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118-650: A number of rulers of the dynasty are known and some of their year names but their order and regnal lengths are unknown as the Manana Dynasty is not featured in any of the King Lists such as the Sumerian King List . Manana is known, for a time, to have controlled the ancient city of Kish under several rulers. It is not certain how long the dynasty lasted though forty two regnal year names (in Sumerian) are known which sets

236-493: 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 have been verified as historical by archaeological excavations , epigraphical inscriptions or otherwise. While there is no evidence they ever reigned as such, the Sumerians purported them to have lived in

354-426: A complicated and extensive syllabary. A considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of

472-517: A dynasty from Mari , which is a city outside Sumer proper but which played an important role in Mesopotamian history during the late third and early second millennia BC. The following third dynasty of Kish consists of a single ruler Kug-Bau ("the woman tavern keeper"), thought to be the only queen listed in the Sumerian King List . The final two dynasties of this section, the fourth of Kish and

590-407: A few other dynasties, followed again by the kings of Akkad. The sources differ in their exact contents. This is not only the result of many sources being fragmentary, it is also the result of scribal errors made during copying of the composition, and of the fact that changes were made to the composition through time. For example, the section on rulers before the flood is not present in every copy of

708-514: A historical time line in which reigns would fall within reasonable human bounds, and with what is known from the archaeological record as well as other textual sources. Thorkild Jacobsen argued in his major 1939 study of the SKL that, in principle, all rulers mentioned in the list should be considered historical because their names were taken from older lists that were kept for administrative purposes and could therefore be considered reliable. His solution to

826-612: A language of the Zagros possibly related to the Hurro-Urartuan language family , is attested in personal names, rivers and mountains and in various crafts. Akkadian came to be the dominant language during the Akkadian Empire and the Assyrian empires, but Sumerian was retained for administrative, religious, literary and scientific purposes. Different varieties of Akkadian were used until

944-480: A lower bound. The rise of Larsa under ruler Sumuel (c. 1895-1866 BC) put an end to the power of the Manana Dynasty though it appears that the dynasty maintained local rulership for a time after that. Later the area came under the control of Babylon with a Apil-Sin (c. 1830-1813 BC) year name reading "Year the temple of Inanna in Elip was built" and Hammurabi (c. 1792-1750 BC) year name reading "Year in which Hammu-rabi

1062-734: A majority of the reigns in the Gutian dynasty were 5, 6, or 7 years in length. In the sexagesimal system used at that time, "about 6 years" would be the same as "about 10 years" in a decimal system (i.e. a general round number). This was sufficient evidence for him to conclude that at least these figures were completely artificial. The longer time spans from the first part of the list could also be argued to be artificial: various reigns were multiples of 60 (e.g. Jushur reigned for 600 years, Puannum ruled for 840 years) while others were squares (e.g. Ilku reigned for 900 years (square of 30) while Meshkiangasher ruled for 324 years (square of 18)). During

1180-482: A patient could not be cured physically, the Babylonian physicians often relied on exorcism to cleanse the patient from any curses . Esagil-kin-apli's Diagnostic Handbook was based on a logical set of axioms and assumptions, including the modern view that through the examination and inspection of the symptoms of a patient, it is possible to determine the patient's disease , its aetiology, its future development, and

1298-549: A precursor to the Socratic method . The Ionian philosopher Thales was influenced by Babylonian cosmological ideas. Ancient Mesopotamians had ceremonies each month. The theme of the rituals and festivals for each month was determined by at least six important factors: Some songs were written for the gods but many were written to describe important events. Although music and songs amused kings , they were also enjoyed by ordinary people who liked to sing and dance in their homes or in

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1416-730: A recent hypothesis, the Archimedes' screw may have been used by Sennacherib, King of Assyria, for the water systems at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Nineveh in the 7th century BC, although mainstream scholarship holds it to be a Greek invention of later times. Later, during the Parthian or Sasanian periods, the Baghdad Battery , which may have been the world's first battery, was created in Mesopotamia. The Ancient Mesopotamian religion

1534-550: A sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD. Libraries were extant in towns and temples during the Babylonian Empire. An old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write, and for the Semitic Babylonians, this involved knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and

1652-434: A single cuneiform text with as much "name recognition" as the Sumerian King List . The SKL might also be among the compositions that have fuelled the most intense debate and controversy among academia. These debates generally focused on when, where and why it was created, and if and how the text can be used in the reconstruction of the political history of Mesopotamia during the third and second millennia BC. All but one of

1770-446: A steady succession of cities and kings, usually without much detail beyond the lengths of the individual reigns. Every entry is structured exactly the same: the city where kingship is located is named, followed by one or more kings and how long they reigned, followed by a summary and a final line indicating where kingship went next. Lines 134–147 may serve as an example: In Ur, Mesannepada became king; he ruled for 80 years. Meskiagnun ,

