The Nippur Region: From the “Heartland of the Cities” to a Rural Imperial Landscape?

Abstract

The region around Nippur was literally clustered with urban settlements until about the end of the first half of the 2nd Millennium BC, followed by a supposed depopulation at the turn to the 1st century BC. This development was not reversed until about the Neo-Babylonian period. Already Robert McCormick Adams pointed out that only during the latter period a reversing process began which culminated in a revitalization of the irrigation system during the Achaemenid period. The exceptionally good textual record is based mainly on the chance find of the so-called Murašû archive (454-405 BC) which derives from a single room of a private house at Nippur. It provides us with a vast amount of information concerning different groups of foreign origins, settled in a rural environment in the hinterland of the city. Here, the still understudied archaeological evidence within the study area during the Achaemenid period will be re- analyzed. Furthermore, an outlook on the upcoming project RuBab will be given.