 | 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) |