months III, XI, and XII; and any expenditures that might have
been recorded for months IV and X are unknown because the top part of the text is broken away.
Because the introduction and subcolumn headings are lost, the specific commodities being measured in the
first four subcolumns (a-d) cannot always be identified; but the text uses both capacity and unit mensuration, an
indication that more than one product was being tabulated (at least 2-3 depending on section).47 In the ordinary
disbursal section, capacity measurements appear in all four subcolumns. In the extraordinary disbursal section,
all of the capacity measurements are in subcolumn a with the exception of two entries in c. Select cells in the dis
bursal columns and the row entries for obv. 5'-8' mention milk, ghee, or tallu-jars whose volume seems to have
been one liter {sutu) or designate the allocation as offerings or sacrifices (merdltu, kapru). Could all measurements
have been in ghee and milk placed in jars or a mixture of these and other products?48 In considering the second
possibility, one notes that in Middle Babylonian administrative texts, barley, oil, or beer are the most common
commodities measured by capacity; animals, textiles, or people the most common by unit. In entries where it is
not always clear how the allocations were to be used—for example, for sacrifice, feast, both—or which cults were
going to consume them, some of the ambiguity can be alleviated from what is known about the cultic calendar of
Nippur before and after the Kassite period (see section III.C.). So far, this text is unique among Middle Babylonian
cultic texts; no other offering lists from Kassite Nippur are of this type or have disbursals of this size.
Transliteration49
(91+ x 88 x 30 mm)
obv.
V [] r6n r(x)ff ]
2' 3 r3(+,1[ ]
3’ 3 3 r£-k u rn [ ]
4' 3 3 E-drX1[]50
5' PAP 18 15 sa 1 ITI []
6' 1B8S GA IB 5S I.NUN sa 1 DUG.DAL 1 SILA rTAn .[AM! ]5!
47. When necessary, the scribe wrote the Pi-sign to prevent the reader from confusing panu and sutu or vice-versa, a common Middle
Babylonian practice of distinguishing both of the capacity measures written with vertical wedges.
48. If the integer counts are for pots, then the total number required for the year is at least 1,647—a significant outlay o f resources, especial
ly if each was filled with milk and ghee according to a possible formula laid out in obv. 5 - 6 ’ (an equal number of liters). Pottery expenditures
of greater magnitude are attested in rituals elsewhere: 480 jars (DUG) of various types are made for the first-millennium ritual for making a
new head for the temple drum (see F. Thureau-Dangin, TCL 6: 44 rev. ii 29-31).
49. For the transliteration, please note the following abbreviations: G=GUR, P=PI, B=BAN, S=SlLA. In obv. 10', 1 8 - 2 0 ’ and rev. 10, the
entries spread across multiple cells, so the vertical lines have been removed in the transliteration to accommodate the intended sense o f the text.
These lines are preserved in the copy. Rulings and edges that are lost in the original tablet are restored with dotted lines.
50. Traces for the divine name perhaps rAM ARf[UTU].
51. The remnants of the sign following 1 SlLA has tall interior verticals like E in line 4 ’, so I suggest the distributive TA.AM, which ex
presses the presumed sense of the line. Compare the tall interiors with those of GA on the same line that are more typical of MB administrative
texts. Another possible reading o f the sixth sign is I/NI, restoring the broken passage as rT.[NUN].
CBS 10616
obverse
I 1
r f :
w r, j
__MU—n
T
<m
t«tt ,I f
_________ ; r« r
reverse
7 PAP 3P 3B 6S 3P UD.l.KAM UD.7.KAM UD.15.KAM sa 12 [PIT ]

8' ITI IB 8S GAITI IB 5S rlL[NUN ]
9' 12G NINDA.US.US sa MU.AN.NA UD-mu 1B-AM
10' PAP 17G 2P 3B 6S 1G3P 3P gi-nu-u kun-nu sa MU.AN.NA
11' 1B5S ITI.BARA UD.2.KAM zag-rmu-(ki’)152
12' 40 40 2 KI.MIN UD.8.KAM d-ki-tum E-dAMAR.UTU
13' 10 10 2 ITI.GU4 UD.10.KAM sa-da-hu
w
dUN.GAL dEn-£/ki
14' 40 40 4 ITI.GU, UD.15.KAM tu-sa-rum
15' 1B5S ITI.GU, UD.23.KAM EZEN.GAL
16' 40 2 22 ITI.GU, UD.24.KAM d-ki-tum
17' 4B l.NUN ITI.GU, UD.25.KAM £ SIBIR.KU
18' 2P 2B EN IB 5S mer-di-tim ITI.GU,4 UD.26.KAM PAD LUGAL
19' EN 1 PI 5S kap-re-e sa 5B a-na E.KUR 2B 5S E.KI.UR 2B 5S £.$U.ME.SA
20' u 2B 5S a-na £ dPA.KU in-nam-di-nu
rev.
1 1B5S 84 r841 □ TTI.SU1 SISKUR MUL.KAK.SI.SA
2 2P 2B EN 2PI 5S 84 84 N ITI.NE SISKUR NE.IZI.MAR.RA
3 kap-re-e
4 2P 3B KI.MIN 84 84 SISKUR MUL.MU.GID.KES.DA
5 84 84 ITI.KIN UD.16.KAM
6 85 85 4 KI.MIN UD.28.KAM BARA.DUR.GAR.RA rdlD.LU.1RU.GU53
7 84 84 ITI.DU^ UD.7.KAM
8 10 10 2 KI.MIN UD.8.KAM £ dAMAR.UTU
9 40 40 2 KI.MIN UD.r9LKAM £ drGu-la1
10 2P 2B EN 2P 5S kap -re-e KI.MIN UD.26.rKAMn PAD LUGAL
11 40 40 KI.MIN UD.29.KAM rSlSKUR DU^KU1
12 1B5S ITI/APIN UD.l.KAM ESPES
13 TB1 5S 1B5S l.NUN rKI.MIN TA1 UD.T2.KAM1 EN UD.MTKAM1NIG. DC1
14 ISiLA 10 10 2 KI.MIN rUD1.15.rKAM1 BARA.TUR.KI
15 1B5S 10 10 2 KI.MIN UD.16.KAM rEZEN dNIN-rX1
16 1B5S KI.MIN rUD.181.KAM r£S.ES1
17 10 10 2 KI.MIN UD. r19n £-rd!1[ ]
18 40 40 2 ITT.GAN1 UD.r4LKAM rxn[ ]
19 TB1 5S 1S u 1Su ITI.AB rUD.12+1.[KAM ]
20 10 10 2 ITI/X1! ]
rest of the text is lost
52. I cannot tell if the KI was mashed down or erased when the clay was still wet. If the latter holds, then read “ZAG.MU.”
53. The name of the divine river god (Idlurugu) is very worn in its first half and distorted by the curvature of the edge of the tablet in its
second half. The scribe may have not written some of the internal wedges in the second element of ID.
Translation
obv.
1' [...] '6 '1 rW [ —] [...] [...]

2' 3 r3(+n
[...]
3' 3 3 'Ekur'1]...]
4' 3 3 Temple o f'X 1! ...]
5' Total: 18 15 of which 1 month (equals') [...]
6' 18 liters milk 15 liters ghee of which 1 tallu-jai (contains') 1 liter [...
7' Total: 216 liters 180 liters day 1, day 7, day 15 for 12 [months'...]
8'
(each) month: 18 liters of milk, 15 liters of
gh[ee...]
9' 3600 liters second-quality bread for the year: 10 liters
per day
10' Total: 5256 liters 480 liters 180 liters regular offerings/dues of the year
11' 15 liters Nisannu, day 2: zagmukku
12' 40 40 2 ditto, day 8: akltu: Temple of Marduk
13' 10 10 2 Ayaru, day 10: procession: Queen of Nippur
14' 40 40 4 Ayaru, day 15: Battle/Battlefield
15' 15 liters Ayaru, day 23: Great Festival
16' 40 2 22 Ayaru, day 24: akltu
17' 40 liters ghee Ayaru, day 25: temple: Pure Scepter
18' 140 liters—including 15 liters as merdltu-offerings Ayaru, day 26: food portion of the king
19' (and) including 65 liters as kapru-sacrifice—of which 50 liters will be given to the Ekur, 25 liters to the Eki’ur, 25
20 ' liters to the Esumesa, and 25 liters to the temple of Nuska.
rev .
1 15 liters 84 '841 [...] 'Dumuzu1: prayer/offering of Sirius