1888-415: A table of Pythagorean triples and represents some of the most advanced mathematics prior to Greek mathematics. From Sumerian times, temple priesthoods had attempted to associate current events with certain positions of the planets and stars. This continued to Assyrian times, when Limmu lists were created as a year by year association of events with planetary positions, which, when they have survived to

2006-510: A vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000-square-kilometre (5,800 sq mi) region of marshes, lagoons, mudflats, and reed banks in the south. In the extreme south, the Euphrates and

2124-447: A window into how Old Babylonian kings and scribes viewed their own history, how they perceived the concept of kingship, and how they could have used it to further their own goals. For example, it has been noted that the king list is unique among Sumerian compositions in there being no divine intervention in the process of dynastic change. Also, the style and contents of the Sumerian King List certainly influenced later compositions such as

2242-580: Is an-ki , which refers to the god An and the goddess Ki . Their son was Enlil, the air god. They believed that Enlil was the most powerful god. He was the chief god of the pantheon . The numerous civilizations of the area influenced the Abrahamic religions , especially the Hebrew Bible . Its cultural values and literary influence are especially evident in the Book of Genesis . Giorgio Buccellati believes that

2360-414: Is a composite product, although it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure. Mesopotamian mathematics and science was based on a sexagesimal (base 60) numeral system . This is the source of the 60-minute hour, the 24-hour day, and the 360- degree circle. The Sumerian calendar was lunisolar, with three seven-day weeks of a lunar month. This form of mathematics

2478-464: Is accurate to about six decimal digits, and is the closest possible three-place sexagesimal representation of √ 2 : The Babylonians were not interested in exact solutions, but rather approximations, and so they would commonly use linear interpolation to approximate intermediate values. One of the most famous tablets is the Plimpton 322 tablet , created around 1900–1600 BC, which gives

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2596-456: Is also given. In this first section, the reigns vary between 43,200 and 28,800 years for a total of 241,200 years. The section ends with the line "Then the flood swept over". Among the kings mentioned in this section is the ancient Mesopotamian god Dumuzid (the later Tammuz). "After the flood had swept over, and the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kish." After this well-known line,

2714-580: Is compatible with ergodic axioms. Logic was employed to some extent in Babylonian astronomy and medicine. Babylonian thought had a considerable influence on early Ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy . In particular, the Babylonian text Dialogue of Pessimism contains similarities to the agonistic thought of the Sophists , the Heraclitean doctrine of dialectic , and the dialogs of Plato , as well as

2832-468: Is known as present-day Iraq . In the broader sense, the historical region of Mesopotamia also includes parts of present-day Iran , Turkey , Syria and Kuwait . Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history, including the invention of

2950-402: Is listed during this period of kingship ( Utu-hegal ), before it moved on to Ur. The so-called Third Dynasty of Ur consisted of 5 kings who ruled between 9 and 46 years. No other details of their exploits are given. The Sumerian King List remarks that, after the rule of Ur was abolished, "The very foundation of Sumer was torn out", after which kingship was taken to Isin . The kings of Isin are

3068-570: Is not possible, but in one case, the Weld-Blundell prism, it could be dated to year 11 of the reign of king Sin-Magir of Isin , the last ruler to be mentioned in the Sumerian King List . The so-called Ur III Sumerian King List ( USKL ), on a clay tablet possibly found in Adab , is the only known version of the SKL that predates the Old Babylonian period. The colophon of this text mentions that it

3186-664: Is now known as the SKL was probably first created in the Sargonic period in a form very similar to the USKL . It has even been suggested that this precursor of the SKL was not written in Sumerian , but in Akkadian . The original contents of the USKL , especially the pre-Sargonic part, were probably significantly altered only after the Ur III period, as a reaction to the societal upheaval that resulted from

3304-549: Is that Ilip was the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian period name for the much older city of Urum . The city of Akusum is known to have had a city wall and a temple of Inanna with a gate and a silver offering table. The 4th year name of Sumuel (c. 1892 BC), ruler of Larsa, was "Year Akusum was destroyed and the army of Kazallu was smitten by weapons". While no texts from the Manana dynasty have been excavated several hundred have appeared on

3422-421: Is uncertain. The Babylonian development of methods for predicting the motions of the planets is considered to be a major episode in the history of astronomy . The only Greek-Babylonian astronomer known to have supported a heliocentric model of planetary motion was Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BC). Seleucus is known from the writings of Plutarch . He supported Aristarchus of Samos' heliocentric theory where

3540-698: The Curse of Akkad , the Lamentation over Sumer and Akkad , later king lists such as the Assyrian King List , and the Babyloniaca by Berossus . Early dates are approximate, and are based on available archaeological data. For most of the pre-Akkadian rulers listed, the king list is itself the source of information. Beginning with Lugal-zage-si and the Third Dynasty of Uruk (which was defeated by Sargon of Akkad ),

3658-663: The Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun . According to Plutarch , Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system, but it is not known what arguments he used, except that he correctly theorized on tides as a result of the Moon's attraction. Babylonian astronomy served as the basis for much of Greek , classical Indian , Sassanian, Byzantine , Syrian , medieval Islamic , Central Asian , and Western European astronomy. The oldest Babylonian texts on medicine date back to

