Tummal

Tummal (Tum-ma-al^ki or Tum-al^ki) was an ancient Near East cult site of the goddess Ninlil, as Egi-Tummal (Lady of Tummal), currently unlocated but known to be in the vicinity of Nippur and Drehem. E-Tummal (House of Tummal) (also E-kiur) was the temple to Ninlil located there.

History

Though it is known to have existed in the Akkadian Empire period though most of the records mentioning Tummal come from the Ur III period when it was site of the sacred marriage between Enlil and Ninlil. During the reign of Ur III ruler Shulgi, especially in years 35-37, large amount of construction occurred at Tummal, including of a royal palace and administrative buildings. The palace included funerary chapels for Ur-Nammu (e Tum-ma-al Ur-^dNamma) and his wife. Building materials came from as far away as Babylon, Kutha, and Adab. The ki-a-nag, or funerary offerings for Ur III ruler Ur-Nammu were carried out at Tummal. As his grave was not found in Ur this has sparked speculation he was buried in Tummal. In one Ur III text it was reported that workers from Umma performed "24,500 man-days, 67 full time years" of labor at Tummal. During the time of Amar-Sin and Shu-Sin a royal daughter, Seleppütum (A daughter of Amar-Sin or perhaps Shulgi) resided at Tummal.

Location

In the early days of archaeology it was believed that Tummal was merely the name of a sacred quarter in Nippur dedicated to Ninlil, it later became clear that Tummal was a city in its own right, though nothing prevents there from being such a named area in Nippur. Current thinking, yet unconfirmed, places it at the site of Dlehim.Steinkeller, P, "New light on the hydrology and topography of southern Babylonia in the third millennium", ZA 91, pp. 22–84, 2001

In Mesopotamia it was typical for gods (their cult statues) to go on "divine journeys" visiting their cult sites and being "greeted" by other gods along the way. It is known from itineraries of the divine journeys of the god Nanna-Suen that Tummal lay between Nippur and Shuruppak, 55 kilometers to the south, both cities on the Euphrates River.

Tummal Inscription

The Tummal Inscription, also known as the "History of the Tummal of Ninlil
at Nippur", is sometimes considered one of the Babylonian Chronicles. There are sixteen slightly differing copies have been found, 12 at Nippur, 3 at Ur, and 1 of unknown provenance. It was written in the time of the Ishbi-Erra (c. 2017—1986 BC), initial ruler of the Dynasty of Isin. The writing lists the names of the rulers that built the temples dedicated to ''Enlil'' within Nippur and temples of ''Ninlil'' in Tummal, amongst whom were the king of Kish, Enmebaragesi and his heir Aga of Kish.

The chronicle was written by two persons from Nippur and, most likely, Ur. A number of religious analyses of the inscriptions find evidence within the text for a claim of divine intervention.

The inscription was useful in the understanding of the archaeology and history of Gilgamesh.

It has been proposed that this text was "not a historical document, but quite simply a school concoction based primarily on the SKL and on the Nippur version of the lexical list Proto-Kagal".Michalowski, P., "The Strange History of Tumal", in Approaches to Sumerian Literature, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006

See also

*Cities of the ancient Near East
*Chronology of the ancient Near East

References

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Further reading

*Michalowski, Piotr, "The Strange History of Tummal", In Approaches to Sumerian Literature: Studies in Honor of Stip (H. L. J. Vanstiphout), edited by Piotr Michalowski and Niek Veldhuis, pp. 145–65. Leiden: Brill, 2006
*Oelsner, Joachim, "Aus den sumerischen literarischen Texten der Hilprecht-Sammlung Jena: Der Text der Tummal-Chronik", in Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien. Festschrift für Claus Wilcke. Ed. W. Sallaberger, K. Volk and A. Zgoll, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 209–224, 2003
*Oh’e, Setsuko, "An Agricultural Festival in Tummal in the Ur III Period", ASJ 8, pp. 121–132, 1986

External links

History of the Tummal transliteration and translation at CDLIHoward, J. Caleb, "Cuneiform Tablets in Collections at the University of Kansas", Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin 2020 (2), 2020

2nd-millennium BC literature
Sumerian art and architecture
Gilgamesh