Eridu
 
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Iraq map |
Eridu ( Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script ?? , Sumerian NUN KI ; Arabic إريدو, DMG Irīdū , today:تل أبو شهرين, DMG Tall Abū Šahrain ) was one of the oldest, probably even the oldest Sumerian city. It is located in southern Mesopotamia under Tell Abu-Schahrein in what is now southern Iraq .
According to Sumerian myth , it is the place where the story began. In the Sumerian king list , Eridu is mentioned as the city of the first (mythical) kings Alulim and Alalgar . It belongs without a doubt to the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution , which resulted in a chain of city foundations. In contrast to the earlier places like Jericho or Çatalhöyük , it was the starting point of a civilization, the first city worthy of the name.
Their village precursors go back to the pre-Sumerian period up to the 6th millennium BC. BC back. Of the Sumerian cities that always developed around a temple complex, Eridu was the southernmost, about 11 km southwest of Ur on a foothill of the Persian Gulf . Their typical pottery, the Eridu ware , was widespread along the Persian Gulf. Eridu was cut off from the Persian Gulf by silting up and abandoned in the first or even in the second millennium before the new era.
Eridu housed, which shows its special position among the cities, the main sanctuary of Enki , the Sumerian god of (sweet) water and the creative spirit. In addition to the sky god An ( Uruk ) and the wind god Enlil ( Nippur ), he belongs to the highest Sumerian god triad.
In 1940 excavations took place in Tell Abu-Schahrein , the hill of ruins of Eridu.
The archaeological sites of Eridu, along with those of Ur and Uruk and marshland areas in southern Iraq, are UNESCO World Heritage sites .
See also
literature
- Eckhard Unger : Eridu . In: Dietz-Otto Edzard (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Frontasiatischen Aräologie (RIA) . Volume 2: Ber – Ezur and Supplements . de Gruyter, Berlin 1938 (reprint 1978), ISBN 3-11-004450-1 , pp. 464-470.
Individual evidence
- ↑ For the type of landscape, see the settlement area of the Marsh Arabs around the Shatt al-Arab .
- ↑ Iraq World Heritage List (Eng.)
Coordinates: 30 ° 49 ' N , 46 ° 0' E