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3776-599: The Jazira , is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad . Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation. It is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests , with names like Syria , Jazira , and Iraq being used to describe

3894-688: The Old Babylonian period in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC . The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū , or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa , during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069–1046 BC). Along with contemporary Egyptian medicine , the Babylonians introduced the concepts of diagnosis , prognosis , physical examination , enemas , and prescriptions . The Diagnostic Handbook introduced

4012-444: The SKL even go so far as to discredit the composition as a valuable historical source on Early Dynastic Mesopotamia altogether. Important arguments to dismiss the SKL as a reliable and valuable source are its nature as a political, ideological text, its long redactional history, and the fact that out of the many pre-Sargonic kings listed, only seven have been attested in contemporary Early Dynastic inscriptions. The final volume on

4130-492: The SKL points out that some rulers were family, it was the city, rather than individual rulers, to which kingship was given. The Sumerian King List is known from a number of different sources, all in the form of clay tablets or cylinders and written in Sumerian . At least 16 different tablets or fragments containing parts of the composition are known. Some tablets are unprovenanced, but most have been recovered, or are known to have come from various sites across Mesopotamia,

4248-422: The SKL reflected a more linear transition of power from Kish , the first city to receive kingship, to Akkad . In later versions from the Old Babylonian period , the list consisted of a large number of cities between which kingship was transferred, reflecting a more cyclical view of how kingship came to a city, only to be inevitably replaced by the next. In its best-known and best-preserved version, as recorded on

4366-471: The SKL was called after its first word: "nam- lugal ", or "kingship". It should also be noted that what is commonly referred to as the Sumerian King List , is in reality not a single text. Rather, it is a literary composition of which different versions existed through time in which sections were missing, arranged in a different order, and names, reigns and details on kings were different or absent. Modern scholarship has used numbered dynasties to refer to

4484-519: The SKL was first created during the Akkad dynasty to position Akkad as a direct heir to the hegemony of Kish. Thus, it would make sense to present the predecessors to the Akkadian kings as a long, unbroken line of rulers from Kish. In this way the Akkadian dynasty could legitimize its claims to power over Babylonia by arguing that, from the earliest times onwards, there had always been a single city where kingship

4602-474: The SKL , but instead Jacobsen assumed a reign of circa 30 years. In this manner, and by working backwards from reigns whose dates could be independently established by other means, Jacobsen was able to fit all pre-Sargonic kings in a chronology consistent with the dates that were at that time (1939) accepted for the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia. Jacobsen has been criticised for putting too much faith in

4720-408: The Sumerian King List , but rather contemporaneously. Starting with the Akkadian rulers, but especially for the Ur III and Isin dynasties, the SKL becomes much more reliable. Not only are most of the kings attested in other contemporaneous documents, but the reigns attributed to them in the SKL are more or less in line with what can be established from those other sources. This is probably due to

4838-477: The Weld-Blundell Prism , the SKL begins with a number of antediluvian kings, who ruled before a flood swept over the land, after which kingship went to Kish . It ends with a dynasty from Isin (early second millennium BC), which is well-known from other contemporary sources. The SKL is preserved in several versions, the first fragement of which was published in 1906 by Hermann Volrath Hilprecht , and

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4956-438: The marketplaces . Songs were sung to children who passed them on to their children. Thus songs were passed on through many generations as an oral tradition until writing was more universal. These songs provided a means of passing on through the centuries highly important information about historical events. Hunting was popular among Assyrian kings. Boxing and wrestling feature frequently in art, and some form of polo

5074-502: The wheel , the planting of the first cereal crops , the development of cursive script, mathematics , astronomy , and agriculture ". It is recognised as the cradle of some of the world's earliest civilizations. The Sumerians and Akkadians , each originating from different areas, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of recorded history ( c.  3100 BC ) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. The rise of empires, beginning with Sargon of Akkad around 2350 BC, characterized

5192-407: The É , a temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna at Uruk, from a building labeled as Temple C by its excavators. The early logographic system of cuneiform script took many years to master. Thus, only a limited number of individuals were hired as scribes to be trained in its use. It was not until the widespread use of a syllabic script was adopted under Sargon's rule that significant portions of

5310-629: The (two) rivers") comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος ( mesos , 'middle') and ποταμός ( potamos , 'river') and translates to '(land) between rivers', likely being a calque of the older Aramaic term, with the Aramaic term itself likely being a calque of the Akkadian birit narim . It is used throughout the Greek Septuagint ( c.  250 BC ) to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic equivalent Naharaim . An even earlier Greek usage of

5428-432: The 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene , Osroene , and Hatra . The regional toponym Mesopotamia ( / ˌ m ɛ s ə p ə ˈ t eɪ m i ə / , Ancient Greek : Μεσοποταμία '[land] between rivers'; Arabic : بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن Bilād ar-Rāfidayn or بَيْن ٱلنَّهْرَيْن Bayn an-Nahrayn ; Persian : میان‌رودان miyân rudân ; Syriac : ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ Beth Nahrain "(land) between

