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Located approximately 11 miles (app. 17 km) southwest of Babylon, this city was situated on the east bank of the Euphrates. In the northwest/west was a large lake, called tamtu ("the sea"); a branch ("the horn") stretched to the south, giving the city its name: Borsippa (sum. Badursiabba / akkad. Barzipa - Horn of the Sea). Other Akkadian names, mostly used in a religious context, were Tintir II kum-KI (Second Babylon), Kinnin or Kinunir (Place of the Fight). The modern name Birs Nimrud refers to the (most likely) mythodological king Nimrod.
This name identifies the site with both Nimrud and the ziggurat, the most notable feature remaining. What remains of it still stands 172 feet over the flat plain and, until recent times, has been falsely identified as the Tower of Babel.
It became an important religious center due largely in part to its close proximity to the capital. Hammurabi (reigned 1792-50 BCE) built or possibly rebuilt the Ezida temple and dedicated it to Marduk. Subsequent kings recognized Nabu, son of Marduk, as the patron god. Borsippa was never an independent kingdom, being instead a lesser, some say equal, city-state of Babylon so the worship of Marduk’s son as their patron is very appropriate.
The city prospered under Nebuchadrezzar II, reaching the zenith of its power during his reign. The ‘Borsippa inscription’, an inscription on Nebuchadrezzar II, tells how he restored ‘the temple of the seven spheres’ or the temple of Nabu, with ‘bricks of noble lapis lazul’. An inscribed foundation stone tells of his plan to have the his ziggurat built on the same plan as the one in Babylon and another inscription declared that it would reach the skies.
In the end, Borsippa met her demise when she was destroyed by Xerxes I in the fifth century BC.
First excavations around the ziggurat started in the 19th century and have continued ever since, expanding onto Borsippa and recently also to the Ezida temple and the city district. Excavations were largely hampered by the several Iraq wars but not entirely disrupted. The third Iraq war, however, caused severe damages to the site.
Main image courtesy of history-book.net, no rights reserved, altered in colour
Bull image in the masthead derived from the decoration of a lyre, 2250 BCE, Iraq Museum
Images, a wee bit of content and page design by Alal-Sin Malachus
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