Publisher's Synopsis
B. Schneider provides a history and account of the Nippur ziqqurrat and its excavation - with a focus on discussing the various structures of the ziqqurrat. An introductory chapter (Chapter I) describes the geographical location of Nippur. A detailed history of the excavation at the Tell of the Ziqqurrat, called Bint el-Amir, forms Chapter II. Of particular interest is the surviving documentation of the various excavation campaigns of the 19th and 20th centuries within the archives in Philadelphia and Jena. This proved to be an indispensable preparatory work for the description of the structures of the most recent ziqqurrat period (Chapter III), which is the actual focus of this work. As a concluding overview, a provisional interpretation and a relative classification of the structures described is given (Chapter IV). This chapter primarily serves to illustrate the current state of research and does not represent a final result. Chapter V is devoted to the question of the reconstruction of the ziqqurrat of the 1st millennium, including a summary of the areas that still need to be clarified by follow-up investigations in this context. - Numerous photographs and drawings both of the excavations and of the current state illustrate the representation.