5546-422: The 20th century, many scholars accepted the Sumerian King List as a historical source of great importance for the reconstruction of the political history of Mesopotamia, despite the problems associated with the text. For example, many scholars have observed that the kings in the early part of the list reigned for unnaturally long time spans. Various approaches have been offered to reconcile these long reigns with

5664-532: The 8,000-year-old remains of early farmers found at an ancient graveyard in Germany . They compared the genetic signatures to those of modern populations and found similarities with the DNA of people living in today's Turkey and Iraq . The earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian , an agglutinative language isolate . Along with Sumerian, Semitic languages were also spoken in early Mesopotamia. Subartuan ,

5782-672: The Early Dynastic period itself, the pre-Sargonic part of the SKL must be considered fictional. Many of the rulers in the pre-Sargonic part (i.e. prior to Sargon of Akkad) of the list must therefore be considered as purely fictional or mythological characters to which reigns of hundreds of years were assigned. However, there is a small group of pre-Sargonic rulers in the SKL whose names have been attested in Early Dynastic inscriptions.This group consists of seven rulers: Enmebaragesi , Gilgamesh , Mesannepada , Meskiagnun , Elulu , Enshakushanna and Lugal-zage-si . It has also been shown that several kings did not rule sequentially as described by

5900-455: The Isin dynasty. Other manuscripts are incomplete because they are damaged or fragmentary. The Scheil dynastic tablet , from Susa , for example, only contains parts of the composition running from Uruk II to Ur III. The majority of the sources are dated to the Old Babylonian period (early second millennium BC), and more specifically the early part of that era. In many cases, a more precise dating

6018-412: The Mesopotamian population became literate. Massive archives of texts were recovered from the archaeological contexts of Old Babylonian scribal schools, through which literacy was disseminated. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC. The exact dating being a matter of debate. Sumerian continued to be used as

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6136-656: The Sumerian king list. Third dynasty of Kish Dynasty of Akshak Note Puzur-Nirah (son of Puzur-Su’en) is also an eponym in the Old Assyrian period Fourth dynasty of Kish Third dynasty of Uruk Dynasty of Akkad Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system , in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent . Today, Mesopotamia

6254-464: The Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf . The arid environment ranges from the northern areas of rain-fed agriculture to the south where irrigation of agriculture is essential. This irrigation is aided by a high water table and by melting snows from the high peaks of the northern Zagros Mountains and from the Armenian Highlands, the source of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that give

6372-606: The ancient history of lower Mesopotamia—commenced in the early-third millennium BC with cuneiform records of early dynastic kings. This entire history ends with either the arrival of the Achaemenid Empire in the late 6th century BC or with the Muslim conquest and the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, from which point the region came to be known as Iraq . In the long span of this period, Mesopotamia housed some of

6490-834: The antiquities market, beginning in 1910. Most of the texts are held in the Louvre museum , the Yale Babylonian Collection and the Oriental Institute . Aside from a few object inscriptions the main textual source for the dynasty is several archives that became available, primarily on economic and legal matters. They are of unknown provenance but are thought to have largely come from the town of Damrum near Kish . These archives include those of Šumšunu-watar (34 texts), Ṣīssu-nawrat son of Bēlum (19 texts), and Sîn-iddinam, son of Sanīya and his brothers (27 texts). The archives of Ea-dāpin (10 texts) and Ibbi-Ilabrat (15 texts) can be dated to

6608-410: The chances of the patient's recovery. Esagil-kin-apli discovered a variety of illnesses and diseases and described their symptoms in his Diagnostic Handbook . These include the symptoms for many varieties of epilepsy and related ailments along with their diagnosis and prognosis. Some treatments used were likely based off the known characteristics of the ingredients used. The others were based on

6726-424: The city "fell" and the "kingship was taken to Bad-tibira ". This pattern of cities receiving kingship and then falling or being defeated, only to be succeeded by the next, is present throughout the entire text, often in the exact same words. This first section lists eight kings who ruled over five cities (apart from Eridu and Bad-tibira, these also included Larag , Zimbir and Shuruppak ). The duration of each reign

6844-588: The city of Eridu , the Akkadian kingdoms, the Third Dynasty of Ur , and the various Assyrian empires. Some of the important historical Mesopotamian leaders were Ur-Nammu (king of Ur), Sargon of Akkad (who established the Akkadian Empire), Hammurabi (who established the Old Babylonian state), Ashur-uballit I and Tiglath-Pileser I (who established the Assyrian Empire). Scientists analysed DNA from

