Adad-apla-iddina, typically inscribed in

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

^mdIM- DUMU.UŠ-SUM''-na'', ^mdIM-A-SUM''-na'' or ^dIM''-ap-lam-i-din-'' 'nam''meaning the storm god “Adad has given me an heir”, was the 8th king of the 2nd Dynasty of

Isin Isin (, modern Arabic language, Arabic: Ishan al-Bahriyat) is an archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq which was the location of the Ancient Near East city of Isin, occupied from the late 4th millennium Uruk period up until at ...

and the 4th Dynasty of

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 ...

and ruled 1064–1043. He was a contemporary of 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 King Aššur-bêl-kala and his reign was a golden age for scholarship.

Biography

Provenance

The broken obelisk of Aššur-bêl-kala relates that the Assyrians raided Babylonia, early in his reign: Depending on the exact synchronization of the Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies, this would have been shortly before, or at the very beginning of Adad-apla-iddina’s reign. His ancestor ''Esagil-Šaduni'' is named in the ''Synchronistic History''The ''Synchronistic History'' (ABC 21) column 2 lines 31 to 37. as his “father”, but he was actually ”a

son of a nobody In ancient Assyrian sources, the phrase "son of a nobody" ( ''mār lā mamman'') is used to indicate a king of disreputable origins. Usurpers, lowborns, immoral rulers, and foreign kings were all commonly referred to as a “son of a nobody”.Karl ...

,” i.e. without a royal parent. This chronicle recounts that he was appointed by the Assyrian king Aššur-bêl-kala, who took his daughter for a wife and “took her with a vast dowry to Assyria,” suggesting Babylon had become a vassal of Assyria. He names ''Nin-Duginna'' as his father in one of his own inscriptions, but this is indicative of divine provenance. Adad-apla-iddina who was “son” of Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, recorded in the Chronicle 24: 8The ''

Eclectic Chronicle The Eclectic Chronicle, referred to in earlier literature as the ''New Babylonian Chronicle'', is an ancient Mesopotamian account of the highlights of Babylonian history during the post- Kassite era prior to the 689 BC fall of the city of Babylon. ...

'' (ABC 24) tablet, BM 27859, lines 8 to 11. and also duplicated in the ''Walker Chronicle''The ''Walker Chronicle'' (ABC 25), BM 27796. possibly meaning a descendant of the early 2nd Dynasty of Isin king, by a collateral line, or speculatively the aforementioned father of Kadašman-Buriaš. His reign was apparently marked by an invasion of

Arameans The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered c ...

led by a usurper. “ Der, Dur-Anki (

Nippur Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory'': Vol. 1, Part 1, Ca ...

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 ...

, Parsa (Dur-Kurigalzu) they demolished. The Suteans attacked and the booty of Sumer and Akkad they took home.” These attacks were confirmed in an inscription of a later king of the following dynasty, Simbar-šihu, which relates The ''Epic of the plague-god Erra'', a politico-religious composition from the time of Nabu-apla-iddina, 886-853 BC, which endeavors to provide a theological explanation for the resurgence of Babylonia following years of paralysis, begins its tale of distress with the reign of Adad-apla-iddina. The god Erra, whose name means “scorched (earth),” is accompanied by Išum, "fire," and disease-causing demons called Sibitti.

Period scholarship

His reign was celebrated in the first millennium BCE as a golden age for scholarship and he appears twice in the Uruk ''List of Sages and Scholars''W 20030,7:17 the Seleucid ''List of Sages and Scholars,'' recovered from Anu’s Bīt Rēš temple during the 1959/60 excavation. alongside Šaggil-kīnam-ubbib and Esagil-kin-apli. The ''Babylonian Theodicy'' was attributed to the scholar Šaggil-kīnam-ubbib and believed to have been composed during his reign according to a later literary catalogue.K. 10802 r 2. It is a dialogue where the protagonist bemoans the state of contemporary social justice and his friend reconciles this with theology. Originally with 27 stanzas each of 11 lines, an acrostic has been restored which reads, “I, Šaggil-kīnam-ubbib, the incantation priest, am adorant of the god and the king.” It is extant in multiple copies from the

