The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period

Boivin, Odette. 2026. The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period. The Archival Texts (Abhandlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 33). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period is the third volume of the ADOG sub-series named Babil and dedicated to the study of Babylon. It contains the edition of 86 texts uncovered during the excavations directed by Robert Koldewey and carried out between 1899 and 1917 by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in Babylon.

The cuneiform tablets presented in this volume are primarily everyday archival documents and were uncovered in the temple of Ištar-of-Akkad and east of it (in the northern Merkes area); they belong to the text groups N8 and N9 in O. Pedersén, Archive und Bibliotheken in Babylon, ADOG 25 published in 2005. The texts are dated to the period between the mid-7th and the 5th centuries BCE. They provide information about the individuals and families who had connections to the temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon or were within its sphere of influence. Through an in-depth analysis of the archaeological context of the tablets, the brief history of the temple in this neighbourhood is reconstructed, which provides new insights in the history of Babylon during the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods.