Opis ( Akkadian ''Upî'' or ''Upija/Upiya''; ) was an ancient Near East city near the

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

, not far from modern

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

. The equivalence of Opis and Upi are now usually assumed but not yet proven. Early on it was thought that the ideogram for Upi might refer to Kesh or Akshak. Its location is not yet known with certainty though Tall al-Mujailāt has been proposed. That site has also been suggested as the location of the ancient city of Akshak.

Location

Akkadian and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

texts indicate that it was located on the east side of the Tigris, near the Diyala River. The precise site of the city has been uncertain for a long time, though at one point thought to be near or under the city of

Seleucia Seleucia (; ), also known as or or Seleucia ad Tigrim, was a major Mesopotamian city, located on the west bank of the Tigris River within the present-day Baghdad Governorate in Iraq. It was founded around 305 BC by Seleucus I Nicator as th ...

. The site of Tel Abir was also proposed as the location of Opis. Several texts suggest that Upi is in the same area as the city of Akkad, also unlocated, and in the area between

Sippar Sippar (Sumerian language, Sumerian: , Zimbir) (also Sippir or Sippara) was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its ''Tell (archaeology), tell'' is located at the site of modern Tell ...

and Eshnunna. Recent geographical surveys of ancient Mesopotamia tentatively identify Opis with the mound called Tall al-Mujailāt (also Tulūl al-Mujaili` or Tulūl Mujaili` or el-Mjel'aat), 20 miles southeast of the modern city of

, 15 kilometers north of ancient

Ctesiphon Ctesiphon ( ; , ''Tyspwn'' or ''Tysfwn''; ; , ; Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified July 28, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/58.) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern ba ...

, and 47 miles northeast of ancient

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

. The site has an extent of 500 meters by 200 meters with a maximum height of 6.5 meters above the plain. Surface material showed occupation from the Early Dynastic through the Neo-Babylonian periods.
dams, Robert M., "Land Behind Baghdad: A History of Settlement on the Diyala Plains", Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965 A

Kudurru A kudurru was a type of stone document used as a boundary stone and as a record of land grants to vassals by the Kassites and later dynasties in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 7th centuries BC. The original kudurru would typically be stor ...

dated to the 13th year of Second Dynasty of Isin ruler Marduk-nadin-ahhe (c. 1095–1078 BC) was found at Tulūl al-Mujaili`. It was recorded at "the city Opis". The land in question was part of the city of Dur-Sharrkin "Fortress of Sargon" (location unknown). Not to be confused with the much later Neo-Assyrian fortress.

History

A text from year 8 of Ur III ruler Shu-Sin (c. 2037–2028 BC) details a journey of 22 women from Eshnunna to Nippur and back via Upi with the Upi/Nippur leg in both directions being fully on water. A year name of the Old Babylonian ruler Apil-Sin (c. 1767 to 1749 BC) read "Year Apil-Sin built (the city wall of) Upi" (mu u2-pi2-e^ki a-pil-^den.zu ba-du3). Early in the reign of Old Babylon Empire ruler Hamurabi, grandson of Apil-Sin, after a conflict between Babylon, Mari, Eshnunna, and Elam resulted in Hamurabi being in control of the Upi area. A text from Mari showed diplomacy over that area's disposition: From a text it is known that the Kassite ruler Burna-Buriash II (c. 1359–1333 BC) held an audience in Upi. A

from the reign of Adad-apla-iddina (c. 1064–1043) excavated at Assur is dated at Opis. In one of annals of Neo-Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (705–681 BC) it states: Ancient near east 540 bc

The Neo-Babylonians dug the Nār-Šarri (later Nār-Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur) canal between the

Euphrates The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...

and the Tigris, which ended near Opis. The Neo-Babylonian king

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

(605–562 BC) built a long

wall A wall is a structure and a surface that defines an area; carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or serves a decorative purpose. There are various types of walls, including border barriers between countries, brick wal ...

between the two rivers to protect against a potential

Median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

invasion; the fortified line began at

and continued eastward beyond the Tigris and ended near Opis. In Nebuchadnezzar II year 40, 565 BC, a cuneiform document was written in Opis by a Judean trader, the first attestation of a Judean trader in Babylonia. In October 539 BC, the troops of the Babylonian king

Nabonidus Nabonidus (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-naʾid'', meaning "May Nabu be exalted" or "Nabu is praised") was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great in 53 ...

(556–539 BC) defended Opis against the

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

commanded by

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...

(559–530 BC). The Babylonians were defeated and the native population revolted against its government. Without further fighting, Cyrus captured Babylon. Opis was located near the Persian Royal Road, which connected the former

Elam Elam () was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of modern-day southern Iraq. The modern name ''Elam'' stems fr ...

ite capital

Susa Susa ( ) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh River, Karkheh and Dez River, Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital o ...

to the

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

n heartland around

Erbil Erbil (, ; , ), also called Hawler (, ), is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The city is the capital of the Erbil Governorate. Human settlement at Erbil may be dated back to the 5th millennium BC. At the h ...

and, further to the west, the

Lydia Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, ...

n capital

Sardis Sardis ( ) or Sardes ( ; Lydian language, Lydian: , romanized: ; ; ) was an ancient city best known as the capital of the Lydian Empire. After the fall of the Lydian Empire, it became the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Lydia (satrapy) ...

. It is known that at the time of Nabonidus the city had a Šangû-Upia (“High-Priest-of-Opis”). In September 331 BC, the

Macedon Macedonia ( ; , ), also called Macedon ( ), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal ...

ian king

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

(336–323 BC) defeated Darius III of Persia (336–330 BC) at the

Battle of Gaugamela The Battle of Gaugamela ( ; ), also called the Battle of Arbela (), took place in 331 BC between the forces of the Ancient Macedonian army, Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid Army, Persian Army under Darius III, ...

, and probably took possession of Opis about the same time as Babylon. A few years later, Alexander was forced by a mutiny at the Hyphasis (now Beas) River to return from the long campaign in India, and his European troops revolted again at Opis (autumn 324 BC). In an attempt to craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, he took an oath of unity before 9,000 Persian and Greek troops at Opis. In a similar vein, he had married Stateira (the daughter of Darius) and celebrated a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other Eastern noblewomen at Susa just before coming to Opis.Nagle, D. Brendan, "The Cultural Context of Alexander's Speech at Opis", Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 126, pp. 151-172, 1996 Seleukos I Nikator (306–281 BC), one of Alexander's

Diadochi The Diadochi were the rival generals, families, and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for control over his empire after his death in 323 BC. The Wars of the Diadochi mark the beginning of the Hellenistic period from the Mediterran ...

(Successors), founded the

Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great ...

and built his Mesopotamian capital Seleukeia west of the river Tigris, some southwest of Opis. The

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

city of Seleukeia rapidly eclipsed older Mesopotamian centers in the region like Babylon,

, and Opis. In the 2nd century BC, the

Parthian Empire The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power centered in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe ...

conquered the eastern provinces of the Seleucid Empire, including Seleukeia and Opis. Both cities were, in their turn, largely eclipsed by the emergence of the new Parthian (and subsequently Persian) capital Ktesiphon nearby, in-between Seleukeia and Opis.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Alexander the Great: the mutiny at Opis
Archaeological sites in Iraq Former populated places in Iraq

Location

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links