Iturungal canal

The Iturungal canal was a major waterway in Sumer used for commercial and religious functions. It is unclear when it was built but it existed by the middle 3rd millennium BC and remained in use for several millennia. Mesopotamia was crisscrossed by numerous canals. Some were short distance links between cities and between main canals and cities. Canals were also modified, repaired, and sometime extended with the passage of time. As new cities rose and others were abandoned new canals were built and others fell out of use. The Iturungal canal was a long haul canal which transected Mesopotamia roughly north to south. The Id-Ka-sahar canal served similar duty further north. Much is uncertain about the Iturungal partly because of current gaps in archaeology but also because it too changed over time, changes especially driven by the shifting Euphrates river. Some of its course and some of the cites it flowed past are now more certain. The canal had many different spelling over its history including Id-en-urin-gal, Id-en-urin-gal, Id-EREN-nun-na, Id-en-urin-gal, En-er en-gal, I-tu-ru-un-gal, I-su-ru-gal, I-dar-en-gal, and Id-dur-an-gal. The course of the Euphrates changed over time, especially around 800 BC when it was briefly called Arahtu, and its main course is called Purattu. Both branches may have, for a time, existed together.
Currently, the Iturungal canal is generally considered, based on hydrology and textual sources, to have originated at the Tigris river downstream from Karkar, passed through the unlocated city of NagSu, and flowed toward Uruk joining the Euphrates river just south of that city. Much of its course would have run in the province of Umma.
Earlier it was believed that it branched off the Euphrates near Sippar then went on to Kish and then Nippur. An alternate view had it splitting from the main Euphrates channel north of Nippur passing on to Adab, then south to Zabalam, Umma, and Bad-tibira at which point it returned to the main Euphrates channel. The Sirara canal branched off the Iturungal canal at Zabalam and proceeded to Lagash in this view. It was even
suggested that the Iturungal canal was actually the Tigris river.
This is complicated by varying translation of and interpretation of textual sources.
It is known that there were sub branches off the Iturungal including Íd-Nina^ki-du-a and Nanna-gú-gal. The city of Kutalla lay on such a branch that also ran to Bad-tibira. The Magura canal flowed between the Tigris and the
Iturungal in the area of Umma and Apišal.
A survey of some of the course of the canal near Girsu found a number of archaeological mound dating to the Early Dynastic period with some continuing into the Old Babylonian period.
The archaeological site of Tell Jidr lies on the Iturungal canal.
It is known that the Iturungal canal connected Uruk and Garšana.

History

In the Tablet of Utu-hengal by the Uruk ruler Utu-hengal describing his victory over the Gutians "He arranged in correct array his select elite troops. After he departed the temple of the god Iškur, on the fourth day he set up... in the city of Nagsu on the Iturungal canal."
An illegally excavated cone said to have been found at Tell al-Madineh marked the construction by Ur-Nammu, a ruler of the Ur III empire, of the Iturungal canal though it may have already existed in some form.
Ur III ruler Amar-Sin is known, in his years 2 to 6, to have built a canal joining the Euphrates to the Iturungal. It was located in the area between Kisurra and Adab.
An Ur III tablet from Umma about an accused grave robber states "Lugal-me’a, the, declared: 'Šarabansag, who dug up the grave, at the bank of the Iturungal, in his house, he '".
Isin ruler Sîn-māgir had a year name " built on the bank of the Iturungal canal a great fortification Sîn-māgir-madana-dagal-dagal."
The ruler Isin Ur-du-kuga is known to have built a cultic center of the god Lulal at Du₆-eden-na which lay on the Iturungal canal.
An-am, an Old Babylonian period ruler of Uruk recorded building a temple for the goddess Kanisurra, who was called the "mistress of the Iturungal".
It has been suggested that Babylon ruler Sin-Muballit damned or diverted the Iturungal to defeat the city of Isin.
In the Sumerian literary composition Enkimdu and Dumuzi it states "Let them eat grain in the šuba fields of Unug, Let your goatlings and lambs drink water from my Iturungal canal".
In one text of the Sumerian literary composition Descent of Inanna into the Underworld Inanna "takes from Uruk to the Netherworld, following the Iturungal Canal upstream and
passing the cities of Bad Tibira, Zabalam, Adad, Nippur, Kis, and finally Akkad, where she
enters the Netherworld without crossing over the Hubur River".