The Adadnadinakhe bricks are a series of foundation bricks discovered at the

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...

ian city of

Girsu Girsu ( Sumerian ; cuneiform ) was a city of ancient Sumer, situated some northwest of Lagash, at the site of what is now Tell Telloh in Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq. As the religious center of the kingdom of Lagash, it contained significant temple ...

bearing the name "Adadnadinakhe" in bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscriptions. The bricks date back to 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 ...

– 300-100 BCE – whilst the name appears to match the name of a Babylonian king ( Ashur-nadin-ahhe I or

Ashur-nadin-ahhe II Ashur-nadin-ahhe II (''Aššur-nādin-aḫḫē II'')' was king of Assyria from 1400 to 1391 BC. Reign Preceded by Ashur-rim-nisheshu, he was succeeded by his brother, Eriba-Adad I. Ashur-nadin-ahhe is an Assyrian personal name meaning “ ...

) who ruled more than a

millennium A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting ...

beforehand. The first known brick was discovered in the 1880s, and the most recent in the 2020s. The Aramaic inscription is known as NE 446c and CIS II 72.CIS II 72
/ref> Early examples of the brick are displayed in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

and in the

Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin The Vorderasiatisches Museum (, ''Near East Museum'') is an archaeological museum in Berlin. It is in the basement of the south wing of the Pergamon Museum and has one of the world's largest collections of Southwest Asian art. 14 halls distrib ...

. In the Louvre, 21 examples from Girsu are known, in the series AO 29762–29782, of which AO 29762 is in room 230, AO 29775 is in room 310, and AO 29763 has been loaned to the Musée d'archéologie méditerranéenne in Marseille.

Name

The name "Adadnadinakhe" appears in multiple spellings in scholarly literature, including "Adad-nadin-ahhe", "Adad-nadin-akhe," "Adadnadinache," and "Adadnadinaché". These are transliterations of the Greek version, Αδαδναδιναχης, with the differences relating to various transliterations of the ending χης. The Aramaic spelling of the name on the inscription is הדדנדנאח.

Context

During the Selucid period in Babylonia, Greek was the primary language of administration whilst Aramaic was the primary local language The name "Adadnadinakhe" means "Adad, the giver of brothers." It is considered to be of Babylonian origin. One theory is that it was used to invoke the protection of the god Adad in the construction of various religious and public buildings.

Locations

The Adadnadinakhe bricks were discovered in

(modern Telloh), including in the

E-ninnu The E-ninnu 𒂍𒐐 (House of 50) was the E (temple) to the warrior god Ningirsu in the Sumerian city of Girsu in southern Mesopotamia. Girsu was the religious centre of a state that was named Lagash after its most populous city, which lay 25& ...

temple. Some of the bricks were found alongside the well-known

Statues of Gudea Approximately twenty-seven statues of Gudea have been found in southern Mesopotamia. Gudea was a ruler (Ensí, ensi) of the state of Lagash between and 2124 BC, and the statues demonstrate a very sophisticated level of craftsmanship for that ...

William Hayes Ward William Hayes Ward (June 25, 1835 – August 28, 1916) was an American clergyman, editor, and Orientalist. Biography William Hayes Ward was born in Abington, Massachusetts on June 25, 1835. After attending Berwick Academy in Maine, adjacent ...

wrote of seeing the bricks at Ernest de Sarzec’s excavations in Girsu in 1885.

Possible explanations

They were typically located in the foundations of temples and other significant structures, similar to equivalent foundation bricks written 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 ...

throughout the region. The name "Adadnadinakhe" is consistently used, with the Aramaic always above the Greek, and with the same layout of the letters. Various theories have been advanced regarding their original use: * ceremonial contexts, such as a ritual or administrative practice, perhaps intended to reinforce the legitimacy and divine favor of the Seleucid rulers * consecration the buildings in which they were placed, ensuring divine protection and blessing * branding of a construction company In 2024, Sébastien Rey of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

's 2016-22 "Girsu Project", described their conclusions that the reason that the bricks were found among earlier artefacts is that Adadnadinakhe unearthed the statues of Gudea in order to add local legitimacy to his new Hellenistic shrine.

Bibliography

* * . * * * * Parrot, André (1948)
Tello; vingt campagnes de fouilles (1877-1933)

External links

References

{{reflist Aramaic inscriptions Greek inscriptions