Temple Towns and Nation Building: Migrations of Babylonian Priestly Families in the Late Periods

Abstract

This article surveys the Babylonian evidence from inter-city migration of priests and their families. The phenomenon is already attested during the Old Babylonian period and there are some indications that it continued under Kassite rule. However, most of the evidence comes from temple archives of the first millennium and is heavily concentrated during the long sixth century (ca. 626–484 BC). Although many studies have identified specific cases of priestly migrations, the phenomenon has not yet been assessed in its entirety. The article concludes that such migrations were far more common than previously thought. They were motivated primarily by political reasons such as imposing the cult of official deities in local sanctuaries, or the need to maintain a memory landscape of venerable cult centers.