Meaning of Sippar

Sippar (Sumerian: Zimbio) was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river, located at modern Tell Abu Habbah in Iraq's Babel Governorate, some 60 km north of Babylon and 30 km southwest of Baghdad. The city's ancient name, Sippar, could also refer to its sister city, Sippar-Ammonium (located at the modern site of Tell ed-Der); a more specific designation for the city here referred to as Sippar was Sippar-Yahrurum, Although thousands of cuneiform clay tablets have been recovered at the site, relatively little is known about the history of Sippar. As was often the case in Mesopotamia, it was part of a pair of cities, separated by a river. Sippar was on the east side of the Euphrates, while its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum (modern Tell ed-Der), was on the west.

While pottery finds indicate that Sippar's site was in use as early as the Uruk period, substantial occupation occurred only in the Early Dynastic Period of the 3rd millennium BC, the Old Babylonian period of the 2nd millennium BC, and the Neo-Babylonian time of the millennium BC. Lesser levels of use continued into the time of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian Empires.

Sippar was the sun god's cult site (Sumerian Utu, Akkadian Shamash) and the home of his temple E-barbara.

The Code of Hammurabi stele was probably erected at Sippar. Shamash was the god of justice, and he has depicted handing authority to the king in the image at the top of the stele. A closely related motif occurs on some cylinder seals of the Old Babylonian period. By the end of the century BC, Sippar was producing some of the finest Old Babylonian cylinder seals.

Sippar has been suggested as the Biblical Sepharvaim in the Old Testament, which alludes to the two parts of the city in its dual form.