Introduction

Old Babylonian Recension of the Sumerian King List (SKL) on the so-called Weld-Blundell (WB) Prism 

Now in the Ashmolean Museum: image from the museum website 

The clay prism illustrated above contains a Sumerian cuneiform text (transliterated as CDLI, P384786) that records the rulers of a succession cities in Sumer and its neighbouring regions, together with the lengths of their respective reigns, going back to time immemorial.  The provenance of the tablet is unknown:

1. ✴it was first recorded as part of the private collection of Herbert Weld-Blundell, who presented it to the Ashmolean Museum in 1923; and
   

2. ✴Stephen Langdon (referenced below) published it (as WB 444) shortly thereafter. 
   

Earlier fragments of very similar texts had been known since at least the start of the 20th century, but the connections between them only became apparent after the  publication of the essentially complete WB 444. 

In 1939, when Thorkild Jacobsen (referenced below) published the first critical edition of what was by then known as the Sumerian King List (SKL), he was able to rely on WB 444 and 14 other (less complete) texts (which he listed at pp. 5-13 - see below).  In 2004, Jean-Jacques Glassner (referenced below, at pp. 118-25) published an updated version of WB 444 (his ‘manuscript G’, see p. 117), which he entitled ‘Chronicle of the Single Monarchy’.   Since 1939, the SKL corpus has expanded from 14 to 26 recensions, and these are the subject of a critical edition that Gösta Gabriel is about to publish: I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Gabriel for allowing me to read a pre-publication copy of this important (and much-needed) book, which fundamentally changes our understanding of the historical significance of what has been a much-derided literary genre.  

Modern Corpus of the SKL

Table 1: Summary of the SKL corpus published by Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming) 

Sallaberger and Schrakamp = Walther  Sallaberger and Ingo Schrakamp (referenced below, at pp. 15-22) 

Glassner = Jean-Jacques Glassner (referenced below, at pp. 117-8) 

Jacobsen = Thorkild Jacobsen (referenced below, at pp. 5-12) 

The corpus analysed by Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming) is summarised above.  The earliest known recension of this text (known as the ‘USKL’) dates back to what historians know as the ‘Ur III’ dynasty, which came to an end when it fell first to the Elamites. and then to King Ishbi-Erra of Isin: according to the chronology of Nathan Wasserman and Yigal Bloch (referenced below):

1. ✴the Elamites defeated Ibbi-Sin, the last Ur III king, and captured Ur in ca. 1995 BC (see  p. 129); and
   

2. ✴King Ishbi-Erra captured Ur from the Elamites in his 25th regnal year, ca. 1987 BC (see p. 131). 
   

It seems that all of the later recensions of the SKL were compiled for kings of Isin during the 200 years between: 

1. ✴ca. 1987 BC, when Ishbi-Erra presumably began to represent himself as the heir of the Ur III kings; and
   

2. ✴ca. 1786 BC, when Damiq-ilishu, the 15th and last of the Isin kings, was defeated by King Rim-Sin of Larsa, bringing this dynasty to an end (see the Isin king list at p. 128).
   

Convenient on-line sources for the 24 Old Babylonian recensions of the SKL (numbered in table 1) include: 

1. ✴a composite transliteration and translation at CDLI (P479895); and
   

2. ✴a composite translation divided by ‘dynasties’ at ETCSL (translation: t.2.1.1).
   

References below to specific lines of the SKL use the numbering of the  CDLI composite.

The present page deals primarily with these 24 Old Babylonian recensions,  However, I will start with some preliminary remarks about the earlier (and arguably more historically significant) ‘Ur III’ recension.

Ur III Recension of the Sumerian King List (USKL) 

In 2003, Piotr Stenkeller (referenced below) published what was then and is still the oldest known SKL text.  Fortunately, since its closing section is unbroken, we know that:

1. ✴the last-named king in the list was King Ur-Namma, who featured in the later SKL recensions as the founder of the ‘Ur III’ dynasty; and
   

2. ✴this final record was followed by the scribe’s dedication of his handiwork to:
   

3. “... [the divine] Shulgi, my king [= Ur Namma’s son and successor]: may he live until distant days”, (translation based on that by Piotr Steinkeller, referenced below, 2003, at p. 269). 
   

