The Babylonian Connection

Sargonic Connections to Babel

There is a curious connection between the Sargonic dynasty and the later Babylonians, but it will take some pulling on a few threads to understand how they overlap. So far we have mostly excluded the phenomenon of building a Ziggurat from the achievements of Naram-Sin, or the wider Sargonids. Obviously, with Akkad lost, even if it did have a Ziggurat we wouldn’t know where it was located, but they don’t appear to mark as important parts of the Akkadian bureaucracy as they did for the Sumerians, Babylonians, or Assyrians.

However, despite lacking any defined Ziggurat built by these rulers - making the amalgamation of the Tower of Babylon story being from an earlier, or later ruler rather than the Sargonic dynasty - there were some lesser important Ziggurat structures constructed under their reign. One such Ziggurat was built in the city ‘Marad’ to a god named Lugal-Marada (tutelary deity of Marad) by a governor named Lipit-ilē who was actually the son of Naram-Sin.¹ Supposedly, he built a temple named “E-igi-kalama” translated as “House Which is the Eye of the Land” becoming the main temple for the city throughout later periods of occupation.² Now the city of this name is almost a dead give away since “Marad” in Hebrew “מרד” literally means “to rebel” syncing up this city's importance to the story of Ni-Marad.

According to the text, which states: “Naram-Sin, the mighty, king of the four quarters, victor in nine battles in one year: After he was victorious in those battles, he captured their three kings and brought (them) before the god Enlil, At that time, Lipit-ilē, his son, governor of Marad, built the temple of the god Lugalmarda at Marad. As for the one who removes this inscription, may the gods Samas and Lugalmarda tear out his foundation and destroy his progeny.”³

What is very interesting is this ‘warning’ appears to hold all the way until the Neo-Babylonian period under none other than the famed Nebuchadnezzer II circa 605-562 BCE. We learn from a text that he rebuilds the temple of Lugal-Madara: “At that time for Lugal-Marada, my lord, his temple which is in Marada, whose ancient foundation platform no former king had seen since the days of old, its ancient foundation platform I sought and beheld, and upon the platform of King Naram-Sin, my ancient ancestor, I fixed its foundations. I made an inscription with my name and put it therein.”⁴ What this text critically points to is that nearly 1500 years later, the Babylonians were still concerned with the legacy of the Sagonic dynasty and what that implied for their own legitimacy.

We need to unpack this thread because Nebuchadnezzar II is an important ruler, and in many ways the “final” Nimrod. He oversaw the most complex, and largest Mesopotamia Empire up to that period, despite his early reign actually being a military disaster with failure, after failure. However, this shifts perhaps when Nebuchadnezzar changes his strategy to be increasingly cruel. In Jeremiah 4:7 the bible even refers to Nebuchadnezzer as “משחית גוים” or translated “Destroyer of Nations”. Nebuchadnezzer II was even the king who renovated both the Esagila and the Etemenanki Ziggurat in Babylon! This Etemenanki is often called the Tower of Babel, with the so-called Tower of Babel stele actually depicting Nebuchadnezzar II and the Etemenanki in a single image.⁵

In an even stranger twist, the Babylon Chronicle actually claims Nebuchadnezzar's father Nabopolasser as “King of Akkad”.⁶ Digging into this, it appears Nabopolassar was extremely interested in the ancient past, and very knowledgeable in matters of history, actively working to connect his dynasty to the Sargonic dynasty. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar even uses that previously mentioned title “King of the Four Corners of the Earth” showing how much this dynasty valued their connection to the Sargonic, Akkadian past.⁷ Akkadian was in usage as a language, despite the city of Akkad having no relevance, due to its usage as a sort of lingua franca for the semitic Mesopotamians.

The nail in the coffin that brings this theory together is actually the successor of Nebuchadnezzar II, his son Nabu-shum-ukim.⁸ Rather, that was his name until he changed it to Amel-Marduk after becoming crown-prince in 566 BCE⁹ despite actually having an older brother!¹⁰ This elder son was similarly named Marduk-nadin-ahi¹¹ providing an explanation for the vast majority of those mysteriously compiled later Midrash from the Sefer HaYashar! If I were to put forward a theory, the supposed “Mardon” who died under “Nimrod” was actually in reference to that elder brother of Amel-Marduk who is claimed to have died. The existence of the second son, Amel-Marduk, explains stories attested to the “Evil Marduk” who actually becomes king himself - indeed there were two “Marduks: one who dies, and one who becomes king.

Quoting from Jewish tradition affirms this theory of connection between the Babylonians and Nimrods of the past that we have built out over the chapters: “Come and hear another challenge, as Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai said: What response did the Divine Voice answer to that wicked man, Nebuchadnezzar, when he said: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14)? A Divine Voice emerged and said to him: Wicked man, son of a wicked man, the disciple in corruption of Nimrod the wicked, who caused the entire world to rebel against Me during his reign by advising the generation of the dispersion to build a tower in order to fight the Hosts of Heaven, how many are the years of a person altogether? Seventy years, and if he is with strength, eighty years, as it is stated: “The days of our years are seventy years and with strength eighty years” (Psalms 90:10).”¹²

1. Clay, Albert T., "The Site of Marad", Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, vol. 17, no. 1-6, pp. 55-57, 1914

2. Dalley, Stephanie (1998) Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the flood, Gilgamesh, and others. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-283589-0 p324

3. Douglas Frayne, "Akkad", in Sargonic and Gutian Periods (2234-2113 BC), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 5-218, 1993 

4. Fārūk N. H. al- Rāwī (Q113780790), "Cuneiform Inscriptions in the Collections of the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester", Iraq, vol. 62, pp. 21–63, 2000

5. George 2011, pp. 153–154.

6. Ephʿal, Israel (2003). "Nebuchadnezzar the Warrior: Remarks on his Military Achievements". Israel Exploration Journal. 53 (2): 178–191.

7. Stevens, Kahtryn (2014). "The Antiochus Cylinder, Babylonian Scholarship and Seleucid Imperial Ideology" (PDF). The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 134: 66–88.

8. Weiershäuser, Frauke; Novotny, Jamie (2020). The Royal Inscriptions of Amēl-Marduk (561–560 BC), Neriglissar (559–556 BC), and Nabonidus (555–539 BC), Kings of Babylon (PDF). Eisenbrauns.

9. Popova, Olga (2015). "The Royal Family and its Territorial Implantation during the Neo-Babylonian Period". KASKAL. 12 (12): 401–410.

10. Abraham, Kathleen (2012). "A Unique Bilingual and Biliteral Artifact from the Time of Nebuchadnezzar II in the Moussaieff Private Collection". In Lubetski, Meir; Lubetski, Edith (eds.). New Inscriptions and Seals Relating to the Biblical World. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

11. Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (1998). "Ba'u-asītu and Kaššaya, Daughters of Nebuchadnezzar II". Orientalia. 67 (2): 173–201.

12. Pesachim 94a:13-94b:1