# Ekitušgirzal

**Ekitušgirzal** (written in Sumerian as é-ki-tuš-gir₁₇-zal, meaning "House, Abode of Joy") was a temple in Babylon dedicated to the goddess Bēlet-Eanna, a manifestation of Ištar. It stood in the New City district, in the eastern half of Babylon's inner city, and is known from cuneiform temple lists and topographical texts.<sup>[1](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btmao/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)</sup>

| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name and meaning | Ekitušgirzal, Sumerian é-ki-tuš-gir₁₇-zal, "House, Abode of Joy"<sup>[1](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btmao/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup> |
| Deity | Ištar worshipped as Bēlet-Eanna<sup>[3](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup> |
| Location | New City district of Babylon, eastern half of the inner city<sup>[2](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)</sup> |
| Rebuilding | (Re)built by the Old Babylonian king Abī-ēšuh (r. ca. 1711–1684 BC) and the Neo-Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 BC)<sup>[2](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)</sup> |
| Survival | The temple survived into the Hellenistic Period<sup>[2](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)</sup> |
| Attestation | 10 attested instances in the Babylon temple-name corpus, 9 as the east Babylon temple of Bēlet-Eanna and 1 as a temple of Ištar at Ilip<sup>[3](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup> |

## Name and deity

The name belongs to a family of Sumerian ceremonial temple names built on é ("house") and ki-tuš ("abode, seat"). In the lexical corpus of Babylonian temple names the written form é-ki-tuš-gir₁₇-zal is normalized as Ekitušgirzal, with variant writings including é-ki-tuš-gir₁₇-zal-la and damaged forms ending in gir₁₇-zil.<sup>[3](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup> In the topographical text *Tintir = Babylon*, Tablet IV, the entry pairs the Sumerian name with the Akkadian description É šu-bat ta-šil-ti and identifies the building as the temple of the goddess Bēlet-Eanna, "House, abode of j[oy]".<sup>[6](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/Q007952)</sup>

Bēlet-Eanna (Akkadian for "Lady of Eanna") is the East Semitic counterpart of the epithet Nin-Eanna, "Lady of Eanna", which derives from Inanna's temple Eanna in Uruk.

## Location in Babylon

The temple stood in the New City district of Babylon, in the eastern half of the inner city.<sup>[2](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)</sup> According to Andrew R. George, whose *House Most High* (1993) catalogs Mesopotamian temple names, Babylon had two separate temples dedicated to the goddess under this aspect: Ekitušĝarza ("house, abode of the regulations"), located close to the city wall in the Tuba district of the western half, and Ekitušgirzal, located in the eastern part of the city.<sup>[3](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup> George's catalog assigns Ekitušgirzal entries nos. 624–625.<sup>[3](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup>

The *Tintir = Babylon* topographical text, Tablet IV, lists the temple among the sanctuaries of that part of the city; published descriptions of the entry state it was one of two temples in that part of Babylon, while other summaries of the same text give four.<sup>[2](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[5](https://atlantides.org/changelogs/2021/02/)</sup>

## History

The temple is mentioned in Old Babylonian Period texts. It was (re)built by the Old Babylonian king Abī-ēšuh, who reigned ca. 1711–1684 BC, and later by the Neo-Babylonian ruler [Nebuchadnezzar II](https://www.edgepedia.org/nebuchadnezzar-ii), who reigned 604–562 BC. The temple survived into the Hellenistic Period, making it one of the Babylonian sanctuaries whose cult continued under Seleucid rule.<sup>[2](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)</sup>

## A second Ekitušgirzal at Ilip

The temple name is not unique to Babylon. Of the ten attested instances in the first-millennium temple-name corpus, nine refer to the east Babylon temple of Ištar as Bēlet-Eanna and one refers to a temple of Ištar at Ilip, a site in northern [Babylonia](https://www.edgepedia.org/babylonia).<sup>[3](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/cbd/qpn/E.html)</sup>

## References

1. [Ekitušgirzal, temple-name entry, Mesopotamian Temple Names (BTMAO), Oracc](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btmao/cbd/qpn/E.html)
2. [Place Ekitušgirzal, Pleiades directory of ancient places (Jamie Novotny)](https://pleiades.stoa.org/indexes-old/unlocated?b_start%3Aint=2000)
3. [Ekitušgirzal, temple-name entry, Babylonian Temples of the First Millennium (BTTO), Oracc](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/cbd/qpn/E.html)
4. [Tintir = Babylon, Tablet IV, edition in BTTO (Oracc), lines o 8']
5. [Pleiades Change Log, February 2021](https://atlantides.org/changelogs/2021/02/)

6. [Tintir = Babylon Tablet IV, BTTO edition Q007952, Oracc](https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/Q007952)

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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Places and geography › Parks, protected areas, and geographic heritage sites › Archaeological sites and site complexes › Archaeological sites of Western and Central Asia and the non-tell Near East › Roman and late antique sites of Anatolia and the Caucasus*

*Initially written Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Oct 25, 2026*

*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*

License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license