Kutha

Kutha, Cuthah, or Cutha (Sumerian: Gudua, modern Tell Ibrahim, Babil Governorate, Iraq) was an ancient city of Sumer on the right bank of the eastern branch of the Upper Euphrates, north of Nippur and around 25 miles northeast of Babylon. It should not be confused with the site Tell Ibrahim Awad in Egypt. 
==History==
According to the Tanakh, Cuthah was one of the five Syrian and Mesopotamian cities from which Sargon II, King of Assyria, brought settlers to take the places of the exiled Israelites (). II Kings relates that these settlers were attacked by lions, and interpreting this to mean that their worship was not acceptable to the deity of the land, they asked Sargon to send someone to teach them, which he did. 
The result was a mixture of religions and peoples, the latter being known as "Cuthim" in Hebrew and as "Samaritans" to the Greeks.Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews ix. 14, § 3. 
Kutha is also the name of the capital of the Sumerian underworld, Irkalla
Alfred Jeremias, The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell, D. Nutt, 1902
In the Assyrian inscriptions "Cutha" occurs on the Shalmaneser obelisk, line 82, in connection with Babylon. Shulgi (formerly read as Dungi), King of Ur III, built the temple of Nergal at Cuthah,Year Names of Shulgi at CDLI which fell into ruins, so that Nebuchadnezzar had to rebuild the "temple of the gods, and placed them in safety in the temple".ib. 51b This agrees with the Biblical statement that the men of Cuthah served Nergal.II Kings xvii. 30 . Josephus places Cuthah, which for him is the name of a river and of a district,"Ant." ix. 14, § 1, 3 in Persia, and Neubauer"G. T." p. 379 says that it is the name of a country near Kurdistan.
The so-called "Legend of the King of Cuthah", a fragmentary inscription of the Akkadian literary genre called narû, written as if it were transcribed from a royal stele, is in fact part of the "Legend of Naram-Sin", not to be read as history, found in the cuneiform library at Sultantepe, north of Harran.O. R. Gurney, The Sultantepe Tablets (Continued). IV. The Cuthaean Legend of Naram-Sin, Anatolian Studies, vol. 5, pp. 93-113, 1955 
Sumu-la-El, a king of the 1st Babylonian Dynasty, rebuilt the city
walls of Kutha.Year Names of Sumulael at CDLI The city was later defeated by Hammurabi
of Babylon in the 39th year of his reign.Year Names of Hammurabi at CDLI
==Archaeology==
The site of Kutha consists of a 3/4 mile long crescent shaped main
mound with a smaller mound to the west. The two mounds, as is typical
in the region, are separated by the dry bed of an ancient canal, the Shatt en-Nil.
The first archaeologist to examine the site, George Rawlinson, noted a brick
of king Nebuchadrezzar of the Neo-Babylonian Empire mentioning
the city of Kutha. The site was also visited by George Smith and by Edgar James Banks. 
Edgar James Banks, Cutha, The Biclical World, sol. 22, no. 1, pp. 61-64, 1903
Tell Ibrahim was excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in 1881, for 4 weeks. Little
was discovered, mainly some inscribed bowls and a few tablets.
 Hormuzd Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod: Being an Account of the Dicoveries Made in the Ancient Ruins of Nineveh, Asshur, Sepharvaim, Calah, [etc]..., Curts & Jennings, 1897
J. E. Reade, Rassam's Excavations at Borsippa and Kutha 1879-82, Iraq, vol. 48, pp. 105-116, 1986 
==References==
==See also==
* Samaritan
* Cities of the Ancient Near East
* Short chronology timeline
==External links==
*Digital Images of Tablets from Kutha/Cuthah
* Temple Hymns at ETCSL
Category:Samaritan culture and history
Category:Hebrew Bible places
Category:Archaeological sites in Iraq
Category:Former settlements in Iraq