2 140 liters including 125 liters as 84 84 [...] Abu: prayer/offering of the Neizigarra
3 kapru-sacrifice
4 150 liters, ditto 84 84 prayer/offering of Arcturus
5 84 84 Ululu, day 16
6 85 85 4 ditto, day 28: Baradurgarra, Idlurugu
7 84 84 Tasritu, day 7
8 10 10 2 ditto, day 8: Temple of Marduk
9 40 40 2 ditto, day 9: Temple of Gula
10 140 liters including 125 liters as kapru-sacrifice ditto, day 26: food portion of the king
11 40 40 ditto, day 29: prayer/offering of the
Duku(g)
12 15 liters Arahsamnu, day 1: essesu-feast/offer-
ings
13 I 15 liters 'P 5 liters 'ditto, from1 day r121 to day 14: the
ghee NIG.'X1
14 1 liter 10 10 2 ditto, 'day1 15: Parak-mari
15 15 liters 10 10 2 ditto, day 16: 'Festival1 of Nin-'x1
16 15 liters ditto, rday 18b ressesu-feast/offerings1
17 10 10 2 ditto, day r19?1: Temple o f [X]
18 40 40 2 rKislImu,1 day r44 rX1[...]

19 'U S liters 60 60 Tebetu rday 12+1[...]
20 10 10 2 M onth Of1[... ]
rest of text is lost
Commentary
Ordinary Disbursals (Obv 1'—10')
This section tabulates needs or income for an entire year, expressed in the qualitative summary in line 10' as regu
lar or established offerings/dues (ginu kunnu). This statement and the verb in line 20' make it clear that the text was
written before these costs were incurred. Line 5' provides a total for the items listed in subcolumns b and d, which
based on the row entries in 6' must be tallu jars. Line 6' converts the number of jars in subcolumns b and d into a
capacity measure, and the following line explains that these are to be used during days 1, 7, and 15—known from
other sources as days for monthly purification rituals and essesu.54 The line also multiplies by twelve the capacity
conversion of 6' to provide an annual total. The conversion of 6' is reiterated in 8'. An entirely different entry fol
lows, giving a yearly total for daily allocations of a type of low-quality bread—10 liters daily.55It can be determined
from the ancient calculations that the measurement standard was the 10-sila sutu. The translation represents my
best interpretation of these lines. For the sake of convenience, ancient measurements have been converted into
their approximate modern equivalents.
Extraordinary Disbursals (Obv. ll'-E n d )
The events and commentary for the extraordinary disbursals are presented by month. It is worth stating in passing
that a day marking a particular allocation does not necessarily correspond to the date of the religious observance.
There are common sense arguments supporting both pre- and post-festival dates for these disbursals; but the key
point is that the actual celebration would be held at a time close to the disbursal date if not the actual day. KI.MIN
(=“ditto”) is sometimes used to repeat the same month name in succeeding entries, especially on the reverse.
Month I (ITI.BAR/Nisannu)
obv. 11'. zagmukku (zag-mu{-ki-)/ZAG.M\J), “beginning of the year, edge, threshold.” The zagmukku in CBS
10616 falls in its traditional place during the first month of the calendar year, Nisannu, in the spring (March/April).
This festival celebrating the New Year is attested at Nippur in the third millennium, and the zagmukku was con
nected to the harvest and institutional accounting at this time.56 It was also originally celebrated separately from
the multiple akitu festivals attested at Nippur, but this distinction seems to have been lost by the time of the Assyr-
54. The importance of the fifth, seventh, and fifteenth days in ritual purification is well known, e.g., in Atra-hasis Enki performs a ritual
bath on days 1, 7, and 15 before the slaughter of the rebel leader and the creation of mankind. See also the CAD E, 373 sub eiseiu, noting that
essesu (£$.£§) are mentioned explicitly on rev. 12 (day 1) and 16 of CBS 10616 (day 18), with 15 liters set aside each time.
55. NINDA US.US, “bread of second-best quality”, H. Brunke, Essen in Sumer: Metrologie, Herstellung und Terminologie nach Zeugnis der
Ur Ill-zeitlichen Wirtschaftsurkunden (Miinchen: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2008), 149. Certainly a logogram, but exhibiting Sumerian reduplication
of adjective to indicate plurality. Another overt feature of Sumerian in this text is the Emesal spelling of the festival in month five. My thanks
to N. Brisch for her assistance with this entry.
56. TMH 5, 26 i 1, cited by Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 81.
ian domination.57 Our texts suggest that these two observances had yet to be consolidated. The allotments for the
zagmukku in CBS 11606 are small, about fifteen liters.58
obv. 12'. Akitu: temple of Marduk. With the entry written as it is, one cannot be sure if the allocations are to be
made to the akitu building or on behalf of an akitu festival sponsored by the temple of Marduk. This temple is at
tested at Nippur in administrative texts and is drawn on one of the Kassite period maps (fig. I).59 It appears again
on the reverse of CBS 10616 (line 8) as the recipient of commodities during Tasritu (perhaps another akitu, see
following commentary for month VII). This is the earliest attestation for an akitu of any kind during this month
at Nippur; and, as far as I am aware, only the second explicit mention of an akitu connected to Marduk prior to
the first millennium in Babylonian sources.60 It has been suggested that a Middle Assyrian text from Assur copied
after the defeat of Babylonia by Tukulti-Ninurta I preserves some details of a Kassite period akitu ritual.61 If this is
indeed the case it lends credence to the idea that Marduk had achieved significance in the ideology of Babylonian
rule already in the thirteenth century and Assyrian scribes were encouraged to record the details of this ritual after
the Assyrian conquest. Evidence has also been put forth that Assyrian obsession with Marduk was in place as early
as the fourteenth century, likewise due to Assyrian interference in Babylonian affairs. The evidence for this earlier
date is not overwhelming or entirely convincing.62
One also wonders if there was a difference between the akitu of Marduk celebrated at Nippur versus the one
in Babylon and which of these was exported to Assyria. Nippur is a known ideological center of rule before and
during the Kassite period; while the religious role of Babylon, other than as the location of the Esagil, is obscure.63
Likewise, it is difficult to identify a significant Assyrian presence in the historical and political record of Baby
lon after the invasion of Tukulti-Ninurta I, but at Nippur the effects of this incursion are profound. The complete
cuneiform record on which this conclusion is based, of course, has a number of shortcomings and potential biases
and this evaluation could change with new evidence or as the data set is refined.64 Beginning with all tablets dated
to a monarch from Nippur and Babylon, one notes several things. First, there is a dramatic decline in the number
of dated tablets recovered from Nippur from the years leading up to and following the period of Assyrian aggres
sion. A similar effect or stoppage can be noted in texts from Imlihiye, the original location of Van Soldt’s CUSAS 30
texts, the Peiser Collection, and Dur-Kurigalzu.65 Since nearly all of the texts from some of these areas have strong
institutional connections, one could posit disruption or cessation of some or all of the Kassite administrative ap
paratus at this time. For Babylon, which suffers from a lack of data and is not an ideal comparison, we must rely on
57. Black, New Year Ceremonies, 49 and J. Bidmead, The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia
(Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2002), 41-3 and 76, citing VAB 4: 152,47-52.
58. If grain was the only type of commodity used as an offering during the zagmukku as Cohen states, perhaps one can then suggest grain
as the commodity recorded in subcolumn a of CBS 10616 (Cultic Calendars, 83).
59. The evidence and additional commentary can be found in notes 25 and 28. Apart from the Ekur, Eki’ur, and Esumesa, administrative
texts at Nippur mostly name religious institutions by deity rather than epithet. Temples dedicated to the following gods are attested in this
corpus, mostly in the context of receiving goods (e.g., oil, beer, and paint for doors): Sin, Samas, Nuska, Gula, Amurru, the Abzu, Ninsar, Adad,
Nergal, the Queen of Nippur (Istar), Ninimma, Suzianna, Belet ekalli, Inimmanizu, and the famous temples of Enlil (Ekur), Ninlil (Eki’ur) and
Ninurta (Esumesa). Unpublished Nippur texts mentioning temples include CBS 10966, 11533, 11605, 11896, 11922, 13344 (letter); Ni. 173,
438, 638, 884, 960, 1185; and UM 29-16-177. For more information on temples in Nippur and its vicinity, see I. Bernhardt and S.N. Kramer,
“Die Tempel und Gotterschreine von Nippur,” OrNS 44 (1975) 96-102 W. Van Soldt, CUSAS 30; 585).
60. “inanna akitum sa Marduk u Nabium” appears in damaged context in AbB 5, 168:16'—17'. In a review of Kraus’ publication of the text,
J. Westenholz placed the tablet’s composition in Babylon because it mentions this festival (JNES 33 [1974] 409, 413).