6962-427: The city of Marad . The states principle cities were Akusum, Sagdainpad, and Ilip/Elip (KI.BAL.MAS.DA) of which the latter is generally thought to be the capital though Damrum (HI.GAR) near Kish has also been suggested. It is known that the city god of Damrum was Nanna ( Sin ), also the tutelary god of the dynasty, and that there were Nadītu of that god there. The cities of Ilip and Sagdainpad are mentioned in texts of

7080-523: The compilation by the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature , which in turn takes the text of the Weld-Blundell prism as its main source, listing other versions when there are differences in the text. This section, which is not present in every copy of the text, opens with the line "After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu." Two kings of Eridu are mentioned, before

7198-614: The cultural mix. Periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. The demands for labor has from time to time led to population increases that push the limits of the ecological carrying capacity , and should a period of climatic instability ensue, collapsing central government and declining populations can occur. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and neglect of irrigation systems. Equally, centripetal tendencies amongst city-states have meant that central authority over

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7316-421: The cycles of the moon. They divided the year into two seasons: summer and winter. The origins of astronomy as well as astrology date from this time. During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new approach to astronomy. They began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This

7434-440: The disintegration of the Ur III state at the end of the third millennium BC. This altering of the composition meant that the original long, uninterrupted list of kings of Kish was cut up in smaller dynasties (e.g. Kish I, Kish II, and so forth), and that other dynasties were inserted. The result was the SKL as it is known from Old Babylonian manuscripts such as the Weld-Blundell prism. The cyclical change of kingship from one city to

7552-489: The earlier Early Dynastic II period. The city of Sagdainpad is known to have had a city wall. The third year name of the initial ruler of the First Dynasty of Babylon Sumu-abum (c. 1895 BC) states "Year the city wall of Ilip was seized". The Babylon ruler Apil-Sin built a temple to Inanna at Ilip in his 9th regnal year (c. 1822) and Hammurabi in his 17th year (c. 1776 BC) "elevated a statue for Inanna of Ilip". A proposal

7670-532: The end of the Neo-Babylonian period. Old Aramaic , which had already become common in Mesopotamia, then became the official provincial administration language of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire , and then the Achaemenid Empire : the official lect is called Imperial Aramaic . Akkadian fell into disuse, but both it and Sumerian were still used in temples for some centuries. The last Akkadian texts date from

7788-424: The fact that the compilers of the SKL could rely on lists of year names, which came in regular use during the Akkadian period. Other sources may have included votive and victory inscriptions. However, while the SKL has little value for the study on Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, it continues to be an important document for the study on the Sargonic to Old Babylonian periods. The Sumerian King List offers scholars

7906-413: The final dynasty that is included in the list. The dynasty consisted of 14 kings who ruled between 3 and 33 years. As with the Ur III dynasty, no details are given on the reigns of individual kings. Some versions of the Sumerian King List conclude with a summary of the dynasties after the flood. In this summary, the number of kings and their accumulated regnal years are mentioned for each city, as well as

8024-510: The first being "Year when Sumu-ditan died" referring to the ruler of the city of Marad who was contemporary with Sumu-abum of Babylon. Sumerian King List The Sumerian King List (abbreviated SKL ) or Chronicle of the One Monarchy is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims to power of various city-states and kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia during

8142-427: The foreign countries" and Enmebaragesi , "who made the land of Elam submit". Enmebaragesi is also the first king in the Sumerian King List whose name is attested from contemporaneous ( Early Dynastic I ) inscriptions. His successor Aga of Kish , the final king mentioned before Kish fell and kingship was taken to E-ana , also appears in the poem Gilgamesh and Aga . The next lines, up until Sargon of Akkad , show

8260-413: The fourth dynasty of Uruk, two kings of which, Ur-nigin and his son Ur-gigir , appear in other contemporary inscriptions. Kingship was then taken to the "land" or "army" of Gutium , of which it was said that at first they had no kings and that they ruled themselves for a few years. After this short episode, 21 Gutian kings are listed before the fall of Gutium and kingship was taken to Uruk. Only one ruler

8378-580: The history and philology of third millennium BC Mesopotamia of the ESF -funded ARCANE-project (Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean), for example, did not list any of the pre-Sargonic rulers from the SKL in its chronological tables unless their existence was corroborated by Early Dynastic inscriptions. Thus, in the absence of independent sources from

8496-514: The king elevated a statue for Inanna of Elip". The location of this state is unknown but lay near the city of unlocated city of Kazallu , Kish, and Babylon . The Abgal canal (known as far back as the Akkadian Empire and flowing past Kish) and Me-enlila canal (known as far back as the Ur III period) were in the area of control, based on year names. The Me-enlila was a branch off the Abgal and flowed to

8614-427: The last few decades, scholars have taken a more careful approach. For example, many recent handbooks on the archaeology and history of ancient Mesopotamia all acknowledge the problematic nature of the SKL and warn that the list's use as a historical document for that period is severely limited up to the point that it should not be used at all. It has been argued, for example, that the omission of certain cities in

