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Updated: June 20, 2025
The great political and religious centers of Babylonia, such as Ur, Sippar, Agade, Eridu, Nippur, Uruk, perhaps also Lagash, and later on Babylon, formed the foci of literary activity, as they were the starting-points of commercial enterprise.
Innovations were limited to increasing the amounts of these regular sacrifices. So, for example, Nabubaliddin restores and increases the ginê of the great temple E-babbara at Sippar. But regular sacrifices do not necessarily involve daily offerings.
So one of these predecessors, Zabu, restores the temple of Shamash at Sippar, and that of Anunit at Agade. Hammurabi, besides his work at Sippar, builds a temple to Innanna at Hallabi. Babylon, however, is the beloved city of Marduk, and upon its beautification and improvement Hammurabi expends his chief energy.
In accordance with this conception, Nabubaliddin declares that it was through the wisdom of Ea that he succeeded in manufacturing the great image of Shamash that was set up by him in the temple at Sippar.
So at Sippar, sacred to Shamash, and where the king deposits a cylinder recording the improvements that he instigated in the city, he associates the sun-god with Marduk, whereas in contradistinction to the rulers of the old Babylonian cities or states, when addressing Marduk, he does not find it necessary to make mention at the same time of an entire pantheon.
In thus connecting their names with the various sacred edifices of Babylonia, the rulers emphasized, on the one hand, their control of the territory in which the building lay, and on the other, their allegiance to the deity of the place, whose protection and favor they sought to gain. The mention of a temple to Shamash at Sippar reverts to a still earlier period than that of its rival.
On Sippar, see Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, etc., 168-169, who finds in the Old Testament form "Sepharvayim" a trace of this double Sippar. Dr. Ward's suggestion, however, in regard to Anbar, as representing this 'second' Sippar, is erroneous. E.g., in Southern Arabia. See W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, I. 59.
Passing on, we find Hammurabi as strongly attached to the worship of the old sun-god as any of his predecessors. Next to Babylon, he was much concerned with making improvements in Sippar. The Temple of Shamash at Larsa also was improved and enlarged by him. Hammurabi's example is followed by his successors.
That among the Babylonians the seventh month also had a sacred character may be concluded from the meaning of the ideographs with which the name is written. The question may, therefore, be raised whether at an earlier period and in some religious center Nippur, Sippar, or perhaps Ur the seventh month may not have been celebrated as the Zagmuku.
Some of these were intended as a salute upon the sun's rising, others celebrated his setting. These hymns convey the impression of having been composed for the worship of the god in one of his great temples perhaps in E-babbara, at Sippar.
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