61. Note 21.
62. F. A. M. Wiggermann, “A Babylonian Scholar in Assur” in Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society Presented to Marten
Stol on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. R. van der Speck (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2008), 203-34.
63. Sommerfeld, Der Aufstieg Marduks, 173.
64. J. S. Tenney, The Middle Babylonian Period,” in A Handbook o f Ancient Mesopotamia, ed. Gonzalo Rubio (Berlin: de Gruyter, in press).
65. The data on which this conclusion is based are the result of a long-term study by the author and will be published in the future. The
bibliography is too extensive to recount here. In the meantime one should consult the catalogue presented by Brinkman in MSKH 1, who as
sembled most of the tablet dates by 1976.
Pedersen’s catalog of private archives, which lists thirty-nine texts dated to the years before the invasion, and sixty-
two from later years. Forty-nine of this later group are from the reigns of Meli-Sipak and Marduk-apla-iddina I,
and so the remains of private production dip and then rebound strongly.66 At least three of the pre-invasion texts
were found in archives also containing post-invasion texts, and one archive (M8) has activity before, during, and
after the interregnum. At present, a commensurate resumption in dated private or institutional tablets cannot be
identified at Nippur.
Second, an Assyrian presence at Nippur after Kastiliasu IV is indicated by a single text dated to the accession
year ofTukulti-Ninurta I. No such date has been found at Babylon, but there is one from the reign of Kadasman-
Harbe II, likely year 1, which arguably could fit with the skeletal record at Nippur during the seven years when
Tukulti-Ninurta supposedly held sway over Babylonia. However, Tukulti-Ninurta is not listed among the rulers
of Babylon in Kinglist A, noteworthy because the Neo-Assyrian conquerors of the first millennium do appear in
its sequence, and because the general assumption is that any king who occupied the throne in Babylon would be
included on the list. As Brinkman notes, the evidence demonstrates that Tukulti-Ninurta was recognized as ruler
over Nippur and other parts of Babylonia, but which other parts are unclear.67 Undated texts from Nippur and
Babylon may in fact have been composed during the proposed phases of low textual production (brick inscriptions
indicate work on the Ekur under Adad-suma-usur and Meli-Sipak), but this is a possibility that cannot be con
firmed or rejected until Kassite period archives are better understood. This will be especially difficult for the post
invasion period at Nippur because undated late Kassite and early post-Kassite texts can have similar paleography.
Third, the main narrative for the invasion and its aftermath is found in a poorly preserved passage in the very
late Chronicle P (iv 3-8), which has an uncertain origin and whose original sources include literary texts. One
reads in it that Tukulti-Ninurta I wrecked the fortifications of Babylon, slaughtered citizens, and removed the
Marduk statue. At least one pre-invasion Kassite royal inscription from the Esagil did make its way to Assyria,68
and the removal of the cult image is recounted in the Neo-Babylonian Marduk Prophecy. Agum-Kakrime likewise
points to the return of the Marduk statue as a watershed moment of dynastic fortune and religious recognition of
the right to rule. If suspicions about its date are correct, then both Agum-Kakrime and the Marduk Prophecy were
composed after the Kassite period when the return of the Marduk statue becomes a cornerstone of the elevated
Marduk dogma.69 Concerning political affairs, Chronicle P states that Tukulti-Ninurta set up his own governors
(saknu) and ruled (uma i r) Kardunias for seven years. Babylon is never mentioned specifically in this context. In
his many royal inscriptions, he claims the title of king of Babylon just once where it is the third in a list of titles
and preceded by “King of Kardunias” (consistently applied to the defeated Kastiliasu IV), and “King of Sumer and
A kkad.70At the time of conquest, “King of Babylon” had been the principal element in Babylonian date formulae
for generations and was a feature of Kassite royal building inscriptions.71 In his famous epic, the city can be identi
fied in only a minor role or cannot be confirmed in key passages that would point to significant Assyrian political
or military activity.'2 It can be restored at the end of a line that concerns the abandonment of the city by Marduk
(I A 38')—the line is third in a list of cities beginning with Nippur and Dur-Kurigalzu (both connected to Enlil)—
and appears in a section concerning merchant spies which establishes just cause for an invasion (II A 8'). The city
cannot be identified in the damaged sections describing the destruction and reconstruction of territory, nor can
it be linked to an important, seized cult center (IV C 16'-20', IV A 17'). The specific location of the defeat of the
66. Olof Pedersen, Archive und Bibliotheken in Babylon, ADOG 25 (Berlin: Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, 2005).
67. MSKH 1:313
68. A. Bartelmus and A. Schmitt, “Beutestucke aus Babylonien in Assyrien” ZA 104 (2014) 74-90.
69. B. Foster, Before the Muses, 3rd ed (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2005), 388.
70. Grayson, RIMA 1 A.0.78.24: 12-14—noting that the evidence could include RIMA 1 A.0.78.1005-1006.
71. A. Bartelmus, Restoring the Past: A Historical Analysis of the Royal Temple Building Inscriptions from the Kassite Period” KASKAL
7 (2010), 157.
72. P. Machinist, The Epic ofTukulti-Ninurta I: A Study in Middle Assyrian Literature” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1978).
Babylonian army and capture of Kastiliasu IV is also unknown. The epic merely states that Kastiliasu withdrew and
maneuvered within a remote and difficult landscape that was far from any major urban areas.
Finally, other oft-cited evidence is equally ambiguous on the standard narrative concerning the conquest of
Babylon. For example, there is a tablet stating that Tukulti-Ninurta I brought a seal of the Babylonian monarch
back to Assyria. But this tablet concerns a seal of Sagarakti-Surias, Kastiliasu IV’s predecessor, and it is described
as booty of Kardunias instead of Babylon.73 The same is true of the fragmentary list of Tukulti-Ninurtas war loot
(KAH 2: 92).74 There were at least two palaces in the Kassite period, and each of them could have been a source of
royal treasure.
Evidence from Assyria proper also suggests strong cultic, ideological, and scholarly connections between Nip
pur and Assur at the end of the Late Bronze Age. Some of this evidence has been covered in earlier notes.75 Addi
tionally, because the exact locations of the tablets listed as booty in the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic cannot be identified,
it can be suggested that they were gathered from several important scribal centers in the south and not exclusively
from Babylon.76 It is also clear that not all of the Babylonian scholarly texts recovered in Assyria were generated by
looting.77One might also contrast the roles of Marduk and Enlil in the major ideological works of Tukulti-Ninurta.
Marduk is mentioned once in his epic and never in his royal inscriptions, nor is the Esagil.78 Enlil, on the other
hand, is ubiquitous in both collections (and the Ekur in the inscriptions) occupying his traditional political place,
bestowing divine favor, and justifying Tukulti-Ninurtas removal of the Kassite king.79 Additional homage to the
gods of Nippur can be found in the bilingual prayer to Assur composed on behalf of Tukulti-Ninurta I and the
Hymn to Tiglath-Pileser I, another northern conqueror of Babylonia.80
Month II (YI\.G\J J Ayaru)

CBS 10616 indicates that Nippur’s cultic calendar during Ayaru was active with processions and celebrations
for Istar and Ninurta. In earlier periods, the month featured the Gusisu, a plowing and cattle festival connected
to Ninurta celebrated on days 20-22.81 A passage in the bilingual menology known as Astrolabe B established a
suspicion that Ninurta had remained the deity most associated with this month into the later second millennium,
and CBS 10616 provides both confirmation of this and the earliest concrete evidence of the specifics of these
Late Bronze Age Ninurta ritual activities.82 Those who have studied much later calendrical commentaries will
likewise note similarities with suspected first millennium practices, suggesting that some late religious festivities
had origins at least as early as the second millennium. As presently understood, the Ur III and Neo-Babylonian
traditions are an imperfect calendrical match to the complete range of events found in CBS 10616, and one must
rely on both early and late records to puzzle out some of the laconic entries written on the Kassite text. One of the
most noteworthy features of the later Ninurta cult, his angry expulsion of ritually impure women, is absent in CBS
73. RIMA 1 A.0.78.28.

