SHINAR

'Shinar' (Hebrew שִׁנְעָר ''Šin`ar'', Septuagint Σεννααρ ''Sennaar'') is a broad designation applied to Mesopotamia, occurring eight times in the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Genesis 10:10, the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom is said to have been "Babel, and Uruk, and Akkad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." The following chapter, 11:2, states that Shinar was a plain settled after the flood, where mankind, still speaking one language, built the Tower of Babel. In ''Genesis'' 14:1,9 Shinar is the land ruled by king Amraphel, usually identified with Hammurabi who reigned in Babylon. "Shinar" is further mentioned in ''Joshua'' 7:21; ''Isaiah'' 11:11; and ''Zechariah'' 5:11, as a general synonym for Babylonia.
If Shinar included both Babylon ("Babel") and Erech, then "Shinar" broadly denoted both northern and southern Babylonia. Any cognate relation with ''Šumer'', an Akkadian name used for a non-Semitic people who called themselves ''Kiengir'', is not simple to explain and has been the subject of varied speculation. The Egyptian term for Babylonia / Mesopotamia was ''Sngr'' (''Sangara''),<sup>[1]</sup> identified with the ''Sanhar'' of the Amarna letters by Sayee.<sup>[2]</sup>
According to H. Welsh, it is likely, arising from association with "Ur of the Chaldees", that ''Shinar'' signifies the land of the Mesopotamian moon god ''Sin'', whose earliest temple was at Ur. Sin had a network of temples spanning across the fertile crescent, including a prominent temple in Babylon and one of its famous Gates, also a major temple in Harran, and probably another in Jericho, that most ancient city, whose name means "Place of the Moon God."
Some scholars have suggested that Shinar must have been confined to the northern part of Mesopotamia, based on Jubilees 9:3 which allots "Shinar" (or in the Ethiopic text, "''Sadna Sena`or''") to Asshur. However, 10:20 states that the Tower was built with bitumen from the sea of Shinar. Other scholars such as David Rohl, however, have proposed that the Tower was actually located in Eridu, once located on the Persian Gulf, where there are ruins of a massive, ancient ziggurat worked from bitumen.

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1. mentioned in the context of the Asiatic conquests of Thutmose III; W. Max Müller, "Asien und Europa," 1893, p. 279, cited after Jewish Encyclopedia
2. "Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch." 1896, xviii. 173 et seq.; "Patriarchal Palestine," 1895, pp. 67 et seq., cited after Jewish Encyclopedia

External links

★ ''Jewish Encyclopedia'': Shinar

★ ''Biblaridion magazine'': Shinar