8732-409: The late 1st century AD. Early in Mesopotamia's history, around the mid-4th millennium BC, cuneiform was invented for the Sumerian language. Cuneiform literally means "wedge-shaped", due to the triangular tip of the stylus used for impressing signs on wet clay. The standardized form of each cuneiform sign appears to have been developed from pictograms . The earliest texts, 7 archaic tablets, come from

8850-454: The late third and early second millennium BC. It does so by repetitively listing Sumerian cities, the kings that ruled there, and the lengths of their reigns. Especially in the early part of the list, these reigns often span thousands of years. In the oldest known version, dated to the Ur III period ( c.  2112  – c.  2004 BC ) but probably based on Akkadian source material,

8968-463: The later part of the reign of Sumu-la-El of Babylon. Many of the personal names are Akkadian or Sumerian but a number of Amorite names are also present in the texts. Lacking king lists, the ruler order is generally assumed, while not certain, to be: The rulers Manna-balti-El and Ashduni-yarim (known to have ruled Kish) have also been proposed. Another ruler, Iawium, governed the city of Kish under Halium and Manana. Ten year names of Iawium are known,

9086-484: The lengths of their reigns may vary. These differences are both the result of copying errors, and of deliberate editorial decisions to change the text to fit current needs. In the past, the Sumerian King List was considered as an invaluable source for the reconstruction of the political history of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia . More recent research has indicated that the use of the SKL is fraught with difficulties, and that it should only be used with caution, if at all, in

9204-442: The list which were known to have been important at the time, such as Lagash and Larsa , was deliberate. Furthermore, the fact that the SKL adheres to a strict sequential ordering of kingships which were considered equal means that it does no justice at all to the actual complexities of Mesopotamian political history where different reigns overlapped, or where different rulers or cities were not equally powerful. Recent studies on

9322-500: The list. Some city names, such as Uruk, Ur and Kish, appear more than once in the Sumerian King List . The earlier part of this section mentions several kings who are also known from other literary sources. These kings include Dumuzid the Fisherman and Gilgamesh , although virtually no king from the earlier part of this section appears in inscriptions dating from the actual period in which they were supposed to live. Lines 211–223 describe

9440-476: The majority coming from Nippur . So far a version of the SKL has been found outside of Babylonia only once: there is one manuscript containing a part of the composition from Tell Leilan in Upper Mesopotamia . There is only one manuscript that contains a relatively undamaged version of the composition. This is the Weld-Blundell Prism which includes the antediluvian part of the composition and ends with

9558-472: The methods of therapy and aetiology and the use of empiricism , logic , and rationality in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The text contains a list of medical symptoms and often detailed empirical observations along with logical rules used in combining observed symptoms on the body of a patient with its diagnosis and prognosis. The symptoms and diseases of a patient were treated through therapeutic means such as bandages , creams and pills . If

9676-418: The mythical era before the great deluge. 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). Attempts have been made to map these numbers into more reasonable regnal lengths. 18 sars and 4 ners (67,200 years) First dynasty of Kish First rulers of Uruk First dynasty of Ur Dynasty of Awan This

9794-568: The name Mesopotamia is evident from The Anabasis of Alexander , which was written in the late 2nd century AD but specifically refers to sources from the time of Alexander the Great . In the Anabasis , Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria . The Akkadian term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. Later, the term Mesopotamia

9912-435: The next became a so-called Leitmotif , or recurring theme, in the Sumerian King List . It has been generally accepted that the main aim was not to provide a historiographical record of the political landscape of ancient Mesopotamia. Instead, it has been suggested that the SKL , in its various redactions, was used by contemporary rulers to legitimize their claims to power over Babylonia. Steinkeller has argued that

10030-531: The number of times that city had received kingship: "A total of 12 kings ruled for 396 years, 3 times in Urim." The final line again tallies the numbers for all these dynasties: "There are 11 cities, cities in which the kingship was exercised. A total of 134 kings, who altogether ruled for 28876 + X years." Piotr Steinkeller  [ de ] has observed that, with the exception of the Epic of Gilgamesh , there might not be

10148-403: The older USKL , did not contain the antediluvian part of the list. In its original form, the list started with the hegemony of Kish. Some city-states may have been uncomfortable with the preeminent position of Kish. By inserting a section of primordial kings who ruled before a flood, which is only known from some Old Babylonian versions, the importance of Kish could be downplayed. During much of

10266-420: The origins of philosophy can be traced back to early Mesopotamian wisdom , which embodied certain philosophies of life, particularly ethics , in the forms of dialectic , dialogues , epic poetry , folklore , hymns , lyrics , prose works, and proverbs . Babylonian reason and rationality developed beyond empirical observation. Babylonian thought was also based on an open-systems ontology which

10384-402: The present day, allow accurate associations of relative with absolute dating for establishing the history of Mesopotamia. The Babylonian astronomers were very adept at mathematics and could predict eclipses and solstices . Scholars thought that everything had some purpose in astronomy. Most of these related to religion and omens. Mesopotamian astronomers worked out a 12-month calendar based on

