Casiphia

Casiphia was a place in Babylonia, apparently a center of Jewish community life, where Ezra sent messengers to secure Levites and temple servants for the journey back to Jerusalem, since none had volunteered from among the returning exiles (Ezra 8:15-20). Its exact site is unknown, but its existence fits what cuneiform records from Babylonia itself have since confirmed: archives such as the so-called Al-Yahudu, or "Judah-town," tablets document real communities of Judean exiles and their descendants living under Persian rule, exactly the kind of Jewish settlement Ezra would have needed to draw Levites from.