Steinkeller argued (at p. 269) that, since Shulgi was given a divine determinative in this dedication, the USKL must have been compiled at some time between his 20th regnal year (the approximate date of his deification) and his 48th regnal year (the approximate date of his death).  If we count back from the death of Ibbi-Sin in ca. 1995 BC, using the Ur III reign lengths in the SKL, then the USKL was compiled in the period 2065-2037 BC, meaning that there would have been a minimum of 50-80 years between:

1. ✴the compilation of the USKL; and
   

2. ✴the earliest possible compilation of the SKL at Isin.  
   

In an ideal world, our analysis of the corpus would start with the USKL and then move on to look at the way that the text had evolved at Isin.  However, this approach is impractical, since:

1. ✴the only known USKL tablet contains only about half of the original text; and
   

2. ✴the SKL is the only surviving source for the completion of the text that has been lost.
   

Thus, any analysis of the USKL (which is actually my main objective) has to start with  a preliminary analysis of the 24 Old Babylonian SKL recensions, in order to facilitate the completion of the USKL text.  

Old Babylonian Recensions of the SKL

Opening Lines

Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2023, at p. 234) observed that the SKL:

1. “... exists in a multitude of variants; none of its known copies reproduces exactly the same text.  [It can therefore] be called a “fluid text’, ... meaning that it was subject to a continuous process of revision and transformation. ... However, there is also a stable core of the story.  [For example, it] always begins with the divine transfer of kingship from heaven to earth into a first city ... ” 
   

Fortunately, since the opening lines of the USKL survive, we have direct evidence of this aspect of the ‘stable core of the story’ as it existed in the reign of Shulgi:

1. “When kingship came down from heaven, (the city of) Kish was sovereign; in Kish, Gushur exercised (kingship) for 2,160 years”, (translated by Gianni Marchesi, referenced below, at p. 231).
   

One of the SKL recensions (number 3 in Table 1, published as BT 14 by Jacob Klein, referenced below : see lines i: 1-5 at p. 80) certainly begins in essentially the same way, except that Gushur is given a more modest reign of 1,200 years.  Furthermore, as shown in Table 1, another 5 recensions certainly began with Gushur’s ‘Kish I’ dynasty, and two of them (numbers 5 and 13) certainly began with Gushur (albeit that the opening lines referring to the transfer of kingship to Kish are now lost. 

However, other recensions translated by Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming) certainly begin in the time before Gushur.  For example, WB 444 (mentioned above = number 24 in Table 1) begins as follows:

1. “When kingship came down from heaven, kingship was at Eridu, [where] Alulim was king: he reigned for 28,800 years”, (lines 1-4, translated by Jean-Jacques Glassner, referenced below, at p. 119).
   

This text then records that Alulim was the first of eight king who had reigned in succession, from Eridu and then four other cities, before:

1. “... the flood had swept over.  After the flood [had subsided], when kingship [again] came down from heaven, kingship was at Kish, [where] Gushur was king.  He reigned for 1,200 years”, (lines 39-44, translated by Jean-Jacques Glassner, referenced below, at p. 121). 
   

Furthermore, as shown in Table 1, another 5 recensions certainly began with a list of antediluvian kings, and three ow them (numbers 6, 11 and 23) subsequently recorded Gushur as the first king of Kis (albeit that he is named Lu-gushurra in number 23). 

Gianni Marchesi  (referenced below, at p. 232) summarised the generally-held view about the significance of this development:

1. “[It seems that later] compilers might have felt uncomfortable with such an incipit, and with the prominence accorded to Kish.  They [therefore] provided a new beginning to the composition by devising a prior descent of kingship in the Sumerian city of Eridu: a pre-existing separate tradition concerning kings who reigned before the flood supplied them with the raw material for reconstructing an antediluvian era of sovereigns with millennium-long reigns.  According to the redacted tradition, the [flood] came and swept everything away, putting an end to this primordial age.  [After the flood had subsided], kingship came down from heaven again, ... [this time to Kish.  However], in the original version, [which would have been a precursor to the USKL], it is likely that Kish was recorded as the first seat of kingship.”
   

