Lagaba was a city in the historical region of southern
Mesopotamia (now southern
Iraq). It is the place of origin of many illicitly excavated
,
[Oded Tammuz, The location of Lagaba. Revue d'Assyriologie et d'Archeologie Orientale 90: 19-25, 1996. ([1])] all in Old Babylonian. More than 400 tablets are known to have originated there. Tablets from Lagaba are kept in various collections around the world, among which
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the Babylonian Collection at Yale University. Tablets from the Yale Babylonian Collection have been published by Gary Beckman in the Catalogue of the YBC
[Gary M. Beckman and Ulla Kasten, Old Babylonian Archival Texts in the Yale Babylonian Collection. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1999. ] and by Oded Tammuz[Oded Tammuz, Texts for Lagaba (Yale Oriental Series, Babylonian Texts). Yale University Press, 2000. (PhD thesis, Yale)][Oded Tammuz, Two small archives from Lagaba. Revue d'Assyriologie et d'Archeologie Orientale 90: 121-133 (1996)][Oded Tammuz, Archives from Lagaba. (Volumes I and II), PhD Thesis, Yale University, 1993] of Ben Gurion University many dated to the reign of Samsuiluna,
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the Böhl Collection at The Netherlands Institute for the Near East
[W.F. Leemans, Ishtar of Lagaba and her Dress, Studia ad Tabulas Cuneiformes Collectas a F.M.Th. de Liagre Bohl Pertinentia I (1). Leiden: The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 1952.][W.F. Leemans, Legal and Administrative Documents of the Time of Hammurabi and Samsuiluna (Mainly from Lagaba), Studia ad Tabulas Cuneiformes Collectas a F.M.Th. de Liagre Bohl Pertinentia I (3). Leiden: The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 1960.] at Leiden University,
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the Ashmolean Museum
[Stephanie Dalley, Old Babylonian Texts in the Ashmolean Museum. Mainly from Larsa, Sippir, Kish, and Lagaba. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. ] in Oxford,
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various others.
[Luis R. Siddall, Wayne Horowitz and Peter Zilberg, Old Babylonian clay bullae from Lagaba in the Australian Institute of Archaeology and other collections. Buried History. Journal of the Australian Institute of Archaeology 54 (2018), 11-14.][[2]Antoine Jacquet, Denis Lacambre, "New etiquettes from Lagaba concerning beer and by-products, and the placement of the year MU GIBIL", Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires, fascicule 1, pp. 23-27, 2020]
Most of the known Lagaba tablets are from the Old Babylonian period.[Barberon, L., "Les religieuses et le culte de Marduk dans le royaume de Babylone", ARCHIBAB 1. Paris: Sepoa, 2012] In the time of Sumu-la-El (c. 1880-1845 BC), ruler of the First Babylonian empire, the ruler of Lagaba was Mutumme-El.[Rients de Boer, "Beginnings of Old Babylonian Babylon: Sumu-Abum and Sumu-La-El", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 70, pp. 53–86, 2018] After a long period of control by Babylon the year names of the next to last ruler of that empire Samsu-iluna (c. 1750-1712 BC) ceased to be used in Lagaba in his year 30 suggesting that city, like others in the empire, had gained independence.[Clayden, Tim, "Ur in the Kassite Period", Babylonia under the Sealand and Kassite Dynasties, edited by Susanne Paulus and Tim Clayden, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 88-124, 2020][Boivin, Odette, "A political history of the Sealand kingdom", The First Dynasty of the Sealand in Mesopotamia, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 86-125, 2018]
The tutelary god of Lagaba was Ishtar of Lagaba (Lagabītum, Bēlet-Lagaba, "Lady of Lagaba") though other gods were also worshiped there including Nabu and Laṣ.[George, Andrew R., "House most high: the temples of ancient Mesopotamia", Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1993 ]
Location
The precise location of Lagaba is unknown to this day. The first thorough investigation into the location of Lagaba was undertaken by Leemans, on the basis of tablets kept in Leiden, suggesting that Lagaba lay on a waterway (possibly the
Shatt en-Nil canal) between
Babylon and
Kutha in the vicinity of Kutha.
By reviewing a tablet from Lagaba kept in Yale, Tammuz in 1996 concluded it to be 15 km North-north-east of the city of
Babylon, on the western bank of the
Euphrates River.
See also
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Cities of the ancient Near East
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List of Mesopotamian deities
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Epithets of Inanna
Further reading
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R. Frankena, "Einige Bemerkungen zu den Hauptpersonen der Lagaba-Tafeln", in Symbolae Biblicae et Mesopotami-cae Francisco Mario Theodoro de Liagre Böhl Dedicatae.Leiden: Brill, pp. 149–60, 1973
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Frankena, R., "Kommentar zu den altabylonischen Briefen aus Lagaba und anderen Orten", Leiden, 1978
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Hamawandi, Aram Jalal Hassan, "Loan Contracts from City of Lagaba from Old Babylonian period", Athar Alrafedain 5.1, pp. 269–288, 2020
