Situated between the Tigris and the Zagros Mountains, sixteen kilometers to the east of the Diyala River, northeast of Baghdad.
Excavations has uncovered the so called ‘square temple’ dedicated to the deity ‘Abu’, and also the earliest northern palace, it is build of plano-convex bricks and lies east and north of the ‘Abu Temple’ in what seems to be an area of well-planned private houses,
The eastern wall is al most 40m long, it had an elaborate drain running from the north court through the entrance of the building.
Uncovered on the site was also a fine example of the new, broad cellar temple plan, in the shrine build by an Ur III, governor and dedicated to the divine ‘Shu-Sin’.
A more spectacular find was made in the south-west unite where a large pot was found, this contained a considerable number of copper artifacts, including a bowl inscribed with the name of the deity ‘Abu’, copper drinking tubes and a copper dagger handle with an iron blade.
Eshnunna (Tell Asmar) was a relay on the road from Upper Mesopotamia to Elam, and as such was subject to a triple current of influences:
It lay within the sphere of the Sumero-Akkadian civilization, had close contact with the northern countries- its main god “Tishpak” was probably identical with the Hurrian god “Teshup” and was linked to Elam by strong economic, political and cultural ties.
After the Sumerian Empire had collapsed, and Mesopotamia had been shattered into small and large kingdoms, the most important in the north were Eshnunna and Ashur.
It was the first city-state with “Susa” to break away from Ur in the second year of Ibbi-Sin (2027 BC).
In about 1850 BC, the city was enlarged under ‘Ipiq-Adad II’ and a new period of expansion marked by occupation of ‘Rapiqum’ on the Euphrates (somewhere near Ramadi). The kingdom aimed at establishing a bridgehead on the river in order to control one of the main ‘tin roads’, which from the north and west converged towered his capital city in the general direction of ‘Susa’.
But Babylon, Larsa and the ‘Upper Kingdoms’ were soon to encircle Eshnunna and oppose a strong barrier to the ambitions of its rulers.
Naram-Sin, succeeded Ibiq-Adad, and became the king of Eshnunna, took his army across Diyala River into the Tigris valley, seized ‘Ekallatum’ and other towns further north, and occupied the Euphrates valley up to the vicinity of Mari.
It all ended at the time of Hammurabi, who occupied and add the city to his Babylonian Empire.