In this scenario, the ‘official’ Sumerian king list evolved in the following way:

1. ✴ at least by  Shulgi’s time, it began with the divine transfer of kingship from heaven to Kish, where Gushur the first king, reigned for 2,160 year;
   

2. ✴at the time of the earliest isin recensions, the list still began in this way, albeit that the length of Gushur’s reign was somewhat reduced; and
   

3. ✴this aspect of the ‘stable core’ of the list continued throughout the Isin period, albeit that, from an unknown date, it was prefaced by an originally separate and distinct list of antediluvian kings from Eridu and four other Mesopotamian cities. 
   

‘Dynasties’ in the USKL and the SKL 

Table 2: Dynastic sequences in the USKL and representative Old Babylonian SKL recensions

The SKL recensions are summarised in the chronological order proposed by Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming)

Dynasty labels in the USKL are those proposed by Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2023 - discussed below) 

A label like ‘Kish I’ in a particular SKL column indicates that this dynasty was documented

(or probably documented) in the corresponding recension

The observation of Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2023, at p. 234) quoted above about the ‘stable core’ of the story only includes part of his text: the full quote is as follows:

1. “[The SKL] always begins with the divine transfer of kingship from heaven to earth into a first city.  This city turns into the capital, its kings ruling the entire land.  After a given time though, the gods turn away from this city, determining its fall.  They [therefore] transfer kingship into a new city, which becomes the new hegemon [or, in the usual parlance, the new ruling dynasty].  This pattern is repeated several times until the SKL ends in either the present or the recent past.”
   

I will discuss the way in which these successive transfers of kingship are recorded below: for the moment, I will concentrate on the way in which the sequence of dynasties in the various recensions apparently evolved over time.

In Table 2 above:

1. ✴the first column summarises the probable dynastic sequence in the USKL; and
   

2. ✴the other five columns summarise the most important of the surviving recensions of the SKL, which  are listed  in their likely chronological order (based on the forthcoming critical edition of these recensions by Gösta Gabriel, discussed further below). 
   

Clearly, the dynastic sequence varies to some extent as we move from left to right; for example, in WB 444 (the last column in Table 2), the sequence of dynasties is as follows:

1. ✴Eridu and four other cities ruled by kings before the flood;
   

2. ✴Kish I: 23 kings;
   

3. 3 intervening dynasties (Uruk I, Ur I, Awan) 
   

4. ✴Kish II: 8 kings;
   

5. 5  intervening dynasties (Hamazi, Uruk II, Ur II, Adab, Mari );
   

6. ✴Kish IIIa: Queen Ku-Babu;
   

7. 1 intervening dynasty (Akshak);
   

8. ✴Kish IIIb: 7 kings (actually, as we shall see, 1 queen and 6 kings);
   

9. ✴Uruk III: one king, Lugalzagesi;
   

10. ✴Akkad;
    

11. ✴Uruk IV: 5 kings;
    

12. ✴Gutium;
    

13. ✴Uruk V: one king, Utu-hegal;
    

14. ✴Ur III: four kings, starting with Ur-Namma; and
    

15. ✴Isin: ending with Sin-magir, the penultimate of the 15 Isin I kings.
    

This list certainly ends with Sin-magir, suggesting that it was compiled in either in his reign or that of his son and successor, Damiq-ilishu (the last of the Isin kings).  Interestingly, only one surviving recension (my number 6 in Table 1) certainly recorded the name of Damiq-ilishu himself (see Walther Sallaberger and Ingo Schrakamp, referenced below, in column P5, Table 20, at p. 22).  If we compare this late list with the USKL (putting the ‘antediluvian preface’ to one side), we see that, as discussed above, by the time of WB 444, a group of antediluvian had been introduced, we see that:

1. ✴the single ‘Kish A’ list with which the USKL started has been split by a number of ‘intervening’ dynasties’ into four distinct dynasties (labelled Kish I, Kish II, Kish IIIa and Kish IIIb); and
   

2. ✴the first Uruk dynasty that followed it (labelled  [Uruk A*], with the square brackets and asterisk indicating that it is likely but not certain all of these kings were kings of Uruk) has been split into three (Uruk I, Uruk II and Uruk III) and included among the ‘intervening dynasties’ mentioned above; but
   

3. ✴the dynastic sequence of the USKL after [Uruk A*] has remained essentially unchanged, albeit that the list had been extended to include the Ur III kings who followed Ur-Namma and all but the last of the kings of Isin. 
   

