Among the different principles of organization exhibited by temple lists of ancient Mesopotamia the theological principle, according to which the sacred buildings are listed by divine owner, is best demonstrated by the Canonical Temple List.
Although the title of this list is known, the text itself is attested only by fragments of three manuscripts found in Ashurbanipal's library in Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik). The canonicity of the text is therefore restricted in comparison to other temple lists, such as the Götteradressbuch of Ashur and Tintir 4, whose established positions within the literary canon are witnessed by their many individual exemplars from different sites.
As far as the history of text goes, neither a colophon nor a catalogue entry has survived. However, while the paltry interest in Assyrian temples shown by the text would suggest that the list was compiled in southern Mesopotamia, the significant omission of important temples well-known from Tintir 4, such as the ziggurat Etemenanki at Babylon, could hint at an older composition date. In particular, since Tintir is usually dated to the twelfth century, during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, and since the foundations of the two-hundred-years-earlier Kassite king Kurigalzu at his new capital Dūr-Kurigalzu are included in the Canonical Temple List, this text could be allocated to the second half of the Kassite dynasty.
Following the order of the Great God List An = Anum, as Landsberger and Moran suggested, the Canonical Temple List catalogs over Babylonian 600 temples of according to the deities to whom they were dedicated. The beginning of the text, which presumably started with Anu, is lost. The preserved text begins with Enlil and the court of Nippur and proceeds to the Mother Goddess and her entourage, Ea and his family, Sîn and his cohort, Šamaš, Adad, Ištar and their followings. Then it lists a number of junior gods, considered to be local manifestations of Ninurta, such as Lugal-Marda, Lugalbanda, Amurru, Tišpak, Inšušinak, Ištarān, Zababa, Uraš, and Ningirsu. Gula and the court of Isin then follow in the list which then ends with Nergal and other chthonic deities.
The organization of the text is based on a two sub-column arrangement with the ceremonial Sumerian names on the left and their everyday Akkadian counterparts on the right. Sometimes a geographical comment or some other references are added after the popular names. Sanctuaries, parts of sanctuaries, and small shrines are thus grouped in what can be viewed as an encyclopedia of ceremonial temple names most probably compiled not by cataloguing actual buildings standing at a given moment in history but through a scholarly search of all the available literary and historical sources.
Further Reading
Giulia Lentini
Giulia Lentini, 'Canonical Temple List', Babylonian Topographical Texts online (BTTo), BTTo, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2022 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/canonicaltemplelist/]