The country known as Sumer is, by the third millennium the site of at least twelve separate city-states, each comprising a walled city and its surrounding villages and land, and each worshipping its own deity, whose temple is the central structure of the city.

Sippar (present Abu Habba), located twenty miles (thirty-two kilometers) southwest of present Baghdad, Iraq, is probably occupied before 3000.

Given that thousands of cuneiform tablets have been recovered at the site, relatively little is known about the history of Sippar.

As was often the case in Mesopotamia, it was part of a pair of cities, separated by a river.

Sippar was on the east side of the Euphrates, while its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum, was on the west.

While pottery finds indicate that the site of Sippar was in use as early as the Uruk period, substantial occupation occurred only in the Early Dynastic period of the third millennium BCE.

The five "first" cities said to have exercised pre-dynastic kingship are Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah), …

Sippar is the cult site of the sun god (Sumerian Utu, Akkadian Shamash) and the home of his temple E-babbara.

A king of Sippar, En-men-dur-ana, is listed in the Sumerian king list as one of the early pre-dynastic rulers of the region, but has not yet turned up in the epigraphic records.

Relatively little is known about the history of Sippar, given that thousands of cuneiform tablets have been recovered at the site.

It is part of a pair of cities, separated by a river, as is often the case in Mesopotamia.

Sippar is on the east side of the Euphrates, while its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum, is on the west.

Pottery finds indicate that the site of Sippar was in use as early as the Uruk period, but substantial occupation occurs only in the Early Dynastic period of the third millennium BCE, the Old Babylonian period of the second millennium BCE, and the Neo-Babylonian time of the first millennium BCE.

Lesser levels of use will continue into the time of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian Empires.

Sippar comes under the control of the Babylonian ruling house in 1838 BCE.

Sumu-la-El of Babylon reports building Sippar’s city wall in his twenty-ninth regnal year.

Sippar comes under the control of the Babylonian ruling house in 1838.

…Sippar and …

Tiglath-Pileser conquers northern Babylonia after 1100 BCE.

Humban-Haltash II of Elam begins a campaign against Sippar in 675, but is defeated by the Babylonians, and dies soon afterwards.

His brother and successor Urtaki restores peace with Assyria.