Kesh was an ancient Sumerian city and religious site, whose patron goddess was

Ninhursag , deity_of=Mother goddess, goddess of fertility, mountains, and rulers , image= Mesopotamian - Cylinder Seal - Walters 42564 - Impression.jpg , caption= Akkadian cylinder seal impression depicting a vegetation goddess, possibly Ninhursag, sitti ...

. Its location is uncertain; some of the possible sites put forth include Al-Ubaid, near Ur, or

Tell al-Wilayah Tell al-Wilayah is an archaeological site in the Wasit Governorate of eastern Iraq. The site has now been completely destroyed by large scale looting. It is located around 20 km southwest of the modern city of Kut and 6 kilometers southwest ...

near Adab or

Abu Salabikh The low tells at Abu Salabikh, around northwest of the site of ancient Nippur in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq mark the site of a small Sumerian city state of the mid third millennium BCE, with cultural connections to the cities of Kish ...

though the consensus is now with Tell al-Wilayah. The city is known to near to and was under the control of the ancient city of

Irisaĝrig Irisaĝrig (also Urusagrig, Iri-Saĝrig, and Al-Šarrākī) was an ancient Near East city in Iraq whose location is not known with certainty but is currently thought to be at the site of Tell al-Wilayah, on the ancient Mama-šarrat canal off the Ti ...

. Kesh in mentioned on the

Bassetki Statue The Bassetki Statue is a monument from the Akkadian period (2350–2100 BCE)Dates according to the so-called Middle Chronology. in Mesopotamia. It was discovered in the 1974 during road construction near the site of the village Bassetki (located ...

of Naram-Sin.

Temple Hymn

There is a famous Kesh temple hymn about Ninhursag's temple in Kesh (hur-saĝ gal), where she is called Nintud. The goddess

Nisaba Nisaba was the Mesopotamian goddess of writing and grain. She is one of the oldest Sumerian deities attested in writing, and remained prominent through many periods of Mesopotamian history. She was commonly worshiped by scribes, and numerous Sume ...

appears as the temple's caretaker and decision maker.A cuneiform tablet fragment of the Kesh Temple Hymn (the longer version, a shorter version having been written by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon of Akkad) was found at Abu Salabikh.

Location

Robert D. Biggs Robert D. Biggs was Professor of Assyriology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He received his PhD at Johns Hopkins University in 1962. He was an editor of the ''Journal of Near Eastern Stud ...

suggested Kesh could have just been a variation in the spelling of

Kish Kish may refer to: Geography * Gishi, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, a village also called Kish * Kiş, Shaki, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality also spelled Kish * Kish Island, an Iranian island and a city in the Persian Gulf * Kish, Iran ...

.Biggs, Robert D., Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische, Archäologie , Volume 61 (2), de Gruyter – Jan 1, 1971 - Springerprotocols
/ref> From inscriptions it is known that Adab was on the Kesh Canal. More recently it has been suggested that Kesh is located at

Tulul al-Baqarat Tulul al-Baqarat or Tulūl al-Baqarāt, is an ancient Near East archaeological site in Wasit Governorate of Iraq. It is located seven kilometers to the northeast of Tell al-Wilayah (with which it was connected by an ancient canal) and 20 kilomete ...

.Viano, M. (2020): On the Location of Irisaĝrig Once Again, JCS 71, 35–52

Temple Hymn

Location

References

See also