Near East Kingdoms

Mashkan-Shapir (City) (Sumer)

Mesopotamian States & Groups Canaanite States & Groups Islamic Empire Israelites & Israel Ancient Mesopotamia (Intro) Rome Syrian States & Groups

The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture. It developed out of the end of the Pottery Neolithic across the Fertile Crescent, a period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices spread far and wide across the Near East and beyond.

As irrigation improved so the more southerly reaches of the Euphrates could at last be occupied by humans and their animals. Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement, initially in the form of pastoralists but soon as farmers too. Cultures around the edges of this progression included the Hassuna and Samarra which began this settlement process, and perhaps elements of the Hissar culture in the Iranian highlands were also involved.

By the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer was divided into approximately a dozen city states which were independent of one another and which used local canals and boundary stones to mark their borders. Many early historical events in the region are found only in the Sumerian king list, which notates the rulers of the city states (and see feature link), but archaeology has also uncovered a wealth of detail.

The city of Mashkan-Shapir (Maškan-šāpir) is now better known as the archaeological site of Tell Abu Duwari in Iraq's Al Qadisyah governorate. That site name is in general use in academic works, although the locals may also (or alternatively) know it either as Ishan Chebir or Tell Naim.

It was located about thirty kilometres to the north of Nippur, around one hundred and forty kilometres to the south-east of Baghdad, and twenty kilometres to the south of Malgium. Given its fairly brief heyday as an important city, its main tell or mound is rarely above two metres high, and never exceeds five metres even at its highest point.

The city's chief god was Nergal, with the temple of Meslam being dedicated to him. Close to the city are the remains of a large watercourse which is thought to be an ancient bed of the Tigris or Euphrates which has since changed its path.

Principal author(s): Page created: Page last updated:

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City, Gwendolyn Leick (Penguin Books, 2001), from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, Peter Bellwood (Second Ed, Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC, Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from The Archaeology of Mesopotamia, S Lloyd (Revised Ed, London, 1984), from Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History, J N Postgate (Routledge, 1994), from History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), from Mesopotamia, Chris Scarre (Ed, Past Worlds - The Times Atlas of Archaeology, Guild Publishing, London 1989), and from External Links: Ancient Worlds, and Ancient History, Anthony Michael Love ('List 3' of Sumerian rulers at Sarissa.org), and Images from History (University of Alabama), and Mashkan-shapir and the Anatomy of an Old Babylonian City, Elizabeth C Stone & Paul Zimansky (The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol 55, No 4, Dec 1992, pp 212-218, and available via JSTOR).)

c.3900 BC

As early as 8000 BC, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, small clay tokens of various distinctive shapes are evidently being used by Near Eastern farmers to keep an inventory of their commodities.

A cylinder seal from the Uruk IV period, dated about 3500-3100 BC, depicting a bear or lion attacking buffaloes, with an attendant hero also depicted in the field

This already-ancient system is greatly expanded during the Uruk IV period which begins around 3900 BC (or 3800 BC according to some) to succeed the Ubaid culture. By this time the settlement of Mashkan-Shapir has already been occupied and expanded in the lead-up to true urbanisation.

The ancient Sumerian religious centre of Eridu - already a millennium old - is gradually surpassed in size by the nearby city of Uruk. Metalwork also appears, marking the beginning of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) and the fading of the stone age period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices transform human lives between about 10,000-4000 BC.

c.1930s BC

The obscure early king of Larsa, Zabaya, is little-mentioned in the historical record, but he does appear to establish (or confirm) Larsa's relations with and potential early dominance of Mashkan-Shapir, a city which soon becomes key to Larsa's battle of dominance with Isin. A broken clay cone which carries his inscription is later found by archaeologists.

Some of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became the complex Sumerian network of cities and canals (click or tap on map to view full sized)

c.1840s BC

Sin-iddinam is well-known for his building activities in the Ebabbar shrine at Larsa. His military activities include building new city walls around Mashkan-Shapir and the conquest of the town of Ibrat on the Tigris, possibly to be located near today's Kut el-Amara.

An inscribed barrel cylinder which is found in the archaeological remains state that Sin-iddinam leads a degree of expansion at Mashkan-Shapir, erecting city walls on fresh ground and naming that wall after the underworld god Nergal: 'Nergal destroys the enemy lands for me'.

Occupation dwellings are expanded, seemingly more than at any time previously, and the canal which flows through the city is excavated and improved (or is built from scratch - the text is unclear on this, and the latter seems more likely).

Smaller finds from the site of ancient Mashkan-Shapir have included eleven cylinder seals, several stone pendants, typical burial goods, weaponry artefacts, model chariots with a connection to Nergal, and a clay cone of the little-known Larsa ruler, Zabaya

c.1822 BC

Rim-Sin of Larsa enjoys the longest reign of any king in ancient Mesopotamian history, totalling sixty years. At the start of his reign his family control a stretch of southern Mesopotamia which reaches from Nippur and Mashkan-Shapir in the north to the head of the Persian Gulf in the south to include Ur.

c.1763 BC

Now an old man, Rim-Sin is attacked by Hammurabi's growing Babylonian empire for his failure to provide any real assistance in the allied effort to beat back the growing threat of the powerful Elamites.

Given Rim-Sin's ancestry perhaps the lack of support should not have been a surprise. After successfully besieging Mashkan-Shapir, Hammurabi now controls Larsa and most of southern and central Mesopotamia. Mashkan-Shapir, however, now loses its strategic importance.

Babylon began life as a modest town which had been seized from Kazallu, but was quickly fortified by the building of a city wall in the nineteenth century BC

c.1728/27 BC

Samsu-Illuna sacks Apum, destroying the thriving city at the core of this state. By the later years of his reign, though, Samsu-Iluna controls little more territory than his immediate ancestors had started out with.

Mesopotamia is again in decline, with cities being abandoned and a general retrenchment taking place. Mashkan-Shapir is one notable victim of this decline, being abandoned around this time and never again to be fully reoccupied, although a Parthian settlement is set up here in the very late first millennium BC.