10502-425: The region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments. Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the neighboring Armenian highlands . Both rivers are fed by numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains

10620-801: The region coming under ephemeral Roman control. In 226 AD, the eastern regions of Mesopotamia fell to the Sassanid Persians . The division of the region between the Roman Byzantine Empire from 395 AD and the Sassanid Empire lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and the Muslim conquest of the Levant from the Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between

10738-613: The region for a century as the final independent Mesopotamian realm until the modern era. In 539 BC, Mesopotamia was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire . The area was next conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. After his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire . Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire . It became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with western parts of

10856-441: The region its name. The usefulness of irrigation depends upon the ability to mobilize sufficient labor for the construction and maintenance of canals, and this, from the earliest period, has assisted the development of urban settlements and centralized systems of political authority. Agriculture throughout the region has been supplemented by nomadic pastoralism, where tent-dwelling nomads herded sheep and goats (and later camels) from

10974-504: The reigns considered too long, then, was to argue that "[t]heir occurrence in our material must be ascribed to a tendency known also among other peoples of antiquity to form very exaggerated ideas of the length of human life in the earliest times of which they were conscious." In order to create a fixed chronology where individual kings could be absolutely dated, Jacobsen replaced time spans considered too long with average reigns of 20–30 years. For example, Etana ruled for 1500 years according to

11092-609: The reliability of the king list, for making wishful reconstructions and readings of incomplete parts of the list, for ignoring inconsistencies between the SKL and other textual evidence, and for ignoring the fact that only very few of the pre-Sargonic rulers have been attested in contemporaneous (i.e. Early Dynastic) inscriptions. Others have attempted to reconcile the reigns in the Sumerian King List by arguing that many time spans were actually consciously invented, mathematically derived numbers. Rowton, for example, observed that

11210-461: The river pastures in the dry summer months, out into seasonal grazing lands on the desert fringe in the wet winter season. The area is generally lacking in building stone, precious metals, and timber, and so historically has relied upon long-distance trade of agricultural products to secure these items from outlying areas. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times and has added to

11328-461: The second in 1911 by Jean-Vincent Scheil . Most of these date to the Old Babylonian period, but the oldest version of the SKL dates back to the Ur III period. The clay tablets on which the SKL was recorded were generally found on sites in southern Mesopotamia. These versions differ in their exact content; some sections are missing, others are arranged in a different order, names of kings may be absent or

11446-455: The section goes on to list 23 kings of Kish , who ruled between 1500 and 300 years for a total of 24,510 years. The exact number of years varies between copies. Apart from the lengths of their reigns and whether they were the son of their predecessor (for example, " Mashda , the son of Atab , ruled for 840 years"), no other details are usually given on the exploits of these kings. Exceptions are Etana , "who ascended to heaven and consolidated all

11564-407: The son of Mesannepada, became king; he ruled for 36 years. Elulu ruled for 25 years. Balulu ruled for 36 years. 4 kings; they ruled for 171 years. Then Ur was defeated and the kingship was taken to Awan. Individual reigns vary in length, from 1200 years for Lugalbanda of Uruk, to six years for another king of Uruk and several kings of Akshak. On average, the number of regnal years decreases down

11682-469: The study of ancient Mesopotamia during the third and early second millennium BC. The text is best known under its modern name Sumerian King List , which is often abbreviated to SKL in scholarly literature. A less-used name is the Chronicle of the One Monarchy , reflecting the notion that, according to this text, there could ever be only one city exercising kingship over Mesopotamia. In contemporary sources,

11800-465: The subsequent 2,000 years of Mesopotamian history, marked by the succession of kingdoms and empires such as the Akkadian Empire . The early second millennium BC saw the polarization of Mesopotamian society into Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south. From 900 to 612 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire asserted control over much of the ancient Near East. Subsequently, the Babylonians, who had long been overshadowed by Assyria, seized power , dominating

11918-474: The surviving versions of the Sumerian King List date to the Old Babylonian period, i.e. the early part of the second millennium BC. One version, the Ur III Sumerian King List ( USKL ) dates to the reign of Shulgi (2084–2037 BC). By carefully comparing the different versions, especially the USKL with the much later Old Babylonian versions of the SKL , it has been shown that the composition that

12036-488: The syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists were drawn up. Many Babylonian literary works are still studied today. One of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh , in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sîn-lēqi-unninni , and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh . The whole story

12154-550: The symbolic qualities. Mesopotamian people invented many technologies including metal and copper-working, glass and lamp making, textile weaving, flood control , water storage, and irrigation. They were also one of the first Bronze Age societies in the world. They developed from copper, bronze, and gold on to iron. Palaces were decorated with hundreds of kilograms of these very expensive metals. Also, copper, bronze, and iron were used for armor as well as for different weapons such as swords, daggers, spears, and maces . According to

12272-426: The text, including every text from Nippur, where the majority of versions of the SKL were found. Also, the order of some of the dynasties or kings may be changed between copies, some dynasties that were separately mentioned in one version are taken together in another, details on the lengths of individual reigns vary, and individual kings may be left out entirely. The following summary and line numbers are taken from

