Adadnadinakhe bricks

The Adadnadinakhe bricks are a series of foundation bricks discovered at the Sumerian city of Girsu bearing the name "Adadnadinakhe" in bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscriptions. The bricks date back to the Seleucid Empire – 300-100 BCE – whilst the name appears to match the name of a Babylonian king (Ashur-nadin-ahhe I or Ashur-nadin-ahhe II) who ruled more than a millennium beforehand.

The first known brick was discovered in the 1880s, and the most recent in the 2020s. The Aramaic inscription is known as NE 446c^[1] and CIS II 72.^[2]

Early examples of the brick are displayed in the Louvre and in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin. In the Louvre, 21 examples from Girsu are known, in the series AO 29762–29782, of which AO 29762 is in room 230, AO 29775 is in room 310, and AO 29763 has been loaned to the Musée d'archéologie méditerranéenne in Marseille.

Name

The name "Adadnadinakhe" appears in multiple spellings in scholarly literature, including "Adad-nadin-ahhe", "Adad-nadin-akhe," "Adadnadinache," and "Adadnadinaché". These are transliterations of the Greek version, Αδαδναδιναχης, with the differences relating to various transliterations of the ending χης.

The Aramaic spelling of the name on the inscription is הדדנדנאח.

Context

During the Selucid period in Babylonia, Greek was the primary language of administration whilst Aramaic was the primary local language

The name "Adadnadinakhe" means "Adad, the giver of brothers." It is considered to be of Babylonian origin. One theory is that it was used to invoke the protection of the god Adad in the construction of various religious and public buildings.

Locations

The Adadnadinakhe bricks were discovered in Girsu (modern Telloh), including in the E-ninnu temple.^[3] Some of the bricks were found alongside the well-known Statues of Gudea.

William Hayes Ward wrote of seeing the bricks at Ernest de Sarzec’s excavations in Girsu in 1885.^[4]

Possible explanations

They were typically located in the foundations of temples and other significant structures, similar to equivalent foundation bricks written in cuneiform throughout the region. The name "Adadnadinakhe" is consistently used, with the Aramaic always above the Greek, and with the same layout of the letters.

Various theories have been advanced regarding their original use:^[5]

ceremonial contexts, such as a ritual or administrative practice, perhaps intended to reinforce the legitimacy and divine favor of the Seleucid rulers
consecration the buildings in which they were placed, ensuring divine protection and blessing
branding of a construction company

In 2024, Sébastien Rey of the British Museum's 2016-22 "Girsu Project", described their conclusions that the reason that the bricks were found among earlier artefacts is that Adadnadinakhe unearthed the statues of Gudea in order to add local legitimacy to his new Hellenistic shrine.^[6]

Bibliography

"Twin temples linked to Hercules and Alexander the Great found by archaeologists in ancient megacity of Girsu, Iraq". Archaeology News Online Magazine. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
"Temple linked to Hercules and Alexander the Great discovered in ancient megacity in Iraq". Live Science. Retrieved 23 August 2024..
Koldewey, Robert (1914). The Excavations at Babylon. Namaskar Books. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
Rey, Sébastien (2024). The Temple of Ningirsu: The Culture of the Sacred in Mesopotamia (PDF). Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-1-64602-264-9. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
Schrader, Eberhard (1885). "A South-Babylonian Aramaic-Greek Bilingual". Hebraica. Vol. II, no. 1. American Publication Society of Hebrew. ISSN 0160-2810. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
Parrot, André (1948), Tello; vingt campagnes de fouilles (1877-1933)

External links

"The 4000-year-old brick that archaeologists keep re-excavating". YouTube. 2024-03-06. Retrieved 2024-08-30.

