query: country pumbedita
supports: Jerusalem , is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem was named as ""Urusalima"" on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400 BCE). During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah. It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Hammurabi (c. 1810 BC - 1750 BC) was the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, reigning from 1792 BC to 1750 BC (according to the Middle Chronology). He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. He extended Babylon's control throughout Mesopotamia through military campaigns. Hammurabi is known for the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest surviving codes of law in recorded history. The name "Hammurabi" derives from the Amorite term "Ammurpi" ("the kinsman is a healer"), itself from "Ammu" ("paternal kinsman") and "Rpi" ("healer"). Baghdad is the capital of the Republic of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, , is approximately 7.216.040 making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world (after Cairo, Egypt), and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran, Iran). Babylon (or ; Aramaic: , "Babel", , "Bavel", , "Bbil") was a major city of ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods. Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c. 2300 BC. Mesopotamia ("[land] between rivers"; from Ancient Armenian  (Mijagetq); "bild ar-rfidayn" "miyn rodn"; "Beth Nahrain" "land of rivers") is a name for the area of the TigrisEuphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and IranIraq borders. Pumbedita ( sometimes Pumbeditha , Pumpedita , or Pumbedisa ; Aramaic :   ) was the name of a city in ancient Babylonia close to the modern - day city of Fallujah . The city had a large Jewish population and was famed for its Talmudic academy scholarship that , together with the city of Sura , gave rise to the Babylonian Talmud . The academy there was founded by Judah ben Ezekiel in the late third century . The academy was established after the destruction of the academy of Nehardea . Nehardea , being the capital city , was destroyed during the Persian - Palmyrian war . Iraq (, or ; '; '), officially known as the Republic of Iraq ('; ') is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest, and Syria to the west. The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds; others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, and Kawliya. Around 95% of the country's 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish. The Euphrates (Sumerian: : "Buranuna", : "Purattu", : "al-Furt", : "Prt", : "Yeprat", : "Perat", ) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. Originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf. Fallujah (""  ) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries. Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). A small Amorite-ruled state emerged in 1894 BC, which contained at this time the minor city of Babylon. Babylon greatly expanded during the reign of Hammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC, becoming a major capital city. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called "Mt Akkad" "the country of Akkad" in the Akkadian language.
  It was often involved in rivalry with its older fellow Akkadian-speaking state of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi (fl. c. 1792  1752 BC middle chronology, or c. 1696  1654 BC, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire; however, the Babylonian empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi. Ur (Sumerian: "Urim"; Sumerian Cuneiform: or ; Akkadian: "Uru") was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in south Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Although Ur was once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, the coastline has shifted and the city is now well inland, south of the Euphrates on its right bank, 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from Nasiriyah. Nehardea or Nehardeah ("river of knowledge") was a city of Babylonia, situated at or near the junction of the Euphrates with the Nahr Malka (also known as Nâr Sharri, Ar-Malcha, Nahr el-Malik, and King's Canal), one of the earliest centers of Babylonian Judaism. As the seat of the exilarch it traced its origin back to King Jehoiachin. According to Sherira Gaon (Letter of Sherira Gaon, in Neubauer, "M. J. C." i. 26), Jehoiachin and his coexilarchs built a synagogue at Nehardea, for the foundation of which they used earth and stones which they had brought, in accordance with the words of Psalms 102:15, from Jerusalem (comp. a similar statement in regard to the founding of the Jewish neighbourhood in the Persian city of Ispahan, in "Monatsschrift," 1873, pp. 129, 181). For this reason it was called 'The Synagogue that Slid and Settled'. This was the synagogue called "Shaf we-Yatib," to which there are several references dating from the third and fourth centuries (R. H. 24b; Avodah Zarah 43b; Niddah 13a), and which Abaye asserts (Meg. 29a) was the seat of the Shekhinah in Babylonia. The Aaronic portion of the Jewish population of Nehardea was said to be descended from the slaves of Pashur ben Immer, the contemporary of King Jehoiachin (Kiddushin 70b). Exilarch (Hebrew:   "Rosh Galut", Aramaic:   "Reysh Galuta" or "Resh Galvata" lit. "head of the exile", Arabic:   "Raas al-Galut", Greek:  "Aechmalotarches" lit. "leader of the captives") refers to the leaders of the Diaspora Jewish community in Babylon following the deportation of King Jeconiah and his court into Babylonian exile after the first fall of Jerusalem in 597 BCE and augmented after the further deportations following the destruction of the kingdom of Judah in 587 BCE. The people in exile were called "golah" or "galut". The Akkadian Empire was the first ancient Semitic-speaking empire of Mesopotamia, centered in the city of Akkad and its surrounding region, also called Akkad in ancient Mesopotamia and Accad in the Bible (Genesis 10:10). The empire united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. The Akkadian Empire controlled Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, Kuwait, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey), the Levant (modern Syria and Lebanon), and eastern and southern parts of Anatolia (modern Turkey) and Iran, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan (modern Bahrain and Oman) in the Arabian Peninsula.
candidates: babylon bahrain iraq jerusalem judah kuwait oman syria turkey world
answer: iraq