12390-404: The third of Uruk, provide a link to the next section. Sargon of Akkad is mentioned in the Sumerian King List as cup-bearer to Ur-zababa of Kish, and he defeated Lugal-zage-si of Uruk before founding his own dynasty. This section is devoted to the well-known Akkadian ruler Sargon and his successors. After the entry on Shar-kali-sharri , the Sumerian King List reads "Then who was king? Who

12508-429: The uninterrupted rule of a single city; hence the Ur III dynasty denotes the third time that the city of Ur assumed hegemony over Mesopotamia according to the SKL . This numbering (e.g. Kish I, Uruk IV, Ur III) is not present in the original text. It should also be noted that the modern usage of the term dynasty , i.e. a sequence of rulers from a single family, does not necessarily apply to ancient Mesopotamia. Even though

12626-418: The volume of the frustum of a cone or a square pyramid was incorrectly taken as the product of the height and half the sum of the bases. Also, there was a recent discovery in which a tablet used π as 25/8 (3.125 instead of 3.14159~). The Babylonians are also known for the Babylonian mile, which was a measure of distance equal to about seven modern miles (11 km). This measurement for distances eventually

12744-679: The whole region, when imposed, has tended to be ephemeral, and localism has fragmented power into tribal or smaller regional units. These trends have continued to the present day in Iraq. The prehistory of the Ancient Near East begins in the Lower Paleolithic period. Therein, writing emerged with a pictographic script, Proto-cuneiform , in the Uruk IV period ( c.  late 4th millennium BC ). The documented record of actual historical events—and

12862-778: The world's most ancient highly developed, and socially complex states. The region was one of the four riverine civilizations where writing was invented, along with the Nile valley in Ancient Egypt , the Indus Valley civilization in the Indian subcontinent , and the Yellow River in Ancient China . Mesopotamia housed historically important cities such as Uruk , Nippur , Nineveh , Assur and Babylon , as well as major territorial states such as

12980-605: Was a dynasty from Elam . Second dynasty of Kish The First dynasty of Lagash (c. 2500 – c. 2271 BC) is not mentioned in the King List, though it is well known from inscriptions Dynasty of Hamazi Second dynasty of Uruk Second dynasty of Ur Dynasty of Adab Other rulers of Adab are known, besides Lugal-Ane-mundu , but they are not mentioned in the Sumerian King List. Dynasty of Mari Many rulers are known from Mari , but different names are mentioned in

13098-478: Was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution. This new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy. In Seleucid and Parthian times, the astronomical reports were thoroughly scientific. How much earlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed

13216-497: Was converted to a time-mile used for measuring the travel of the Sun, therefore, representing time. The roots of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonia who developed an advanced arithmetical system with which they were able to do calculations in an algorithmic fashion. The Babylonian clay tablet YBC 7289 ( c.  1800 –1600 BC) gives an approximation of √ 2 in four sexagesimal figures, 1 24 51 10 , which

13334-431: Was copied during the reign of Shulgi (2084–2037 BC), the second king of the Ur III dynasty. The USKL is especially interesting because its pre-Sargonic part is completely different from that of the SKL . Whereas the SKL records many different dynasties from several cities, the USKL starts with a single long list of rulers from Kish (including rulers who, in the SKL were part of different Kish dynasties), followed by

13452-453: Was exercised. Later rulers then used the Sumerian King List for their own political purposes, amending and adding to the text as they saw fit. This is why, for example, the version recorded on the Weld-Blundell prism ends with the Isin dynasty, suggesting that it was now their turn to rule over Mesopotamia as the rightful inheritors of the Ur III legacy. The use of the SKL as political propaganda may also explain why some versions, including

13570-412: Was instrumental in early map-making . The Babylonians also had theorems on how to measure the area of several shapes and solids. They measured the circumference of a circle as three times the diameter and the area as one-twelfth the square of the circumference, which would be correct if π were fixed at 3. The volume of a cylinder was taken as the product of the area of the base and the height; however,

13688-618: Was more generally applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris , thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and southeastern Turkey . The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia . A further distinction is usually made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia . Upper Mesopotamia, also known as

13806-407: Was not king?", suggesting a period of chaos that may reflect the uncertain times during which the Akkadian Empire came to an end. Four kings are mentioned to have ruled for a total of only three years. Of the Akkadian kings mentioned after Shar-kali-sharri, only the names of Dudu and Shu-turul have been attested in inscriptions dating from the Akkadian period. The Akkadian dynasty is succeeded by

13924-450: Was the first recorded. Mesopotamians believed that the world was a flat disc, surrounded by a huge, holed space, and above that, heaven . They believed that water was everywhere, the top, bottom and sides, and that the universe was born from this enormous sea. Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic . Although the beliefs described above were held in common among Mesopotamians, there were regional variations. The Sumerian word for universe

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