Sumerian King List

The Sumerian King List is an ancient manuscript originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer (ancient southern Iraq) from Sumerian and neighboring dynasties, their supposed reign lengths, and the locations of kingship. Kingship was seen as handed down by the gods, and could be transferred from one city to another, reflecting perceived hegemony in the region.^[1] Throughout its Bronze Age existence, the document evolved into a political tool. Its final and single attested version, dating to the Middle Bronze Age, aimed to legitimize Isin's claims to hegemony when Isin was vying for dominance with Larsa and other neighboring city-states in southern Mesopotamia.^[1]^[2]

Composition

The list blends prehistorical, presumably mythical predynastic rulers enjoying implausibly lengthy reigns with later, more plausibly historical dynasties. Although the primal kings are historically unattested, this does not preclude their possible correspondence with historical rulers who were later mythicized. Some Assyriologists view the predynastic kings as a later fictional addition.^[1]^[3] Only one ruler listed is known to be female: Kug-Bau "the (female) tavern-keeper", who alone accounts for the Third Dynasty of Kish. The earliest listed ruler whose historicity has been archaeologically verified is Enmebaragesi of Kish, ca. 2600 BC. Reference to him and his successor, Aga of Kish in the Epic of Gilgamesh has led to speculation that Gilgamesh himself may have been a historical king of Uruk. Three dynasties are absent from the list: the Larsa dynasty, which vied for power with the (included) Isin dynasty during the Isin-Larsa period; and the two dynasties of Lagash, which respectively preceded and ensued the Akkadian Empire, when Lagash exercised considerable influence in the region. Lagash in particular is known directly from archaeological artifacts dating from ca. 2500 BC. The list is important to the chronology of the 3rd millennium BC. However, the fact that many of the dynasties listed reigned simultaneously from varying localities makes it difficult to reproduce a strict linear chronology.^[1]

Sources

The following extant ancient sources contain the Sumerian King List, or fragments:

Apkullu-list (W.20030,7)
Babyloniaca (Berossus)
Dynastic Chronicle (ABC 18)^[4] including copies, K 11261+ and K 12054
Kish Tablet (Scheil dynastic tablet)
UCBC 9-1819 ("California Tablet")
WB 62
WB 444 (Weld-Blundell Prism) ^[5]

The last two sources (WB) are a part of the "Weld-Blundell collection", donated by Herbert Weld Blundell to the Ashmolean Museum. WB 62 is a small clay tablet, inscribed only on the obverse, unearthed from Larsa. It is the oldest dated source (c. 2000 BC) containing the list.^[6] WB 444 in contrast is a unique inscribed vertical prism,^[1]^[7]^[8]^[9] dated c. 1817 BC, although some scholars prefer c. 1827 BC.^[10] The Kish Tablet or Scheil dynastic tablet is an early 2nd millennium BC tablet which came into possession of Jean-Vincent Scheil; it only contains king list entries for four Sumerian cities.^[11] UCBC 9-1819 is a clay tablet housed in the collection of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California.^[12] The tablet was inscribed during the reign of the Babylonian King Samsu-iluna, or slightly earlier, with a minimum date of 1712 BC.^[13] The Dynastic Chronicle (ABC 18) is a Babylonian king list written on six columns, beginning with entries for the antideluvian Sumerian rulers. K 11261+^[14] is one of the copies of this chronicle, consisting of three joined Neo-Assyrian fragments discovered at the Library of Ashurbanipal.^[15] K 12054 is another of the Neo-Assyrian fragments from Uruk (c. 640 BC) but contains a variant form of the antediluvians on the list. The later Babylonian and Assyrian king lists, preserved the earliest portions of the list well into the 3rd century BC, when Berossus' Babyloniaca popularized fragments of the list in the Hellenic world. In 1960, the Apkullu-list (Tablet No. W.20030, 7) or “Uruk List of Kings and Sages” (ULKS) was discovered by German archaeologists at an ancient temple at Uruk. The list, dating to c. 165 BC, contains a series of kings, equivalent to the Sumerian antediluvians called "Apkullu".^[16]

The list

Early dates are approximate, and are based on available archaeological data; for most pre-Akkadian rulers listed, this king list is itself the lone source of information. Beginning with Lugal-zage-si and the Third Dynasty of Uruk (which was defeated by Sargon of Akkad), a better understanding of how subsequent rulers fit into the chronology of the ancient Near East can be deduced. The short chronology is used here.

Antediluvian rulers

None of the following predynastic antediluvian rulers has been verified as historical via archaeological excavations, epigraphical inscriptions, or otherwise. While there is no evidence they ever reigned as such, the Sumerians purported them to have lived in the mythical era before the great deluge. Some modern scholars believe the Sumerian deluge story corresponds to localized river flooding at Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other cities as far north as Kish, as revealed by layer of riverine sediments, radiocarbon dated to ca. 2900 BC, which interrupt the continuity of settlement. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period (ca. 3000–2900 BC) was discovered immediately below this Shuruppak flood stratum.^[17]

The antediluvian reigns were measured in Sumerian numerical units known as sars (units of 3,600), ners (units of 600), and sosses (units of 60).^[18]

First Dynasty of Kish

First Rulers of Uruk

First Dynasty of Ur

Dynasty of Awan

This was a dynasty from Elam.

