A History of Sumer and Akkad / An account of the early races of Babylonia from prehistoric times to the foundation of the Babylonian monarchy

by L. W. King

A more difficult problem is presented by what at first sight appears to be a claim to a still wider empire, which follows Lugal-zaggisi's titles at the end of the first and the beginning of the second column of his inscription. He here states that, after Enlil had bestowed on him the kingdom of the land (that is, of Sumer), and had granted him success in the eyes of the land, and when his might had cast the lands down and he had conquered them from East to West, at that time Enlil "made straight his path from the Lower Sea (over) the Euphrates and the Tigris unto the Upper Sea."[8] The Lower Sea is clearly the Persian Gulf, and by the Upper Sea it is probable that the Mediterranean is intended, rather than Lake Urmi or Lake Van. On the basis of this passage Lugal-zaggisi has been credited with having consolidated and ruled an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the shores of the Mediterranean.[9] In other words, he would have included Akkad and Syria along with Sumer within the limits of his rule.

It is true that Shar-Gani-sharri of Akkad, at a rather later period, did succeed in establishing an empire of this extent, but there are difficulties in the way of crediting Lugal-zaggisi with a like achievement. For Erech, the capital of his kingdom, was in Southern Babylonia, and, unlike the city of Akkad, was not well adapted to form the centre of an administrative area extending so far to the north and west. Moreover, the actual phrase employed by Lugal-zaggisi does not necessarily imply a claim to dominion within these regions, but may be taken as commemorating little more than a victorious raid, during which he may have penetrated to the Syrian coast. Such an expedition, so far as we know, must have marked a new departure from the policy hitherto followed by the rulers of Sumerian city-states, and its successful prosecution would have fully justified the language in which it is recorded. In view of these considerations, it is preferable to regard Lugal-zaggisi's kingdom, in the strict sense of the word, as having been confined to Sumer. Of his relations to Akkad and the northern cities we have no evidence on which to form an opinion. We shall presently see reasons for believing that at about this period, or a little later, the state of Kish secured the hegemony in Northern Babylonia, and, in view of the absence of any reference to it in Lugal-zaggisi's inscription, we may perhaps conclude that in his time the city had already laid the foundations of its later power.

It was probably after his successful return from the long expedition in the north-west that Lugal-zaggisi deposited his vases as votive offerings within Enlil's shrine at Nippur, and engraved upon them the inscriptions from which we obtain our information concerning his reign. In the third column of his text he states that he has dedicated them to Enlil, after having made due offerings of loaves in Nippur and having poured out pure water as a libation. He then adds a prayer of dedication, in which he prays for life for himself, and peace for his land, and a large army. "May Enlil, the king of the lands," he says, "pronounce my prayer to Ana, his beloved father! To my life may he add life! May he cause the lands to dwell in security! Warriors as numerous as the grass may he grant me in abundance! Of the celestial folds may he take care! May he look with kindness on the land (of Sumer)! May the gods not alter the good destiny they have assigned to me! May I always be the shepherd, who leads (his flock)!"[10] We may regard it as typical of the great conqueror that he should pray for a supply of warriors "as numerous as the grass."

It is fortunate for our knowledge of early Sumerian history that the shrine of Enlil at Nippur should have been the depository for votive offerings, brought thither by the rulers of city-states to commemorate their victories. Of the inscribed objects of this class that were recovered at Nippur during the American excavations on that site, by far the most important are the vase-fragments of Lugal-zaggisi, which have already been described. But others were found, which, though supplying less detailed information, are of considerable value, since they furnish the names of other rulers of Sumer, who may probably be grouped with Lugal-zaggisi. Two kings of this period are Lugal-kigub-nidudu and Lugal-kisalsi, each of whom bore the title "King of Erech" and "King of Ur," while the former, like Lugal-zaggisi, styles himself in addition "king of the land," i.e. of Sumer. Their inscriptions were found in the mound of Nippur at about the same level as the vase-fragments of Lugal-zaggisi, and a comparison of the characters employed in each set of texts suggests that they date from about the same period.