It is striking that the most significant change in the dynastic sequence took place in the decades between Shulgi and the early Isin kings: thereafter, the only significant change involves the later rulers of Kish.

Evolution of the Kishite Dynasties in the Old Babylonian SKL Recensions

Table 3: Ku-Babu in the USKL and Old Babylonian SKL recensions 

Table 3 deals in more detail with the way in which the USKL ‘Kish A’ list evolved over time, concentrating on the figure of Queen Ku-Babu.  She was almost certainly included  in the USKL ‘Kish A’ list, but as just another (undifferentiated) Kishite ruler.  However, in the SKL, she is recorded as: 

1. “... Ku-Baba, the female innkeeper, who consolidated the foundations of Kish”, (SKL 224-7, see also Gianni Marchesi, referenced below, entry 8, at pp. 242-3). 
   

Furthermore, the following two Kishite kings in these recensions are recorded (respectively) as her son and her grandson.  

In Table 3, I have chosen a representative recension from each of three time periods (labelled as early, middle and late - see below).  As we have seen, the early recension (= number 3 in my Tables 1-3), which was published as BT 14 by Jacob Klein (referenced below), can be assigned to an early group because it certainly started with King Gushur of Kish.  In this recension, the lines that would have recorded the start of Ku-Babu’s ‘Kish III’ dynasty are broken, but we can place her here because this lacuna is immediately followed by

1. ✴an unnamed son of Ku-Babu (presumably Puzur-Sin); and 
   

2. ✴Ur-Zababa, the son of Puzur-Sin;
   

Furthermore, in this (but in no other known recension), Ku-Babu (along with five other rulers) was recognised as the head of a ‘familial dynasty’ (within her ‘city dynasty’) in a note that recorded it that the she, her son and her grandson had ruled for a total of 131 years.  (I will discuss these ‘familial dynasty formulae in more detail below: for the moment, we should merely note that the one given to Ku-Babu here makes it certain that she was named immediately before her son.  The text was broken at this point, but probably continued with the remaining Kishite kings (who were not directly descended from Ku-Babu) and then the dynasty of Akshak (as summarised in Table 3).  Thus, since the compilation of the USKL:

1. ✴five dynasties had been inserted between the last ‘Kish II. rulers and Ku-Babu; and
   

2. ✴her son and grandson had been identified as such by a filiation (see further below).
   

As shown in the last column of Table 3, by the late period (represented by WB 444 = my number 24 in Table 1), which certainly began with Alulium and the other antediluvian kings, Akshak had been moved in the dynastic sequence so that Ku-Babu is the only ruler in what used to be called the Kish III dynasty, separated from her son and grandson by a non-Kishite dynasty (usually Akshak), so that her son, Puzur-Sin, was the first ruler in what used to be called the Kish IV dynasty.  Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming) therefore suggested that we should replace the conventional labels ‘Kish III’ and ‘Kish IV’ with ‘Kish IIIa’ and ‘Kish IIIb’ respectively (as in the table above): see also Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2023, at note 1 7at p. 237 and at p. 239). 

This brings us to the case of my number 9 in Table 3, which :

1. ✴shares with number 3 the fact that it can be assigned to an early group because it certainly started with King Gushur of Kish; and
   

2. ✴shares with number 24 the fact that Ku-Babu has been separated from her son and grandson by the dynasty of Akshak.
   

Gösta Gabriel therefore reasonably assigned this in chronological terms to an intermediate period.

