Temple of Aššur at Assur
temple · 2335 BC – 540 BC
From the second half of the third millennium BC until 614 BC, there was a temple in Assur dedicated to the city’s tutelary deity Aššur. The temple was excavated by W. Andrae in 1903–05 and 1909–12. The earliest and latest textual records for construction work on Aššur’s temple date respectively to the time of Šalim-aḫum, an early old Assyrian king, and the reign of Ashurbanipal (668–631 BC), Assyria’s last great king. According to the Middle Assyrian king Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC) and the Neo-Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon (680–669 BC), Ušpia, a tribal ancestor of the Old Assyrian king Šamšī-Adad I (ca. 1808–1776 BC), was the building’s founder. In 614 BC, when the city was captured by the Medes, the temple was destroyed.
- Coordinates
- 35.46032, 43.26274
- Also known as
- Eamkurkurra (sux), Ešarra (sux), Eḫursaggalkurkurra (sux), Eḫursagkurkurra (sux), Rīmum (akk), bīt Aššur (akk), bīt Enlil (akk)
- Dating
- attested
Sources
- Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places · CC BY 3.0Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places (CC BY 3.0)