Second Dynasty of Kish

The First Dynasty of Lagash (ca. 2500 – ca. 2271 BC) is not mentioned in the King List, though it is well known from inscriptions

The Dynasty of Hamazi

Second Dynasty of Uruk

Second Dynasty of Ur

Dynasty of Adab

Dynasty of Mari

Third Dynasty of Kish

Dynasty of Akshak

Fourth Dynasty of Kish

Third Dynasty of Uruk

Dynasty of Akkad

Fourth Dynasty of Uruk

(Possibly rulers of lower Mesopotamia contemporary with the Dynasty of Akkad)

The 2nd Dynasty of Lagash (before ca. 2093–2046 BC (short)) is not mentioned in the King List, though it is well known from inscriptions.

Gutian rule

Fifth Dynasty of Uruk

Third Dynasty of Ur

Independent Amorite states in lower Mesopotamia. The Dynasty of Larsa (ca. 1961–1674 BC (short)) from this period is not mentioned in the King List.

Dynasty of Isin

* These epithets or names are not included in all versions of the king list.

References

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↑ The spelling of royal names follows the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
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↑ translation
↑ translation
↑ Langdon, OECT2 (1923), pl. 6.
↑ [1] Stephen Langdon, Historical inscriptions, containing principally the chronological prism, W-B 444, Oxford University Press, 1923
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↑ Ancient Iraq: (Assyria and Babylonia), Peter Roger Stuart Moorey, Ashmolean Museum, 1976; The Sumerian King List, T. Jacobsen, University of Chicago Press, 1939, p. 77.
↑ "The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their Culture", S. Langdon, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 7, No. 3/4, Oct., 1921, p. 133. [2]
↑ "The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet", J. J. Finkelstein, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1963, p. 39.
↑ Finkelstein, 1963, pp.39-40.
↑ Lambert and Millard, Cuneiform Texts 46 Nr. 5
↑ Bilingual Chronicle Fragments, Irving L. Finkel, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2, Apr., 1980, pp. 65-80.
↑ A copy of the tablet appears in Jan van Dijk and Werner R. Mayer, Texte aus dem Rès-Heiligtum in Uruk-Warka, Bagdader Mitteilungen Beiheft 2 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1980), text no. 89 (= BaMB 2 89). For an edition of the text, see J. van Dijk, Die Inschriftenfunde, Vorläufiger Bericht über die... Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka 18 (1962), 44-52 and plate 27. [3]
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↑ [4] Christine Proust, "Numerical and Metrological Graphemes: From Cuneiform to Transliteration," Cuneiform Digital Library Journal, 2009, ISSN 1540-8779
↑ http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm
↑ [5] Gilgameš and Aga Translation at ETCSL

Literature

Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Sumerian King List. Oriental Institute, Assyriological Studies 11, University of Chicago Press, 1939
Rowton, M. B. The Date of the Sumerian King List, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 156–162, 1960
P. Steinkeller, An Ur III Manuscript of the Sumerian King List. In Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien: Festschrift fur Claus Wilcke, ed. W. Sallaberger et al., Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 267–92, 2003
Young, Dwight W. The Incredible Regnal Spans of Kish I in the Sumerian King List, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 23–35, 1991
Hallo, William W. Beginning and End of the Sumerian King List in the Nippur Recension, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 52–57, 1963
Vincente, Claudine-Adrienne, "The Tall Leilan Recension of the Sumerian King List", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 50 (1995), 234–270
Friberg, Jöran. "The Beginning and the End of the Sumerian King List", in A remarkable collection of Babylonian mathematical texts: Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection Cuneiform Texts I, Springer, 2007, ISBN 0-387-34543-4
Michalowski, Piotr. History as Charter Some Observations on the Sumerian King List, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 103, no. 1, pp. 237–248, 1983
Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, Brill, 2005, ISBN 90-04-13084-5
J. J. Finkelstein, The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 39–51, 1963
Albrecht Goetze, Early Kings of Kish, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 105–111, 1961
Thomas Jacobs, The Sumerian King List, UGent paper, GONO department

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[2] The spelling of royal names follows the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

[3] Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

[4] translation

[5] translation

[6] Langdon, OECT2 (1923), pl. 6.

[7] [1] Stephen Langdon, Historical inscriptions, containing principally the chronological prism, W-B 444, Oxford University Press, 1923

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[10] Ancient Iraq: (Assyria and Babylonia), Peter Roger Stuart Moorey, Ashmolean Museum, 1976; The Sumerian King List, T. Jacobsen, University of Chicago Press, 1939, p. 77.

[11] "The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their Culture", S. Langdon, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 7, No. 3/4, Oct., 1921, p. 133. [2]

[12] "The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet", J. J. Finkelstein, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1963, p. 39.