74. E. Weidner, “Studien zur Zeitgeschichte Tukulti-Ninurtas I,” AfO 13 (1939-41) 121-24.
75. See notes 22, 31, and the significant secondary literature provided in P. Michalowski, “Literary Journeys from Babylonia to Assyria:
Second Millennium Copies of a Bilingual Poem Concerning Ninurta,” in The First Ninety Years: A Sumerian Celebration in Honor of Miguel
Civil, ed. L.Feliu, E Karahashi and G. Rubio (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016, in press).
76. Machinist, “Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta I,” 365.
77. K. Wagensonner, “A Scribal Family and it Orthographic Peculiarities,” in The Empirical Dimension of Ancient Near Eastern Studies
(Vienna: LIT, 2011), 648-50.
78. Machinist, “Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta A 38'.
79. Ibid., IA 18’-20', I B 36', and passim, RIMA 1 A.0.78.1 i 4, A.0.78.2: 11-14, A.0.78.5: 48-53, etc.
80. For translation and bibliography, see Foster, Before the Muses, 318-33.
81. A final day of celebration may have happened on day 24 (W. Sallaberger, Die kultische Kalender der Ur III-Zeit (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1993), 1:115 and A. Annus, The God Ninurta in the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia, SAA 14 (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian
Text Corpus Project, 2002), 61.
82. In Astrolabe B and its early forerunner from Babylon, Ninurta is identified as Ningirsu and/or as the advisor to Enlil.
10616 even though the gate named after this procession can be found on the Nippur city map, commonly dated
to the Kassite period.83
1. 13'. Sadahu Sarrat Nippuri (“Procession: Queen of Nippur”). The translation reflects both the obvious nomi
native ending in entry’s initial word and a passage in obv. i 12'—16' of the Late Babylonian expository text OECT
11: 69+70, which notes that on day 10 of Ayaru the regular feast of Istar was held along with a procession of the
daughters of Nippur. “Queen of Nippur” is a known epithet of Istar, so it seems that early versions of her feast and
the parade were being held in Nippur in the Kassite period. Neither of these are included in the menology of Astro
labe B, which does reference other cubic places connected to Istar likewise found on CBS 10616: the Baradurgarra
and the divine river (ordeal).84 See the commentary on rev. line 6 (BARA.DUR.GAR.RA and dlD.LU.RU.GU).
1. 14'. tusaru (“battle/battlefield”).85 A tusaru appears among the collection of first-millennium festivals in the
Nippur Compendium, where it is likewise celebrated on the fifteenth day with indeterminate month.86 Both Ni-
sannu and Ayaru have been proposed for the timing of this first-millennium battlefield; and our text lends support
to those arguing for month II, assuming that the date of celebration had not changed from the thirteenth century
to the time the Compendium was written. This text also has some bearing on the restoration of a damaged month
name in a Middle Assyrian cubic commentary.87
Lambert strongly believed that a ceremonial great battle took place in the akitu house of Marduk under the “Late
Babylonian kings.” His evidence was indirect, derived from the inscription on Sennacherib’s gate, Late Assyrian ritual
texts, and short sentences on various late-period Babylonian documents.88The tusaru in CBS 10616 could indicate a
ritual reenactment of the fight between Marduk and Tiamat; but it is most likely related to military conflicts or ath
letic contests in honor of Ninurta in his warrior guise.89Ninurta was a prominent deity at Nippur with a well-funded
temple and historic claims to this month. He is linked to the agricultural festival mentioned immediately after the
tusaru of CBS 10616 (next paragraph), which was held weeks closer to the tusaru than the akitu in Marduk’s temple.90
83. J. Oelsner and P. Stein, “Der Stadtplan von Nippur,” AfO 52 (2011) 104-16.
84. A. R. George, Topographical Texts, 454 and House Most High: The Temples o f Ancient Mesopotamia (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
1993), 71-72. The prominence of Istar in Ayaru in this text is perhaps another signal that a progression to first-millennium themes was under
way in the second millennium. Ninlil was the goddess in this month in the past (Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 86-87).
85. The evidence for the exact meaning of the Akkadian word is meager; and, despite CAD T, it doesn’t seem clear whether “battle” vs.
“battlefield” is to be preferred. George, Topographical Texts, 154-55, adopts the later, presumably to distinguish tusaru from tahazu (clearly
“battle”) when they occur on the same line in the Nippur Compendium.
86. The heading of the text only mentions the first month, but the brief entries include festivals in Abu, Ululu, Tirum, and Sabatu (ibid.).
87. Cohen suspected month I for the tusaru in the Compendium, but allowed for month II because he felt that the traces of a damaged
month name in a related Middle Assyrian text could be read as ITI.GU4.SI.SA, Cultic Calendars, 324-25. Jacobsen had already proposed this
reconstruction, linking the battlefield ritual with a series of athletic contests representing the struggle between Anu and Marduk (“Religious
Drama,” 74). Livingstone and Menzel restored the month name as month XI (Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, SAA 3 (Helsinki: Helsinki
University Press, 1989, text 40). George, in reviewing Gurney’s edition of OECT I Land citing his then unpublished work on the Nippur Com
pendium, settled on month II (ZA 80 [1990] 157).
88. Lambert, “Great Battle,” 189-90.
89. Noting earlier traditions concerning Enmesarra as the defeated party (Lambert, Creation Myths, 281-98 and George, “Cultic Topog
raphy,” 376-77).
90. Ninurta was said to have seized the reins of lordship from the sea and been involved in the defeat of a host of gods, including Enlil(s)
(Lambert, Creation Myths, 202-16, and 236-37). For texts connecting the second month with Ninurta/Ningirsu, see Cohen, Cultic Calendars,
84-90 and 310-11 and Annus, The God Ninurta, 61—71. Istars procession precedes the battlefield by four days, noteworthy because of her
connections to battle either personally, e.g., VAS 10: 214 iii 7: isinsa tamharu, “battle is her (Istars) festival,” or through her fearsome cultic
attendants, the kurgarrli, e.g., CT 15: 44, 28: [k]ugarru sa tusari ima(r)lilu, “the kugarrus who play at battle”. The cult and ideology of Istar are
conspicuous in some of the primary texts cited in discussions of the rise of Marduk, especially those denigrating the previous Enlil regime
(I. Peled, “Assinnu and Kurgarru Revisited,” JNES 73 [2014] 296-97). Additionally one notes Marduk’s overthrow of Anu (see note 88) in the
aforementioned CT 15: 44, which coincidentally was a key text edited in the first comprehensive study of the akitu festival by Pallis.
Moreover, later commentaries on the calendar of Nippur explain that the fifteenth day of Ayaru was the day when
Ninurta furiously entered the Esumesa after a great victory in the mountains.91
1. 15'. Isinnu rabu (EZEN GAL), “The great festival.” This is probably a reference to the Gusisu, an ancient
Sumerian festival celebrating oxen and plows. A Kassite or early Neo-Babylonian exercise tablet from Nippur
connects this festival with its eponymous month, and several Kassite copies of the literary text tied to this festival,
the Song of the Plowing Oxen, were found at Nippur.92 An epithet of Ninurta, whose characteristics include the
plow and farming, was Lugalgusisu (king of the Gusisu).93
1.16'. Akitu. Few details on this akitu are available, but an akitu festival on the same day and month is attested on
a text from the Nippur vicinity during the first year of Sagarakti-Surias, where it is labelled as the “akitu, Ay[aru],
Nippur, day r24L94 Annus has argued that an akitu to Ninurta was held at Nippur in the third millennium on the
22nd day of Ayaru. It is logical to assume that the Middle Babylonian akitu recorded on CBS 10616 and CUSAS
30: 396 is early certain proof of Annus’ postulation, even though it was held on a different day and had different
associated rituals than later periods. For example, CBS 10616 has an entry for the E SIBIR.KU on day 25 and no
mention of the divine axe and cudgel that, according to OECT 11: 69+70 and the Nippur Compendium, were
displayed on the 23rd in honor of Ninurtas victories.95 Other evidence for akitus in Ayaru include a passage in the
Religious Chronicle, which Grayson interpreted as probably referring to the reign of Simbar-Sipak (1025-1008)
and that tells of an akitu likely held in Babylon on the eleventh day of the second month.96During the reign of Sen
nacherib, the Emas-ritual of Istar was held at the akitu house in Assur involving the gods Assur, Ninlil (Mullissu),
Ninurta, and Adad.97
1.17'. E SIBIR.KU (Temple: Pure Scepter). This temple is otherwise unattested.
1. 18'—20'. merditu, kapru, and PAD LUGAL (kurummat sarri). The spelling kap-re-e in this text clearly suggests
a nominative of kapru, yet CAD, AHw, and CDA all have kapru with no circumflex. Sacrifices or offerings to a god
were often consumed by the privileged classes, yet it remains unclear if kurummat sarri was to be consumed by the
king himself or used in a ceremony on his own behalf or even that of a deceased predecessor. Based on Sumerian
literary texts and remarks by Sallaberger and Cohen, Annus argued that the king was involved in the Gusisu of
Ninurta, which might explain this disbursal just a few days after the isinnu rabu and the akitu of Ayaru.93 Kurum
mat sarri occurs again on reverse 10, perhaps an indication that the king was in Nippur multiple times each year
or for months at a time.
1. 20'. innamdinu. The verbal form can be interpreted as either a generalized present tense (“(items) which are
(customarily) given”) or a present tense indicating future action (“(items) which will be given”), that is, the alloca
tions in this line are anticipated, rather than already disbursed. Since both the beginning and end of the tablet are
91. Here I am referring to OECT 11: 69+70 (George, ZA 80 [1990] 157-58)

