Inanna Temple Excavation Site, Nippur, Iraq
Color photograph, 1960-61
Excavated by the Oriental Institute, 1955-62
Sm 2432

 

This photograph shows all of the layers excavated by archaeologists at an ancient Mesopotamian site that was sacred to the goddess Inanna for 3,000 years. At least 20 levels of this site in the city of Nippur, Iraq, contain the remains of numerous temples that were built to honor Inanna, the goddess of love and war. The most ancient of the temples are in the lower portion of the site, with successive temples to the goddess atop the crumbled remains of earlier structures.

Leveled over the centuries by rain, floods, and shifting sands, the mud brick cities and temples of Mesopotamia were buried, leaving only the shapeless mounds that still stand throughout Iraq today. Called "tells" - meaning "hills" in Arabic - these mounds remained largely untouched until European archaeologists began exploring them in the 1840s.

Scholars from the Oriental Institute have been excavating at Iraqi sites since 1903. One famous find came from a temple site at Tell Asmar, northeast of Baghdad, where Oriental Institute archaeologists unearthed a cache of statuettes dated to about 2500 B.C. Their hands clasped in prayer, these sculptures of Mesopotamian men and women worshipping their gods are a highlight of our museum's collection (see Religion section). Our most monumental finds have come from the ancient Mesopotamian site of Khorsabad (see Warfare & Empire section). A colossal human-headed winged bull and many huge reliefs from the palace of Sargon II will be permanently on view beginning in June of 2003.