[13] Finkelstein, 1963, pp.39-40.

[14] Lambert and Millard, Cuneiform Texts 46 Nr. 5

[15] Bilingual Chronicle Fragments, Irving L. Finkel, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2, Apr., 1980, pp. 65-80.

[16] A copy of the tablet appears in Jan van Dijk and Werner R. Mayer, Texte aus dem Rès-Heiligtum in Uruk-Warka, Bagdader Mitteilungen Beiheft 2 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1980), text no. 89 (= BaMB 2 89). For an edition of the text, see J. van Dijk, Die Inschriftenfunde, Vorläufiger Bericht über die... Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka 18 (1962), 44-52 and plate 27. [3]

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[18] [4] Christine Proust, "Numerical and Metrological Graphemes: From Cuneiform to Transliteration," Cuneiform Digital Library Journal, 2009, ISSN 1540-8779

[19] ttp://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm

[Ox.ac.uk-20] [5] Gilgameš and Aga Translation at ETCSL

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[5]

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[7]

[8]

[9]

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[14]

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[16]

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[20]

Ruler	Epithet	Length of reign	Approx. dates
"After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years."
Alulim		8 sars (28,800 years)	mythological
Alalngar		10 sars (36,000 years)
"Then Eridug fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira."
En-men-lu-ana		12 sars (43,200 years)
En-men-gal-ana		8 sars (28,800 years)
Dumuzid, the Shepherd	"the shepherd"	10 sars (36,000 years)
"Then Bad-tibira fell and the kingship was taken to Larag."
En-sipad-zid-ana		8 sars (28,800 years)
"Then Larag fell and the kingship was taken to Zimbir."
En-men-dur-ana		5 sars and 5 ners (21,000 years)
"Then Zimbir fell and the kingship was taken to Shuruppag."
Ubara-Tutu		5 sars and 1 ner (18,600 years)
"Then the flood swept over."^[19]

Ruler	Epithet	Length of reign	Approx. dates	Comments
"After the flood had swept over, and the kingship had descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kish."
Jushur		1,200 years	historicity uncertain	names before Etana do not appear in any other known source, and their existence is archaeologically unverified
Kullassina-bel		960 years
Nangishlishma		670 years
En-tarah-ana		420 years
Babum		300 years
Puannum		840 years
Kalibum		960 years
Kalumum		840 years
Zuqaqip		900 years
Atab (or A-ba)		600 years
Mashda	"the son of Atab"	840 years
Arwium	"the son of Mashda"	720 years
Etana	"the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries"	1,500 years
Balih	"the son of Etana"	400 years
En-me-nuna		660 years
Melem-Kish	"the son of En-me-nuna"	900 years
Barsal-nuna	("the son of En-me-nuna")*	1,200 years
Zamug	"the son of Barsal-nuna"	140 years
Tizqar	"the son of Zamug"	305 years
Ilku		900 years
Iltasadum		1,200 years
En-me-barage-si	"who made the land of Elam submit"	900 years	ca. 2600 BC	the earliest ruler on the List confirmed independently from epigraphical evidence
Aga of Kish	"the son of En-me-barage-si"	625 years	ca. 2600 BC	contemporary with Gilgamesh of Uruk, according to the Epic of Gilgamesh [6] Gilgameš and Aga Translation at ETCSL
"Then Kish was defeated and the kingship was taken to E-ana."

Ruler	Epithet	Length of reign	Approx. dates	Comments
Mesh-ki-ang-gasher of E-ana	"the son of Utu"	324 years	ca. 27th
"Mesh-ki-ang-gasher entered the sea and disappeared."
Enmerkar	"the son of Mesh-ki-ang-gasher, the king of Unug, who built Unug (Uruk)"	420 years
Lugalbanda	"the shepherd"	1,200 years
Dumuzid (Dumuzi)	"the fisherman whose city was Kuara." ("He captured En-me-barage-si single-handedly.")*	100 years	ca. 2600 BC
Gilgamesh	"whose father was a phantom (?), the lord of Kulaba"	126 years	ca. 2600 BC	contemporary with Aga of Kish, according to the Epic of Gilgamesh^[20]
Ur-Nungal	"the son of Gilgamesh"	30 years
Udul-kalama	"the son of Ur-Nungal"	15 years
La-ba'shum		9 years
En-nun-tarah-ana		8 years
Mesh-he	"the smith"	36 years
Melem-ana		6 years
Lugal-kitun		36 years
"Then Unug was defeated and the kingship was taken to Urim (Ur)."

Ruler	Epithet	Length of reign	Approx. dates
Mesh-Ane-pada		80 years	ca. 26th century BC
Mesh-ki-ang-Nuna	"the son of Mesh-Ane-pada"	36 years
Elulu		25 years
Balulu		36 years
"Then Urim was defeated and the kingship was taken to Awan."

Ruler	Epithet	Length of reign	Approx. dates	Comments
Three kings of Awan		356 years	ca. 26th century BC
"Then Awan was defeated and the kingship was taken to Kish."