George, Andrew R.

George, Andrew

SOAS Research Online

Tintir (Dintir, Tenter). An ancient toponym, spelled tin.tirki, pronunciation provided by Diri IV 89, where it is glossed [t]e-«en-tir?» (George 1992, 237; Civil 2004, 152, [t]e-e[n-ter]). Probably derives from a prehistoric language, though an origin in the “Ki· tradition” of writing has also been suspected (Kienast 1979). It has three known applications in the historical toponymy of lower Mesopotamia. 1. A village near Umma that appears in documents of the Ur III period as a cult-centre of Nergal (Edzard/Farber-Flügge 1974, 194; George 1992, 238; Cohen 1996). 2. A spelling of Babylon that first occurs in the nineteenth century, in year names, archival documents and a Sumerian hymn of Inanna; in royal inscriptions it begins to be used in the Kassite period, and becomes common in the first millennium (George 1992, 237–241). 3. A spelling of the toponym ∞uanna, both as another name of Babylon and as a quarter of the city inside the Ura· Gate (George 1992, 374 f.). The name Tintir also refers to a series of scholarly lists, incipit Tintir = Babylon, that celebrate Babylon, its monuments and topography (George 1992: 1–71; Veldhuis 1998). In bilingual lists tin.tirki occurs in the left-hand column, explained to the right as (a) ∞U, i. e. Tintir, (b) ∞uanna, and (c) B®bilu (Babylon), which prompted ancient scholars to treat it as a Sumerian counterpart of (b) and (c). Thus it occurs in a pseudo-Sumerian personal name tin. tirki-k i-dùg.ga (“Babylon is a Pleasant Place”), the scribe of a document written at or near Babylon in the reign of Abie·u¿ (Klengel 1971, 125 f.). As a supposedly Sumerian proper noun tin.tirki was open to etymological speculation, through which it was interpreted in Diri IV 92–93 and Tintir I 2–3 as (d) ·ubat nu¿·i “the seat of plenty” and (e) ·ubat bal®ﬂi “seat of life”, where tin = bal®ﬂu and nu¿·u and tir  = ·ubtu.  M. Civil 2004: The Series DIRI = (w)atru (= MSL XV) – M. E. Cohen 1996: The gods of suburban Umma, Fs H. Limet 27–35 – D. O. Edzard/G. Farber 1974: RGTC 2 – A. R. George 1992: Babylonian Topographical Texts (= OLA 40) – B. Kienast, 1979: The name of the city of Babylon, Sumer 35, 248–246 – H. Klengel 1971: Drei altbabylonische Urkunden betreffend Felder von ugbabtum-Priesterinnen, JCS 23, 124–129 – N. Veldhuis 1998: TIN.TIR = Babylon, the question of canonization, and the production of meaning, JCS 50, 77–85 A. R. George 

Tintir (Dintir, Tenter)

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