92. The line is e z e n -g a l e z e n - “‘g u 4- s i-s u (M. Civil, “Song of the Plowing Oxen” Kramer Anniversary Volume, AOAT 25 [1976], 83-95,
esp. 85). The allocations for the great festival are small, like the zagmukku in line IT.
93. Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 89.
94. W. Van Soldt, CUSAS 30: 396, 3-4 (2015). The entry is: 1 (Ug.GAL) d-ki-tum ITI.GU4 r(x)1[...] EN.LI'D UD.r24.KAM1. A close in
spection revealed that the right side of this tablet, including the upper and lower right corners, was damaged in antiquity, and then replaced
with modern clay fill and fake signs. The doctored portion incorporated two small fragments that seem to be from the original, and one of these
provides a month name for this akitu and the link with CBS 10616. If the original lines 3-4 are as reconstructed here (nothing missing), then it
is odd that the day and month are separated by a geographic name, leaving a tiny possibility that what I have identified as a small original frag
ment is in fact fake. It is also possible that the forger copied the month name from line 5 onto the fill of line 3 to obscure his fakery, a common
feature of texts in this collection. If it is indeed fake, the month of the akitu in CUSAS 30: 396, 3 would be unverifiable.
95. Annus, The God Ninurta, 61-66.
96. The expression refers to preparations for the god sa adi umi a kftO [il]qu (“which they had taken up to the day of the akitu"), see ii 3
in A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, 134. The line does not preclude a pre-Ayaru date, but this seems unlikely given the first
line of the column.
97. Meinhold, Istar in Assur, 152-53 and Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 312.
98. Annus, The God Ninurta, 62, 68.
lost, there is no way to definitively determine if all of the commodities listed were future projections as well or
even if the connotation or sense of future action can be applied to everything from line 11' to 20'. The verb itself is
grammatically confined to the relative clause.
1. 18-20'. EN (=adi as preposition, “together with, including”). The sense of the line is as follows: “2 pi 2 b a n -
together with l b a n 5 s i l a a s a merditu-offering and 1 pi 5 sila as a A:apr»-sacrifice—of which 5 b an will be given
to the Ekur, 2 b an 5 sila (for the) Eki’ur, 2 b an 5 sila (for the) Esumesa, and (also) 2 b an 5 sila to the temple
of Nuska.” The measurement standard in this section remained the 10-sila sutu, and the allocations to the Eki’ur,
Esumesa, and temple of Nuska are each half of that for the Ekur. An amount of 1 ban 5 sila (15 liters) is the most
common capacity measurement on this text.
Month III (ni.SIGJSimdnu)