References

^ NE 446c
^ CIS II 72
^ Koldewey 1914, p. 295: "In the pavement of the court adjoining it, the well-known bricks of Adadnadinakhe are said to have been found."
^ Ward, William Hayes (1885). "EXTRACT FROM A PRIVATE LETTER OF DR. WARD FROM BABYLONIA, Shatra, February 8, 1885". The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts. Archaeological Institute of America. p. 182. Retrieved 2024-08-30. Shatra is on the bank of the Shatt-el-Hai, and yesterday I rode out to Tello, to see the site of Sarzec's explorations. It is no more promising a tel than a dozen others which I have seen, some of which, including one that is most inviting, were previously unknown to scholars. What has most engaged my attention at Tello was a lot of bricks inscribed with a stamp of four lines in late Phoenician and Greek, two lines of each, the name apparently, as well as I could decipher the worn characters, being Adad-nadin.
^ Rey 2024, p. 19: "It was conjectured that this provincial governor, who seemingly cultivated a taste for antiquities, must have collected ancient statues as relics to display in his palatine complex. The palace, it was further supposed, was intended to be the epicentre of an emerging regional power until Adadnadinakhe’s ambitions were crushed by the arrival of the Parthians, sometime around the middle of the second century BCE. Partly contradicting this narrative, it has subsequently been thought more likely that Adadnadinakhe was a local dignitary, possibly a high priest or a chief scribe, who operated under Seleucid tutelage, and that he built and furnished a memorial shrine in honour of the ancestral rulers of Mesopotamia. The ancient artefacts that he collected were therefore displayed not in a working palace or administrative centre but in a temple or place of remembrance and worship that was erected by Adadnadinakhe above the ravaged remains of the sacred metropolis of Girsu on Tell A, probably with the consent of the Seleucids."
^ Rey 2024, p. 20: "As is detailed in Part 4 below, the findings of the British Museum team mean that both of these narratives can be superseded by a much more complete historical account of the origins and development of the Hellenistic shrine. Adadnadinakhe perpetuated the immemorial Sumerian rituals of burying foundation deposits and stamping bricks with his theophoric name in both Aramaic and Greek characters, and he unearthed the famous statues of Gudea, which were displayed alongside a range of other ancient and contemporary artefacts in a temple that combined aspects of Mesopotamian and Hellenistic worship. The updated shrine was purposefully and carefully built on the fragmentary remains of the Sumerian religious platforms that were buried in the Mound of the Palace. Thanks to his diligence, Adadnadinakhe’s archaising Babylonian name (literally meaning ‘Adad the god, the giver of brothers’), which was recorded on the Hellenistic-era bricks that were laid under his authority on Tell A, became inextricably connected with what is now known to be the final flowering of the extended series of temples devoted to Ningirsu that date back to the time of the Lower Construction on Tell K."

[1] NE 446c

[2] CIS II 72

[FOOTNOTEKoldewey1914295-3] Koldewey 1914, p. 295: "In the pavement of the court adjoining it, the well-known bricks of Adadnadinakhe are said to have been found."

[g043-4] Ward, William Hayes (1885). "EXTRACT FROM A PRIVATE LETTER OF DR. WARD FROM BABYLONIA, Shatra, February 8, 1885". The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts. Archaeological Institute of America. p. 182. Retrieved 2024-08-30. Shatra is on the bank of the Shatt-el-Hai, and yesterday I rode out to Tello, to see the site of Sarzec's explorations. It is no more promising a tel than a dozen others which I have seen, some of which, including one that is most inviting, were previously unknown to scholars. What has most engaged my attention at Tello was a lot of bricks inscribed with a stamp of four lines in late Phoenician and Greek, two lines of each, the name apparently, as well as I could decipher the worn characters, being Adad-nadin.

[FOOTNOTERey202419-5] Rey 2024, p. 19: "It was conjectured that this provincial governor, who seemingly cultivated a taste for antiquities, must have collected ancient statues as relics to display in his palatine complex. The palace, it was further supposed, was intended to be the epicentre of an emerging regional power until Adadnadinakhe’s ambitions were crushed by the arrival of the Parthians, sometime around the middle of the second century BCE. Partly contradicting this narrative, it has subsequently been thought more likely that Adadnadinakhe was a local dignitary, possibly a high priest or a chief scribe, who operated under Seleucid tutelage, and that he built and furnished a memorial shrine in honour of the ancestral rulers of Mesopotamia. The ancient artefacts that he collected were therefore displayed not in a working palace or administrative centre but in a temple or place of remembrance and worship that was erected by Adadnadinakhe above the ravaged remains of the sacred metropolis of Girsu on Tell A, probably with the consent of the Seleucids."

[FOOTNOTERey202420-6] Rey 2024, p. 20: "As is detailed in Part 4 below, the findings of the British Museum team mean that both of these narratives can be superseded by a much more complete historical account of the origins and development of the Hellenistic shrine. Adadnadinakhe perpetuated the immemorial Sumerian rituals of burying foundation deposits and stamping bricks with his theophoric name in both Aramaic and Greek characters, and he unearthed the famous statues of Gudea, which were displayed alongside a range of other ancient and contemporary artefacts in a temple that combined aspects of Mesopotamian and Hellenistic worship. The updated shrine was purposefully and carefully built on the fragmentary remains of the Sumerian religious platforms that were buried in the Mound of the Palace. Thanks to his diligence, Adadnadinakhe’s archaising Babylonian name (literally meaning ‘Adad the god, the giver of brothers’), which was recorded on the Hellenistic-era bricks that were laid under his authority on Tell A, became inextricably connected with what is now known to be the final flowering of the extended series of temples devoted to Ningirsu that date back to the time of the Lower Construction on Tell K."

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