Talk:Akkad (city)

Inanna/Ishtar

I agree that the bit of knowledge you added is important to the main pages of Ishtar and Inanna, but I fail to see how it adds anything to this page, which is about the archaeological site of Akkad. It is relevant to add which gods had temples there; I do not think it is relevant that one god was related to another. If anyone wants to know anything more about either Ishtar or Inanna, they can follow the links.--Zoeperkoe (talk) 09:13, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Sumerian and Akkadian Gods and Goddesses all were related to a specific site in which they had a temple. In order to identify where Akkad is it would be essential to identify the major temple to the tituliary deity of the city. Given what we know this is likely to have been the Goddess Ishtar. Prior to the Sargonids it is likely that this temple would have been small and unimportant. The identification of Ishtar with Inanna was a major historical development and would have led to an important increase in the site of the temple. It also resulted in an identification that was to last for the following 2,000 years. Unless you can come up with a better reason for deleting my addition I would suggest you leave it. John D. Croft (talk) 08:45, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

"In order to identify where Akkad is it would be essential to identify the major temple to the tituliary deity of the city."

First, it is not the purpose of this article to find out where Akkad is. It is the purpose of this article to report what others have written about it. Second, there are many other ways to identify Akkad. We could find a stele that says, "here is Akkad". And if you read the article, you would know that all attempts to identify Akkad so far did not involve "identifying the major temple".

"Given what we know this is likely to have been the Goddess Ishtar."

Which is already in the article.

"Prior to the Sargonids it is likely that this temple would have been small and unimportant."

"it is likely", "would have been". Again speculation. We simply don't know, because we don't know where Akkad is.

"The identification of Ishtar with Inanna was a major historical development and would have led to an important increase in the site of the temple."

Again speculation, with no support for the role Akkad should have played here.

"It also resulted in an identification that was to last for the following 2,000 years."

That would only be the case if this identification took place in the Akkadian period, and in Akkad itself. And for both those claims you have not presented any support.

So, the way I see it, you have not presented anything that tells us anything about the site of Akkad that is beyond speculation.

More importantly, you have not provided any citation to back it up.--Zoeperkoe (talk) 09:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Zoeperkoe said "So, the way I see it, you have not presented anything that tells us anything about the site of Akkad that is beyond speculation. More importantly, you have not provided any citation to back it up." With reference to the second of your criticisms here I would refer you to noted archaeologist Harvey Weiss, "Kish, Akkad and Agade" in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 95, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1975), pp. 434-453, who speaks about the importance of the Goddess Ishtar and her identification with Inanna at Akkad. There is also a very brief mention in the "Northern Akkad Project: Excavations at Ḥabl Aṣ-Ṣaḫr" by R. G. Killick (Iraq Vol. 46, No. 2 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 125-129). I would especially refer you to the book by BDS Meador "Inanna Lady of the Largest Heart - Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna" which especially draws attention to this.

I will insert these references in the text for you. Unless you can come up with a better explanation please cease deleting my adjustment.

I find it quite uncivil that you keep reinserting stuff without waiting for the result of this discussion. I even asked you to stop reinserting stuff in one of my edit summaries. But because this type of edit warring is not my style, have it your way then.--Zoeperkoe (talk) 06:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

PS, it would have been nice if you had used the citation system already in use on this page.--Zoeperkoe (talk) 06:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, could you indicate the exact page on which Weiss speaks about Inanna and Ishtar? It's a long article but I don't think it mentioned either of these gods. And could you also give me the exact page and quote in the Killick article? I just read it and Ishtar and Inanna aren't even mentioned once. Neither is Akkad itself... Thanks again! --Zoeperkoe (talk) 08:33, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately I am travelling oat this time and am far from my research library. From memory both articles (Weiss and Killick) speak of the fact that the location of the city of Akkad could be in part determined by the finding of a temple to a cognate goddess Inanna/Ishtar within the city walls. I notice you do not refer to the Enheduanna book which is definitive on the subject, but just deleted the improvement to the article I made. Are you prepared to consider possible changes to improve the content here or are you just reacting. What do others here think. I will try to get you the actual page numbers for the citations when I can. A section on the religion of Akkad I thought was a useful compromise. If you disagree please state your reasons.

Meador is about the identification of Inanna and Ishtar, not about the location of Sippar after the fall of Akkad. I have made the appropriate change. As regards formatting of references, wikipedia allows for multiple formats within the same article. John D. Croft (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually I did not delete the info from Meador; it's still there but rewritten. As for the info in the articles; I'll await the page numbers. Re: citation styles; yes, WP supports multiple styles, but it suggests not introducing new ones for the sake of consistency. Anyway, it's fixed now so let's forget about that.--Zoeperkoe (talk) 09:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

potential location of Akkad

there was a recent paper published in 2022 titled "Searching for the location of the ancient city of Akkade in relation to the ancient course of the Tigris using historical geographical and GIS analyses" by Naohiko Kawakami which goes into depth about where the City might be by way of analysing various documents and references, someone should consider revising the page with the insight form this paper. Whytcleft (talk) 04:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I added that paper, and his more recent one "The Location of the Ancient City of Akkade: Review of Past Theories and Identification of Issues for Formulating a Specific Methodology for Searching Akkade" to the Further readings section of the article. At some point I will try and scrounge up copies to read.Ploversegg (talk) 02:47, 9 June 2023 (UTC)