Editing Nippur (section)

===Akkadian, Ur III, and Old Babylonian periods===

[[File:Incised plaque, Nippur.jpg|thumb|Incised devotional plaque, Nippur.]]
[[File:Nippur vase of Lugalzagesi.jpg|thumb|The vase of [[Lugalzagesi]], found in Nippur.]]
Late in the 3rd millennium BC, Nippur was conquered and occupied by the rulers of [[Akkadian Empire|Akkad]], or Agade, and numerous votive objects of [[Sargon of Akkad|Sargon]], [[Rimush]], and [[Naram-Sin of Akkad|Naram-Sin]] testify to the veneration in which they also held this sanctuary. Naram-Sin rebuilt both the [[Ekur]] temple and the 17.5 meter wide city walls. One of the few instances of Nippur being recorded as having its own ruler comes from a tablet depicting a revolt of several Mesopotamian cities against Naram-Sin, including Nippur under ''Amar-enlila''. The tablet goes on to relate that Naram-Sin defeated these rebel cities in nine battles, and brought them back under his control. The Weidner tablet (ABC 19) suggests that the Akkadian Empire fell as divine retribution, because of Sargon's initiating the transfer of "holy city" status from Nippur to Babylon.

[[File:Hammurabi's Babylonia 1.svg|300px|left|thumb|[[Babylonia]] in the time of [[Hammurabi]].]]
This Akkadian occupation was succeeded by occupation during the [[Ur-III|third dynasty of Ur]], and the constructions of [[Ur-Nammu]], the great builder of temples, are superimposed immediately upon those of Naram-Sin. Ur-Nammu gave the temple its final characteristic form. Partly razing the constructions of his predecessors, he erected a terrace of bricks, some 12&nbsp;m high, covering a space of about 32,000&nbsp;m{{sup|2}}. Near the northwestern edge, towards the western corner, he built a [[ziggurat]] of three stages of dry brick, faced with kiln-fired bricks laid in bitumen. On the summit stood, as at Ur and Eridu, a small chamber, the special shrine or abode of the god. Access to the stages of the ziggurat, from the court beneath, was by an inclined plane on the south-east side. To the north-east of the ziggurat stood, apparently, the House of Bel, and in the courts below the ziggurat stood various other buildings, shrines, treasure chambers, and the like. The whole structure was oriented with the corners toward the cardinal points of the compass.

Ur-Nammu also rebuilt the walls of the city on the line of Naram-Sin's walls. The restoration of the general features of the temple of this, and the immediately succeeding periods, has been greatly facilitated by the discovery of a sketch map on a fragment of a [[clay tablet]]. This sketch map represents a quarter of the city to the east of the [[Shatt en-Nil|Shatt-en-Nil]] canal. This quarter was enclosed within its own walls, a city within a city, forming an irregular square, with sides roughly 820&nbsp;m long, separated from the other quarters, and from the country to the north and east, by canals on all sides, with broad quays along the walls. A smaller canal divided this quarter of the city itself into two parts. In the south-eastern part, in the middle of its southeast side, stood the temple, while in the northwest part, along the Shatt-en-Nil, two great storehouses are indicated. The temple proper, according to this plan, consisted of an outer and inner court, each covering approximately {{cvt|8|acres|m2}}, surrounded by double walls, with a ziggurat on the north-western edge of the latter.

Ur III ruler [[Shu-Sin]], after destroying [[Šimānum]], as noted in a year name, settled the prisoners of that war near Nippur he founded called Šimānum (sometimes called E-Šu-Suen). This practice for disposition of prisoners continued into the first millennium.<ref>Steinkeller, Piotr, "Corvée Labor in Ur III Times", From the 21st Century B.C. to the 21st Century A.D.: Proceedings of the International Conference on Neo-Sumerian Studies Held in Madrid, 22–24 July 2010, edited by Steven J. Garfinkle and Manuel Molina, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 347-424, 2013</ref>

The temple continued to be built upon or rebuilt by kings of various succeeding dynasties, as shown by bricks and votive objects bearing the inscriptions of the kings of various dynasties of Ur and [[Isin]]. It seems to have suffered severely in some manner at or about the time the [[Elamites]] invaded, as shown by broken fragments of statuary, votive vases, and the like, from that period. [[Rim-Sin I]], the king of [[Larsa]], styles himself "shepherd of the land of Nippur". With the establishment of the Babylonian empire, under [[Hammurabi]], early in the 2nd millennium BC, the religious, as well as the political center of influence, was transferred to Babylon, [[Marduk]] became lord of the pantheon, many of Enlil's attributes were transferred to him, and Ekur, Enlil's temple, was to some extent neglected.<ref>Jonathan S. Tenney, "The Elevation of Marduk Revisited: Festivals and Sacrifices at Nippur during the High Kassite Period", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 68, pp. 153–80, 2016</ref>

The city was taken by Ilī-ma-ilu, the first ruler of the [[First Sealand dynasty]] in about the 29th year of the reign of Samsu-iluna, ruler of Babylon. It was retaken by Abī-ešuḫ by his 5th year, after he damned the Tigris river.<ref>Béranger, Marine, "Dur-Abi-ešuh and the Abandonment of Nippur During the Late Old Babylonian Period: A Historical Survey", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 75.1, pp. 27-47, 2023</ref><ref>Boivin, Odette, "A political history of the Sealand kingdom", The First Dynasty of the Sealand in Mesopotamia, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 86-125, 2018</ref>