Borsippa

Borsippa, modern Birs, or Birs Nimrud, ancient Babylonian city southwest of Babylon in central Iraq. Its patron god was Nabu, and the city’s proximity to the capital, Babylon, helped it to become an important religious centre. Hammurabi (reigned 1792–50 bc) built or rebuilt the Ezida temple at Borsippa, dedicating it to Marduk (the national god of Babylonia); subsequent kings recognized Nabu as the deity of Ezida and made him the son of Marduk, his temple becoming second only to that of Marduk in Babylon.

During Nebuchadrezzar II’s reign (605–562 bc), Borsippa reached its greatest prosperity. An incomplete and now ruined ziggurat built by Nebuchadrezzar was excavated in 1902 by the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey. The ziggurat appears to have been destroyed by an extremely hot fire, probably caused by the spontaneous combustion of reed matting and bitumen originally placed in the core of the structure for internal support. Borsippa was destroyed by the Achaemenian king Xerxes I in the early 5th century and never fully recovered.