No ritual activity is mentioned on CBS 10616 for the month of Simanu. Texts from earlier periods provide few
details; but the second-millennium astrolabe menologies mention the making of bricks; and first-millennium
texts, like OECT 11: 69+70, explain that this was a time to recognize multiple divine disputes."
Month IV (ITI.SU/Dumiizu)
In earlier periods, Dumuzu featured an eponymous festival in the middle of the month because it was the time
of Dumuzi’s capture in myths and poetry, and the month carried this designation into the later second millen
nium.100 It has been proposed that many of the events of month IV at Nippur featured ritualized versions of his
burial, seizure, and display of his corpse.101 There is no direct evidence of the Dumuzi cult in this text, although the
star Sirius is linked to agricultural prosperity in the oracular tradition (as is Dumuzi).
rev. 1. SISKUR MUL.KAK.SI.SA (=Sukudu, the “arrow”), that is, the star Sirius. As far as I am aware, niqu/niqu
(sacrifice) to the star Sirius is unattested; but ikribu (prayer), the other possible reading of the logogram SlSKUR,
was performed in relation to oracular activity because celestial bodies were considered a source of divine knowl
edge.10- In Astrolabe B, Sirius is identified with the fifth month.103 Enuma-Anu-Enlil has Sirius rising heliacally in
month IV and an early or late rise (appearance) of this star leads to prosperity or nonprosperity of the irrigated
land.104No day of allocation is given on the text for this event.
The allocations to the two celestial bodies, Sirius and Arcturus, in CBS 10616 are nearly as large as those pro
vided to some of the most important ancient festivals, such as the NE.IZI.GAR.RA. Is this an indication of the
religious weight of these cubic events at least from the perspective of this recording institution?
99. E.g., Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender 1:122-23, lines 5-7 of VAT 17081, and OECT 11: 69+70 i 40-44'.
100. As demonstrated in the Babylonian and Middle Assyrian versions of Astrolabe B. The corresponding lines are VAT 17081: 8-9 and
KAV 218 i 44, 50.
101. Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 316-17 and George, Topographical Texts, 309. Note that Dumuzi appears in a broken section of OECT 11,
69+70 (i 45'—46'), which likely pertains to this month.
102. In Assyrisch-babylonische Zeichenliste (AOAT 33), R. Borger distinguished SISKUR (only niqu) from SI'SKUR {niqu and ikribu), a dis
crimination he abandoned later in his 2004 update, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon (AOAT 305). CAD reads niqu and ikribu for both SISKUR
and SlSKUR, relying on context to distinguish between the two words.
SAA 8:163 mentions a ritual being performed in front of Venus and Sirius (inapdn Sukudif). Sirius is one of five astral bodies to which lifting-
of-the-hand prayers are attested (E. Reiner, Astral Magic in Babylonia, TAPS 85/4 [Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1995], 17).
103. K A V 218iil, 8.
104. EAE III: 28, IX 5, and X V I18 (Reiner and Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens 2. For more on Babylonian scholarly interest in Sirius,
see A. Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wis-
senschaften, 1988), 1:27.
Month V (ITI.NEIAbu)
The connections of this month with death and the royal figure have been known for some time and are likewise
evident in CBS 10616.105The first two events are not given a specific day of observance.
rev. 2-3. NE.IZI.MAR.RA. This spelling exhibits the typical emesal phonetic alternation g to m (gar to m a r).106
The ritual has also retained the essence of its Sumerian spelling even though the month name ITI.NE.IZI.GAR is
a logographic rendering of the contemporary month name Abu, the mound built over the passage to the nether
world.107
The NE.IZI.GAR.RA was an ancient festival widely celebrated in Sumer and attested by name as early as the
pre-Sargonic period and, until now, as late as Isin-Larsa.108 Nippur was the only place where it was celebrated in
month V, a spot on the calendar that it retained into the Kassite period. Later evidence for this event can be found
in Astrolabe B, where the fifth month is described as the month when braziers were lit and a torch was held for the
Anunnaki.109 During the festival, fires were used to guide the spirits of the dead back to the homes of their descen
dants. Its relationship to the first-millennium maqlu has been noted.110
rev. 4. MUL.MU.GID.KES.DA (=Niru, “the yoke”), that is, the star known as Arcturus in the constellation
Bootes and the fourth brightest star seen from Earth.**111 It is the most luminous star in the “the way of Enlil” or the
northern celestial hemisphere. In Enuma-Anu-Enlil this star rose heliacally in month VI.112Nlru is associated with
disastrous events and omens. In Neo-Assyrian astrological reports these include ruin of the land, death of the king,
and famine.113 Planets in the vicinity of the yoke star portended dispersal of the population, dynastic change, the
slaughter of people, dogs afflicted with rabies, regicide, famine, poor agricultural productivity, and the death of
great men.114 Given that Enuma-Anu-Enlil is preoccupied with terrible events, it is difficult to know if the alloca
tions to Arcturus in CBS 10616 were for celebratory or prophylactic purposes. Niru’s connections with the health
of the monarch and countryside have added interest in light of the association of month Abu with king Gilgamesh
and rites of the dead.115 Like Sirius, Arcturus is mentioned in Astrolabe B, but identified with a different month
(VII) than in CBS 10616.
Month VI (ITI.KINlUlulu)
Our text follows what little is known about the historical pattern connecting this month to Inana/Istar. Cohen
and Sallaberger have suggested that a festival was held for her during the middle of the month in the Ur III period,
and later texts make similar connections with the goddess and processions and rituals involving the divine river
105. The NE.IZI.GAR.RA (Sallaberger= NE.NE-gar) may be described in the Death of Gilgamesh. Other texts refer to Month V as the
month of Gilgamesh and the kindling of fires in observance of the dead (Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender 1:125-27 and Cohen, Cultic Calendars,
319.
106. Thus raising the question of what the name of this festival was in the Kassite period. For phonetic changes in Emesal, see M. K. Schret-
ter, Emesal-Studien, IBK 69 (Innsbruck: Institut fur Sprachwissenschaft der Universitat Innsbruck, 1990), 43-49.
108. From the copy and CDLI photo (P348949), the traces at the beginning of OECT 11: 69+70 ii 4 do not seem to be sufficient to confi
dently restore NE.I[ZI.GAR.RA].
109. KAV 218 ii 1-5,8-10.
110. Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 10 and 101-3.
111. CAD N, 264, following Reiner, believed Niru referred to the entire constellation of Bootes. The yoke star (written as MUL.SUDUN)
is prayed to and receives offerings in an apotropaic ritual protecting against other ritual mistakes, Erica Reiner, Astral Magic, 15, citing KAR
38 rev. 24-27.
112. EAE III: 27 (Reiner and Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens 2).
113. SAA 8: 73,1-3; 383 rev. 1-3; 546 rev. 4-7.
114. E. Reiner (in collaboration with D. Pingree), Babylonian Planetary Omens (Groningen: Styx, 1998 and 2005). See Part 3 Group A
124-125 and Group C ii 2-3; Part 4 Group A 9', Group D 5, and Group J 39.
115. See note 105. Given the celebration of the NE.IZI.GAR.RA earlier in the month, one should also note the use of Gilgamesh figurines
in maqlu rituals (Z. Abusch, “Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Literature," JNES 33 [1974] 259).
(ordeal).116CBS 10616 has large allocations for an unspecified purpose on day 16 and to one of Istar’s principal sites
of worship and the same divine river on day 28 (the largest allocations on the text).117
rev. 6. BARA.DUR.GAR.RA (=“Dais of the Throne”). A well-known cultic installation in Nippur. The temple
of the Dais of the Throne is mentioned in a Sealand I or Kassite period temple list from the Nippur region, Kas-
site administrative texts, an inscription of Esarhaddon, and in mostly or completely damaged parts of the Nippur
Compendium. It served as a residence of Enlil, was connected to combat, and was eventually allocated to Istar by
Enlil.118
rev. 6. dID.LU.RU.GU (= deity of the divine river (ordeal)). Exact location unknown, Van Soldt suggested prox
imity with Parak-mari (note 129). Astrolabe B, OECT 11: 69+70, and the Nippur Compendium establish strong
connections between this location/deity and Istar, but it is not clear if the specific Idlurugu rituals remained con
sistent from the later second millennium into the first millennium. The earliest of these texts, Astrolabe B ii 16-17,
states that the goddesses received their annual ritual cleansing in Idlurugu during Ululu. In OECT 11: 69+70 ii'
16-25', the river appears in two separate, damaged sections that cannot be completely understood in their pres
ent state. The preserved text explains that instructions are given to the divine river (dID) during a series of rituals
commencing on the 21st; and that some sort of visit is made to the Idlurugu, followed by singing on the 29th. The
participation of females, described as women and/or daughters, is likewise notable in these two events. CBS 10616
provides no details on the ritual, other than the day of recognition (28).
Month VII (ITl.D U J Tasritu)

At first glance, the first three disbursals for this month are insignificant. Temples to Marduk and Gula are well
attested at Nippur in Kassite administrative texts and the Kassite period Gula temple may have been excavated
by the Oriental Institute.119 However, a Neo-Assyrian letter and the month date of CBS 11536 raises the possibil
ity that an akltu during Tasritu, known to have been celebrated in the seventh century, may have already been in
practice at Nippur in Kassite times.
rev. 7-8. A case for two annual akitus —in Nisannu and in Tasritu—in first-millennium Babylonia has been
made. SAA 10: 253 is especially key to this argument and has some bearing on our interpretation of rev. 7-8 of
CBS 10616. This letter from the chief exorcist to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal reminds the king of the rituals for
Marduk on days 7 and 8 of Tasritu. It also states that these two events precede the procession of Marduk and that
they are carried out in a similar fashion as those performed in Nisannu.120 CBS 10616 likewise has entries for days
seven and eight in Tasritu. The disbursals in b-c on the seventh day are the next-to-largest recorded, and the row
entry for the eighth day states that the goods are to be used in the temple of Marduk. One might then consider if
the entry in rev. 8 is an abbreviation of the full entry in obv. 11' (they occur on the same day of the month), and
if the disbursals in lines rev. 7-8 were allocated for an akitu for Marduk during month VII. If true, then one won
ders why this important first millennium akitu was not included among the festivals of Nippur in either OECT
116. Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 104-5, Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender 1:127-29, and George, Topographical Texts, 154-55.
117. Perhaps the allocation in 16’ is related to the damaged entry in OECT 11: 69+70 ii 14-15'.
118. The temple list is CUSAS 30:451 (2015). Administrative texts include: CBS 12636, which lists a large amount of what is probably grain
(i.e„ unspecified capacity measure) given or assigned to men and summarized as “sa BARA.DUR.GAR.RA” (rev. i 20’); UM 29-16-177: 7, a
list of large allocations to temples; and MUN 465: 2, where it appears as a geographic name with determinative KI (1252 B.C.). Esarhaddon
repaired the Ebaradurgara, the house of the queen of Nippur because its walls were buckling with age (E. Leichty, The Royal Inscriptions o f Esar
haddon, King o f Assyria (680-669 BC), RINAP 4 [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011], 260-62. Here one notes similar spellings of the deity in
CBS 10616 (obv. 13') to the aforementioned Esarhaddon text, RINAP 4: 128 (1, 3, and 15): dUN.GAL EN.LlLki sar-rat EN.LlUA E.BARA.DUR.
GAR.RA E dUN.GAL EN.LlUA For the Compendium and other references to the Ebaradurgara, see the entry by E. Ebeling in RIA 2 (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1938), 264 and George, Topographical Texts, 164-65 (lines 20-21') and 454 and House Most High, 71-72.
119. M. Gibson, “Nippur, Sacred City of Enlil, Supreme God of Sumer and Akkad,” Al-Rafidan 14 (1993) 14.
120. Ambos, Der Konig im Gefangnis, 128-34.
11: 69+70 or the Nippur Compendium.121 If the author of SAA 10: 253 was writing about an akitu in Babylon as is
commonly assumed, is it possible that celebrations to Marduk at Nippur during Tasritu may have ceased sometime
after CBS 10616 was written?
rev. 10. PAD LUGAL (=kurummat sarri). Like obv. 18', some of the food for the king was to be set aside and
used for sacrifices (kapru), perhaps for his consumption later or an indication that this allocation is meant to cel
ebrate, commemorate, or bless a current or deceased monarch rather than to provide sustenance during a royal
visit.
rev. 11. SISKUR DU..KU (Lambert=(the place:) “Pure Du7Sallaberger=“heiligen Hiigel (Holy Hill)”/
George=“Pure Mound”).122The Duku(g), perhaps originally a plastered over grain pile, is a well-attested cubic in
stallation and the focus of an ancient festival of Sumer. In the third millennium, animal disbursals for the Duku(g)
were made on the 27th or 28th, fitting closely with the 29th day given for our Kassite text.123 It has been described
as both the dwelling place of Enlil’s ancestors and the location where Enlil decreed the destinies before the other
gods. As such, it was located within Enlil’s shrine in the Ekur. Once Marduk had replaced Enlil in this role, a
Duku(g) was built within the Ubsu’ukkina in Babylon for the continued decreeing of destinies by Marduk.124One
of Marduk’s epithets in Enuma elis is “son of the Duku(g),” and CBS 10616 has allocations made to his temple
earlier on in the month.
Month VIII (ITI.APIN/Arahsamnu)