That Lugal-kigub-nidudu and Lugal-kisalsi are in any case to be set before the time of Shar-Gani-sharri of Akkad is proved by the fact that one of the rough blocks of diorite, which the former had dedicated to Enlil after inscribing his name upon it, was afterwards used by Shar-Gani-sharri as a door-socket in the temple he erected at Nippur.[11] Whether they lived still earlier than Lugal-zaggisi it is difficult to decide. The longest inscription of Lugal-kigub-nidudu which has been recovered is engraved upon a vase which he deposited as a votive offering in Enlil's temple, and from the introductory phrases preceding the dedication it would appear that he founded a kingdom, or at any rate enlarged one which he already possessed. "When Enlil, the king of the lands," the passage runs, "(had spoken) to Lugal-kigub-nidudu and had addressed a favourable word to him, and had united the dominion with the kingdom, of Erech he made a dominion, of Ur he made a kingdom."[12] It would thus seem that Lugal-kigub-nidudu had at first been possessed of only one of the two cities, Erech or Ur, and that he subsequently acquired the other, probably by conquest, and proceeded to rule them both under separate administrations.

Too much emphasis is not to be set on the fact that he describes his rule of Erech as a lordship or a dominion, while he styles that of Ur a kingdom; for the difference in these phrases was not very marked in the pre-Sargonic period, and it is to be noted that Erech is mentioned before Ur. Moreover, Lugal-kisalsi assigns the title "King of Erech" as well as "King of Ur" to his predecessor as to himself, and, since he places the former title first, it is probable that Erech and not Ur was their capital. But even on this assumption it does not follow that Erech was Lugal-kigub-nidudu's native city, for we have seen that when Lugal-zaggisi conquered Sumer he transferred his capital to Erech, and Lugal-kigub-nidudu may have done the same. The fact that at a later period Gudea, when rebuilding the temple E-ninnû, came across a stele of Lugal-kisalsi[13] suggests that he exercised authority over Lagash; and we may probably conclude that both he and Lugal-kigub-nidudu included the principal cities of Southern Babylonia under their sway. That Lugal-kisalsi followed and did not precede Lugal-kigub-nidudu upon the dual throne of Erech and Ur is certain from one of his votive inscriptions,[14] which contains a reference to the earlier king. The beginning of the text is wanting, so that it is not clear whether he mentions him as his father or in some other connection. In any case we may assume that he followed him at no long interval; but it is not yet certain whether we are to set their reigns in Sumer before or after that of Lugal-zaggisi.

The same uncertainty applies to another ruler of this period, who bore the name of Enshagkushanna and assumed the titles "lord of Sumer" and "king of the land." Two of his inscriptions have been recovered upon fragments of vases, which were found at Nippur at the same level as those already described, and one of these is of considerable interest, for it gives us the name of an enemy of Sumer who has already bulked largely in the earlier history of Lagash.[15] The inscription in question consists of only a few words, and reads: "Enshagkushanna has vowed to Enlil the booty of Kish, the wicked."[16] It is clear from the epithet applied to Kish that at this period, as in the time of Eannatum, the northern city was a terror to the Sumerian states in the south, and we may assume that war between them was not of infrequent occurrence. It was after some successful raid or battle in the north that Enshagkushanna dedicated a portion of the spoil to Enlil in his temple of E-kur. Similar fragments of vases have been found at Nippur, the inscriptions upon which testify to other successes against Kish, achieved by a king of Sumer, who probably reigned at a period rather earlier than Enshagkushanna, Lugal-kigub-nidudu, and even Lugal-zaggisi.