Library of Ashurbanipal The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BCE, including texts in ...

in Nineveh, Assur, Babylon, and Sippur. His career was believed to have spanned the reigns of Nabū-kudurri-uṣur to Adad-apla-iddina, or five reigns if the latter king’s name can be restored in context. Esagil-kin-apli, the ''ummânu'' (chief scholar) and a “prominent citizen” of

Borsippa Borsippa (Sumerian language, Sumerian: BAD.SI.(A).AB.BAKI or Birs Nimrud, having been identified with Nimrod) is an archeological site in Babylon Governorate, Iraq, built on both sides of a lake about southwest of Babylon on the east bank of th ...

, gathered together the many extant tablets of diagnostic omens and produced the edition that became the received text of the first millennium.Tablets BM 41237, 46607 and 47163 and ND (Nimrud excavation numbers) 4358+4366 in the British Museum. In the introduction he warned, “Do not neglect your knowledge! He who does not attain(?) knowledge must not speak aloud the SA.GIG omens, nor must he pronounce out loud Alamdimmû SA.GIG (concerns) all diseases and all (forms of) distress.” Referred to as SA.GIG, the omen series continued on a series of 40 tablets grouped under six chapters. He may also have been responsible for editing other physiognomic omen works including the Alamdimmû, Nigdimdimmû, Kataduggû, Šumma Sinništu, and Šumma Liptu. There is also a late copy of an astrological text originally dated to his eleventh year.Tablet K. 6156 + 6141 + 6148 + 9108.

Contemporary evidence

He rebuilt extensively, including the Imgur-Enlil, city wall of Babylon, which had collapsed from old age according to a cylinder inscription, and the Nīmit-Marduk, rampart of the wall of Nippur, commemorated on a cone. He made a votive offering of an engraved gold belt to the statue of Nabû at the E-zida temple at

.BM 79503 clay tablet copy of inscription by Arad-Gula during the reign of

Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (, also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the S ...

. The ramp leading up to the temple of Nin-ezena in

bears his inscriptions recording his repairs. In

Larsa Larsa (, read ''Larsamki''), also referred to as Larancha/Laranchon (Gk. Λαραγχων) by Berossus, Berossos and connected with the biblical Arioch, Ellasar, was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the Cult (religious pra ...

, he repaired the Ebabbar temple and in Kiš he reconstructed the Emete’ursag for

Zababa Zababa (, ''dza-ba4-ba4'', ) was a Mesopotamian god. He was the tutelary deity of the city of Kish and was regarded as a god of war. He was initially seen as a son of Enlil, though in Assyria during the reign of Sennacherib, he started to be ...

. Stamped bricks witness his construction efforts in BabylonBrick, Bab. 59431. and to the great Nanna courtyard and in the pavement against the northeast face of the ziggurat at Ur.Bricks, BM 116989 and CBS 16482. There are seven extant economic textsTablets: L74.100 (administrative, 5th year), UM 29-15-598 (legal 5th or 15th year), N 4512 (legal, 8th year), HS 156 no. 8.2.8 (economic 10th year), CBS 8074 (economic 13th year), NBC 11468 (grain account, 18th year), and NBC 11469 (grain account, 19th year). ranging in date from his fifth to his nineteenth year. A stone tablet records a legal transaction and is dated to his first year.Stone tablet, VA 5937. A fragment of 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 ...

Fragment of basalt boundary-stone, BM 90940. records his gift of an estate to Mušallimu and anotherFragment of limestone tablet, BM 103215. records a deed of land to Marduk-akhu- ... . He may well have connived to replace Aššur-bêl-kala’s son and successor,

Eriba-Adad II Erība-Adad II, inscribed mSU-dIM, “Adad has replaced,” was the king of Assyria 1056/55–1054 BC, the 94th to appear on the ''Assyrian Kinglist''.''SDAS Kinglist'', iii 31.''Nassouhi Kinglist'', iv 12. He was the son of Aššur-bēl-kala whom ...

Biography

Provenance

Period scholarship

Contemporary evidence

Inscriptions

Notes

References