There are few early references to cubic activity at Nippur during Arahsamnu, but it was a busy time during the
Kassite period. The festivals have connections to Ninurta, so this month may have continued to memorialize the
ritualized storage of the plow.125
rev. 12' and 16'. ES.ES (=essesu). These can refer to a festival or the offerings given during an essesu-festival. There
is no chronological correspondence between the allocations given in CBS 10616 and attested ES.ES-allocations at
Nippur in the Ur III period.126 In the hemerologies, vigils (nubattu) and feasts {essesu) occur on consecutive days
(3-4, 7-8, and 6-17).127
rev. 14'. BARA-DUMU111(=Parak-mari, “Throne-dais of the Son”). This cubic installation of Ninurta, Enlil’s son,
and its eponymous town are common in Middle Babylonian texts from Nippur.128 The platform may have been
inside one of the major temples of Nippur, while the town lay outside its walls. Attested spelling include BARA-
DUMU, BARA-DUMU111, and URU.BARA.DUMUA129
121. The passages pertaining to Tasritu in the OECT 11 text are fragmentary, and perhaps one could infer an akitu from ii 26' (a-na
LUGAL[... ]) or if Marduk had taken on the guise of Lugaldukuga in ii 29'. Otherwise, there is no clear evidence known to me of such a celebra
tion in first-millennium Nippur.
122. Lambert, Creation Myths, 304; Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender 1:129, George, “E-sangil and E-temen-anki,” 73. Additional commen
tary, including the cosmological aspects of the Duku(g), see George, “Cultic Topography,” 374; Annus, The God Ninurta, 76-78; and A. Tsuki-
moto, Untersuchungen zur Totenpflege fkispum) im alten Mesopotamien, AOAT 216 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985], 212-17.
123. Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender 2:75 (table 39).
124. Note 9.
126. Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender 2:20-27.
127. Cole, “Crimes and Sacrileges,” 238.
128. CT 44: 67, 4 includes a salutation mentioning the gods of Parak-mari and Dur-Sin-muballit. For later references see George, Topo
graphical Texts, 157 (v 2), 226 (rev. i 4), and 447.
129. In the list of shrines of the Nippur Compendium, there is a seat in the Eki’ur for Ninurta of Parak-mari (ibid. 151 line 28'). Nashef
places the town of Parak-mari between Nippur and Marad (RGTC 5:215) and Van Soldt believed that it was close to the place on the Euphrates
where the ritual of the Idlurugu was performed (“Ordal.Mesopotamien,” in RIA 10 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003-2005], 126). The list of Nippur
references in RGTC 5 can now be expanded with one legal (Ni. 2891:9) and many administrative texts that mention thepiqdanu of Parak-mari
or allocations of animals, beer, grain, oil, pots, and personnel: CBS 2109: 18 and 25; 2122: 1; 2127 rev. 5-6; 11998 rev.' 8'; Ni. 1502: 3; 1521: 7;
1620: 3; 2236: 21; 2720 obv.?6' and rev.! 5' (karu); 5887 i’ 6' and 9'; 6050: 4; 6259: 21; 6273: 8'; 6397: 1-5; 6435: 3'; and UM 29-15-99 rev. 6-7.
rev. 15'. EZEN dNIN-rx1. Traces of the final sign of the divine name barely favor LIL (Ninlil) over IB (Ninurta).
This is not certain, and Arahsamnu does have a historical association with Ninurta.
Month IX (GAN/Kislimu)
CBS 10616 provides nothing of significance for this month. The gangannu-pot stand or storage room can now
be solidly connected with beer in the Middle Babylonian period, which is pertinent to discussions surrounding the
origins of the Sumerian month name.130 Landsberger believed that this month marked the onset of brewing, with
gangannu being the clay vessels in which beer was made, hence the name of the month (month of bringing out the
gangannu). Cohen disputed this, pointing out that ITI.GAN.GAN.fi was already in use by the third millennium,
while Landsberger s evidence was from the first millennium.131 The new data do not validate either position, but it
does shorten the chronological distance between the arguments of both protagonists.
Month X {1T1.AB/Tebetu)
It is unfortunate that lines 19 and 20 are not better preserved, since Tebetu was a month dedicated to celebrat
ing the lives of past kings, and the amounts for line 19 suggest an event of some importance.132 It is unclear which
month was written in line 20, the traces fit either AB or ZIZ.
4. CBS 11536
(36 x 45 x 19 mm)
obv.
1. r8*3 UDU.NITA KIN.SIG LUGAL ra3-ki-tum rKALDINGIR.RA
2. rsan is-rftp za-ra-at EDIN id-du-u
3. 2 OJDULNlTA KIN.SIG KA.DINGIR.R A
4. 14 UDU.NITA DUMU mI-H-is-man-ni
5. ki-mu UDU MAR.TU
edge 6. 10 UDU.NITA F. mSIG.- dIM
rev. 7. PAP 34 UDU.NITA
8. mDINGIR-SUM-na
9. i t i .d u 6.k u b a b b a r
10. rUDLl9.KAM
11. MU.12.KAM
1-2. 8 rams—food allotment of the king, akitu, Babylon—released from the desert tent.
3. 2 rams—food allotment. Babylon
4-5. 14 rams—son of Ili-ismanni, instead of the Amurru sheep (western sheep)
6. 10 rams—estate of Mudammiq-Adad
7. Total: 34 rams
8. Ilu-iddina
9-11. month Tasritu, day 19, year 12.
130. The evidence are tables assigning different qualities of beer, jars, and sometimes beer bread: CBS 2127: 3, 2236: 1; N 1888: 6'; Ni. 797:
3 and 6750: 3. See J. S. Tenney Uruk and Southern Mesopotamia under the Kassite Kings” (in press) for partial transliterations of some of
these texts.
131. B. Landsberger, “Jahreszeiten im Sumerisch-Akkadischen,” JNES 8 (1949) 274 n. 72 and Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 114
132. Ibid., 117-18.
Commentary
2. rsa11 istu zarat seri iddu. Animals were pastured in the steppe in certain seasons. A hint of what might be the
lower winkelhaken of a sa is visible in this heavily abraded part of the text. The line is translated as passive, but the
verb is active and lacks specified subject (3 sg. or 3 pi. subjunctive: they/he released, let loose). If there was no sa,
then translate the line as “after they abandoned the desert tents,” suggesting ritual practice for a nomadic group,
when the flocks returned from upland grazing grounds.133 Za-ra-at seri-. alternative orthography—usually written
za-rat. See RGTC 5: 281-82, noting PBS 2/2 63:25 (an inventory of cowhide objects issued, year 12), also cf. CAD
Z sub voce.
3. Perhaps a shortened version of the entry of line 1 with animals pastured in another location.
4-5. UDU MAR.TU. The same adjectival designation is applied to a ewe in BE 14: 117b, 10 and to donkeys in
BBSt 7 I 17-18, YOS 1: 37 ii 7' (both Isin II kudurrus), and to sheep in general in the unpublished texts Ni. 11230:
13 (DUB.2.KAM, year 10) and 11325: 1 (Kadasman-Turgu, year 11).
9. Rare spelling of the seventh month, MSKH 1 (1976), 399.
5. Final Thoughts
During the High Kassite period, there was both a temple to Marduk and a celebration of the akitu of Marduk in
Nippur. This point in time also has provided the earliest, explicit reference of the akitu festival of Marduk from a
southern Mesopotamian city that is not Babylon.134There is likewise evidence of the Kassite king traveling to Nip
pur during or close to the day(s) when the festival was celebrated, which fits with our current understanding of the
first-millennium ritual in Babylon that required the presence of the monarch because it was a symbol of political
power and had broad repercussions for the welfare of the state.
Lambert proposed that the doctrine of an elevated Marduk cult coalesced around 1100 BCE, and that the foun
dation of this change was laid earlier.135 He claimed that the Kassite kings were the first to undermine the role of
Enlil in appointing rulers and that the city of Babylon took on its role as capital city at the same time. He left open
the possibility that some Marduk-Babylon literature was written near the end of the Kassite period and before the
133. Suggested by a JCS reviewer.

