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Neo-Babylonian Fragments from Harran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

H. W. F. Saggs
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Extract

The occasion of the seventy-fifth birthday of Professor Emeritus C. J. Gadd provides a welcome opportunity to add a humble footnote to one of the pages of his life's work.

In 1958 Professor Gadd published his model edition of the Harran inscriptions of Nabonidus, discovered in 1956 by the late Professor D. S. Rice whilst examining the ruined Great Mosque at Harran. Professor Gadd agreed with Rice and others that the find-place of the three stelae H 1 B, H 2 A and H 2 B disposed of any doubt which might ever have arisen, on the basis of Pognon's discovery of the related stela H 1 A at Eski Harran, as to the correctness of the traditional identification of Islamic Harran with the ancient city of that name.

Whilst the site of the ancient city of Harran is not seriously questioned, the position is otherwise with the site of the main temple associated with it, É.ḪÚL.ḪÚL. Although there is a tradition that the Great Mosque at Harran was built on the site of a pagan temple, it does not necessarily follow that it was built above É.ḪÚL.ḪÚL or its Sabian successor, since classical and Islamic reports indicate that there was more than one moon temple in the neighbourhood of Harran, in addition to other sacred buildings. Equally, there is more than one site in the neighbourhood of Harran for which there is archaeological evidence that the worship of the Moon-God was practised there in antiquity. Whilst Eski Harran may now be disregarded, Aşagi Yarimca and Sultan Tepe both have good claims to the possession of an Assyrian temple.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1969 , pp. 166 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1969

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References

1 An St 8 (1958), 35–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Rice, D. S., ILN, 21 09 1957, 466.Google Scholar

3 Weidner, E. F., AfO 18 (1957–1958), 460.Google Scholar

4 An St 8 (1958), 36.Google Scholar

5 For tradition relating Islamic Harran to the god Sin, see Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition) III, 227.Google Scholar

6 See references in Chwolsohn, D., Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus (1856), I, 395ff.Google Scholar

7 See Lloyd, Seton and Brice, William, An St 1 (1951), 80Google Scholar, and C. J. Gadd, op. cit., 110.

8 See Lloyd, Seton and Gokçe, Nuri, An St 2 (1952), 32, 43Google Scholar; Lloyd, Seton, ILN 1 09 1951, 334Google Scholar; Gutney, O. R., Proceedings of the British Academy 41 (1955), 22.Google Scholar

9 Rice, D. S. indicated this conclusion in ILN 21 09 1957, 467.Google Scholar

10 It had been arranged that I was to be available as cuneiform epigraphist to Rice's expedition, remaining in London to deal with any minor epigraphic fragments sent to me in the form of squeezes. In the event of the discovery of any major cuneiform text I was to fly to Ankara.

11 The original squeezes were returned to Dr. Rice for use in connection with his report. He had intended to hand them back to me for publication.

12 Restoring either nūr or bēl ilāni ša.