Although fragments of no less than four of his vase-inscriptions have been discovered,[17] the name of this Sumerian king unfortunately does not occur on any one of them. In the longest of the texts he takes the title of "king," and in the gap that follows we may probably restore the phrase "of the land," that is, of Sumer; on two of them, like the other Sumerian kings we have referred to, he ascribes his installation in the government of the country to Enlil, the god of Nippur. All four inscriptions were drawn up on the same occasion, and commemorate a striking victory this unknown Sumerian ruler had achieved over the northern cities of Kish and Opis. Of the two conquered cities Kish was clearly the more important, for its devastation is recorded in each of the texts, whereas Opis is only mentioned in one of them. Each city was ruled by a separate king, whose overthrow is recorded on the vases, but, since they were defeated in the same battle, we may conjecture that they formed the centre of a single confederation or dominion, of which Kish was the head. In two of the texts the king of Kish is referred to, not only by his title, but by name, and, since he bore the Semitic name of Enbi-Ishtar, we may conclude that at this period Kish, and probably Opis and other northern cities, were already under Semitic domination. In the war these cities were waging with the south, the vases record what appears to have been a serious check to the increase of Semitic influence and power. For not only was Enbi-Ishtar defeated, but both Kish and Opis were sacked, and the Sumerian king returned southward laden with booty, including statues, precious metals, and rare stones. The vases on which he recorded his victory formed part of the spoil captured in the north. They were fashioned of white calcite stalagmite, dark brown sandstone, and dark brown tufa or igneous rock. In the land of Sumer, where stone was a rare commodity, these were highly prized objects, and they formed a fitting thank-offering for presentation at Enlil's shrine.

We have already referred to the question as to the nationality of the still earlier kings of Kish, Mesilim and his successors, some of whom we know to have been contemporary with the earlier rulers of Lagash. At that period the northern city had already succeeded in imposing its authority upon some of the city-states of Sumer, and later on both Kish and Opis are proved to have been engaged in active warfare in the south. Too little evidence is available for determining definitely whether these earlier kings and patesis were of Sumerian or Semitic stock, but there is much to be said in favour of regarding the later conflicts between the north and south as merely a continuation of the earlier struggle. With Enbi-Ishtar we meet at any rate with a name that is genuinely Semitic,[18] and we shall presently see reasons for believing that other Semitic kings of Kish, whose inscriptions and monuments have been recovered, should be placed in the same period. According to this view, as we have already pointed out,[19] the first Semitic immigration into Northern Babylonia, or Akkad, is not to be synchronized with the empire of Akkad, which was founded by Shar-Gani-sharri and consolidated by Narâm-Sin. In spite of the absence of Semitic idiom from the few short votive inscriptions of the earlier kings of Kish that have as yet been found, the possibility must not be disregarded that they too date from a period of Semitic and not of Sumerian domination in the north. At Sippar also we have evidence of very early Semitic occupation.

One of this later group of kings of Kish, whose inscriptions prove them to have been Semites, is Urumush, or Rimush,[20] and, although in all probability the latest of them, he may be referred to first, since we have definite evidence that he is to be assigned to the epoch preceding Shar-Gani-sharri and Narâm-Sin. In an unpublished tablet from Tello, preserved in the Museum at Constantinople, there occurs the proper name Ili-Urumush, "My god is Urumush."[21] The deification of some of the early kings of Babylonia has long been recognized as having taken place, at any rate from the time of Shar-Gani-sharri; and we have evidence that the honour was not only paid to them after death, but was assumed by the kings themselves during their own lifetime.[22] The occurrence of a proper name such as Ili-Urumush can only be explained on the supposition that a king bearing the name of Urumush had already reigned, or was reigning at the time the former name was employed. Now, the tablet in Constantinople, which mentions the name of Ili-Urumush, is undated, but from its form, writing, and contents it may clearly be assigned to the same epoch as certain dated tablets of Shar-Gani-sharri and Narâm-Sin with which it was found. From this it follows that Urumush was anterior to Shar-Gani-sharri and Narâm-Sin, though his reign may not have been separated from theirs by any long interval.