134. See note 60 for the sole, older text.
135. Sommerfeld came to much the same conclusion, pointing out how the Marduk cult grew in importance during Kassite rule (Der
Aufstieg Marduks, 173-74).
pivotal reign of Nebuchadnezzar I.136 Evidence also points to ancient religious practice at Nippur as a source for
certain characteristics of the elevated Marduk philosophy. This includes the transfer of the divine assembly and the
ancient Duku(g), where destinies were decreed, from Nippur to Babylon, a general denigration of Enlil in religious
and literary texts, combat literature involving the sea or a deluge,137 and the absorption of Enlil’s relatives into the
Marduk family tree: Ninlil as his wife and Nabus replacement of Ninurta as the primary gods influential son.
By the time the Kassite kings rose to power, Nippur and the Ekur had long been a place where ambitious Baby
lonian rulers had received divine blessing; and it makes sense that a festival signifying the celestial right of a single
king (and his divine counterpart, Marduk) to rule all of Babylonia would find a home in Nippur. If the akitu of
Babylon began as an agricultural or civic festival and acquired the trappings of politics later, as has been argued,
then one could further postulate that it and the Marduk cult acquired some of its symbolism in Nippur or with
Nippur’s cultic traditions in mind.138 Marduk’s rise from a minor god associated with exorcism to the head of the
Babylonian pantheon is dependent upon a patchy timeline of important literary, religious, and political events—
for example, Enuma elis, the akitu, Babylonian-Assyrian relations from the Kassite dynasty onwards, etc.—and all
of these elements should be viewed in light of the fact that as soon as Marduk is visible in the documentary record,
his cult had already begun accumulating political associations.139
CBS 10616 and 11536 are new pieces to be added to this narrative. They push important parts of the recon
structed timeline further into the past and show that many of the hallmarks of the later Marduk cult were present
at Nippur in the thirteenth century and operating separately and harmoniously with local traditions steeped in the
city’s Sumerian heritage. They could also be used to support the argument that a Marduk+Enlil syncretism was
present in Babylonia at the time the elevation of Marduk was enacted.
The revised picture offers up a number of questions for future consideration. Did the Kassite period akitu of
Marduk carry connotations of royal rule? What was the relationship between the Nippur akitu and the festival
we assume was being celebrated at Babylon? How strong is the evidence that the cults of Nippur were moved first
to Dur-Abi-Esuh then Babylon in the Late Old Babylonian period? Did the akitu of Marduk follow Enlil and his
divine family back to Nippur as the city was restored and reinvigorated under the Kassite kings?140 When did the
Marduk+Enlil syncretism take effect? How long did it survive, and how pervasive was its doctrine? Does CBS
10616, which indicates that the Marduk cult was integrated into the cultic supply system at Nippur, refute the idea
that there was an ideological or political struggle between the institutions of Enlil and Marduk in the late Kassite or
post-Kassite periods? Lastly, who or what was the agent responsible for the changes leading to the Marduk ideol
ogy that Lambert defined in 1964, further studied by Sommerfeld eighteen years later?
These texts belong to the small corpus of second-millennium documentary evidence illustrating active re
ligious practice in central and southern Babylonia in the centuries following the deurbanization and political
divestment after the reign of Samsuiluna. CBS 10616 in particular is a testament to the resiliency of religious
expression at Nippur after this cultic tumult and during the dramatic institutional shifts brought about by a newly
constituted Babylonian kingdom. It is therefore important to consider whether our assessment of Nippur’s place
in the post-Old Babylonian cultic development of southern Mesopotamia needs to be revised. The text’s mixture
of religious activity included ancient festivals, older events whose character had evolved (e.g„ Ninurta celebrations
during Ayaru), and previously unattested ceremonies. The mythology underlying these celebrations at Nippur was
recorded and analyzed by scholars in Babylon and Assur in the final century or two of the second millennium, and
136. It has also been dated to the later Kassite period (ibid. 180).
137. Possible western origins of the conflict narrative against the Sea found in Enuma elis are irrelevant here, since Ninurtas (Ningirsus)
exploits against the deluge, later the sea, are attested already in Gudea A (note 91), i.e., firmly entrenched in Babylonian mythology by the
Kassite period.
138. George, “E-sangil and E-temen-anki,” 83.
139. Lambert, Creation Myths, 251-74 and George, “Marduk and the Cult of the Gods of Nippur,” 68.
140. Pientka, Die Spataltbabylonische Zeit, 190-95.
expositions and compilations of similar cultic practices at Nippur carried on well into the Late Babylonian period.
The dates of original compositions of some of these copies are important because they may have occurred in the
context of the later Kassite period. Moving beyond Babylonia’s northern border, we have uncovered evidence to
be added to the growing body of scholarship confronting the mechanisms by which scholarly works and other
elements of Babylonian culture were transmitted to Assyria in the second millennium . 141 Because some of these
cultural components bear strong similarities to or can claim direct descent from the intellectual and religious
traditions of Nippur specifically, they raise the likelihood that the traces of southern religious knowledge found in
Assyria should not be solely attributed to the conquest of the city of Marduk by Middle Assyrian rulers . 142
Since religious change in Babylonia was never complete and never progressing towards a final goal, it would
be simplistic to argue that Nippur under the Kassites represented a type of mid-point or bridge between early and
late Mesopotamian “religion.” Cult at Nippur was always a negotiation inside a complex and malleable cultural
landscape, a milieu that included local prehistoric and Sumerian traditions important to the general populace and
outside ideologies connected to political ambition. For centralizing authorities, both inside and outside the bor
ders of Babylonia, its myths, festivals, calendar, and cultic geography maintained their symbolic value well into the
Late Bronze Age. As Babylonian scholars created new ways of memorializing existing religious thought, they may
have caused the death of some classic expressions of the ancient traditions they revered. 143
141. Summarized in Michalowski, “Literary Journeys,” in press.

142. An important parallel can be found in S. M. Mauls study of Su’ilas (“Marduk, Nabu und der assyriche Enlil: Die Geschichte eines
sumerischen Su’ilas,” in Festschriftfu r Rykle Borgerzu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Mai 1994. CM 10 (Groningen: Styx, 1998), 159-97.
143. Specifically the Sumerian temple hymn (George, Topographical Texts, 1-4).
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Jonathan S. Tenney (Cornell University)

153 ICS 68 (2016)

2. New Evidence from the Kassite Period

25. See discussion for obv. 16'.

Nippur is the city of Enlil; Babylon is his favorite.

Fortification Walls of Nippur = Imgur-Marduk and Nimit-Marduk

3. The Offering List CBS 106 1643

7 PAP 3P 3B 6S 3P UD.l.KAM UD.7.KAM UD.15.KAM sa 12 [PIT ]

1' [...] '6 '1 rW [ —] [...] [...]

1 15 liters 84 '841 [...] 'Dumuzu1: prayer/offering of Sirius

16 15 liters ditto, rday 18b ressesu-feast/offerings1

17 10 10 2 ditto, day r19?1: Temple o f [X]

18 40 40 2 rKislImu,1 day r44 rX1[...]

Ordinary Disbursals (Obv 1'—10')

Extraordinary Disbursals (Obv. ll'-E n d )

Month II (YI\.G\J J Ayaru)

73. RIMA 1 A.0.78.28.

91. Here I am referring to OECT 11: 69+70 (George, ZA 80 [1990] 157-58)

Month III (ni.SIGJSimdnu)

Month VII (ITl.D U J Tasritu)

Month VIII (ITI.APIN/Arahsamnu)

133. Suggested by a JCS reviewer.

141. Summarized in Michalowski, “Literary Journeys,” in press.

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