 | Dublalmah | LL | First investigated by Taylor in 1853, the dublalmah was originally a gateway onto the eastern corner of the ziggurat terrace. It expanded into a larger building in the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period. It had multiple functions, religious and administrative, through the centuries. An inscribed door socket of Amar-Sin found here refers to the building as the great storehouse of tablets and the place of judgment. It was thus essentially a law court, possibly with tablets recording judgments stored within. In Mesopotamia, an eastern gateway--in sight of the rising sun--was typically seen as a place of justice, and gateways were often places where witnesses or judges might hear claims.
After the Ur III period the door onto the ziggurat terrace was sealed up and the dublalmah appears to have become a shrine, but it retained its name and probably its law court function. Kurigalzu made significant restorations to the building in the Kassite period and Woolley marveled at the well-constructed fully preserved arched doorway of this Late Bronze Age time. By the Neo-Babylonian period, the structure had essentially merged with the functions of the neighboring giparu. | (none) |
 | ES | The abbreviation ES almost certainly stands for Enunmah South, though it may also have to do with the building called Emuriana, referenced in a disturbed Kassite door socket found in the area. Legrain lists ES as the Egigpar of Nabonidus, SW end, and ES, or at least ESB did extend into the later remains of the Dublalmah, which at that time was part of the NeoBabylonian Giparu. The abbreviation ES first appeared in season one as a supplement to Trial Trench B (TTB.ES) when the trench was expanded to reveal the extents of the building found to be called E-nun-mah. In season 3, the abbreviation shortened simply to ES, used for the majority of the enunmah building.
The Enunmah changed in layout and likely in usage through the many centuries of its existence. Initially a storage building called the ga-nun-mah, it seems to have been used as a temple, the e-nun-mah, in the Neo-Babylonian period.
Some lists of excavation abbreviations equate ES with the Dublalmah site. This is because the southern Enunmah is just east of the Dublalmah. Area ESB is still more closely associated with the eastern edge of the dublalmah and likely into it. | (none) |