Avva

Avva was a Mesopotamian city whose population the Assyrians deported and resettled in Samaria after the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 BCE: "the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel" (2 Kings 17:24). The Avvites brought their gods Nibhaz and Tartak (2 Kings 17:31) and mingled them with Yahweh-worship, creating the syncretistic Samaritan religion that the Jewish returnees would later refuse to recognize.