Table 4: Chronology of the evolution of the treatment of Ku-Babu’s dynasty in the SKL recensions

On this basis, Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming) was able to establish four consecutive stages in the evolution of the SKL, as summarised in Table 4.  As noted above, rman and Yigal Bloch (referenced below) for the Isin kings, there would have been a minimum of 50-80 years between:

1. ✴the compilation of the USKL during the reign of Shulgi (probably in the period 2065-2037 BC on the chronology adopted by Nathan Wasse; and
   

2. ✴the earliest possible compilation of the SKL at Isin in ca. 1987 BC, when Ishbi-Erra presumably began to represent himself as the heir of the Ur III kings.
   

There is no obvious way of assessing the gap between Ishbi-Erra’s ‘liberation’ of Ur and the compilation of the first of the surviving recension of the SKL.  However, we can probably roughly estimate the date of the ‘middle’ SKL recensions, since two of them (numbers 7 and 9) end with King Ur-Ninurta, the 6th of the 15 Isin kings, who is described here (but in no other surviving recensions) as: 

1. “... the son of [the weather god] Ishkur: may he have years of abundance, a good reign and a sweet life”, see line 365 in this composite translation by ETCSL). 
   

This suggests that both of these recensions were compiled in the reign of Ur-Ninurta, which Nathan Wasserman and Yigal Bloch (referenced below, at p. 128) dated to 1916–1889 BC:

1. ✴some 150 years after the likely period  in which the USKL was compiled; and
   

2. ✴some 100 years before the death of Damiq-ilishu (in 1786 BC, according to Wasserman and Bloch), who was both the last king of Isin and the last king to be named in any of the surviving SKL recensions. 
   

Kings of Kish and Uruk in the USKL and the SKL 

The compilers of the SKL recensions did not only add new dynasties USKL: they also added a number of new kings to the Kish A and Uruk A* kings in the USKL.  In the case of Kish:

1. ✴the SKL records a total of 39 kings; while
   

2. ✴in the USKL, 20 names survive and there would only have been room for about 10 more in the present lacunae. 
   

As we shall see, some of the SKL kings added to the USKL list also feature in the Akkadian literary tradition, although others are otherwise unknown.  

The case of Uruk is more problematic, since all of the names of the early kings in the USKL are now lost, albeit that it seems certain that Lugalzagesi was the last of them:

1. ✴the SKL names 16 Uruk kings before Lugalzagesi; while
   

2. ✴there would have been room for only about 9 of them in the present lacuna in the USKL. 
   

Furthermore, the SKL does not name a number of kings of Uruk who are known from their royal inscriptions.

‘Transfer of Kingship’ Formulae in the SKL 

It is now time to look for a third time at the observation of Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2023, at p. 234) that:

1. “[The SKL] always begins with the divine transfer of kingship from heaven to earth into a first city.  This city turns into the capital, its kings ruling the entire land.  After a given time though, the gods turn away from this city, determining its fall.  They [therefore] transfer kingship into a new city, which becomes the new [ruling dynasty].  This pattern is repeated several times until the SKL ends in either the present or the recent past.”
   

He then pointed our (at p, 236) that the surviving SKL texts are all structured around :

1. “... just a handful of [‘transfer of kingship’] formulae that are repeated over and over again, narrating a specific version of the past.  They vary only slightly from one copy to another. ... [They] include:
   

2. ✴the ‘beginning of a [dynasty] formula’, the description of the first ruler of a new royal city (often referred to, anachronistically, as a new ‘dynasty’);
   

3. ✴the ‘kings formula’, the description of further rulers of the same [dynasty];
   

4. ✴the ‘summary of a [dynasty] formula’, the number of rulers [in this dynasty] and total length of [their] reign;
   

5. ✴the ‘collapse formula’, the description of the end of the [dynasty]; and
   

6. ✴the ‘transfer formula’ (the description of the movement of ‘kingship’ to a [a new dynasty in a] new city). 
   

Thus, for example, in the CDLI composite, the record of transition from the Kish I to the Uruk I kings is structured as follows:

1. ✴‘beginning of a dynasty formula’: 
   

2. “In Kish, Gushur was king: he ruled for [x years]”, (SKL 43-4)
   

3. ✴‘kings formula’:
   

4. a succession of 22 more Kishite kings were listed, along with their respective reign-lengths
   

5. ✴‘summary of a dynasty formula’: 
   

6. “23 kings ruled for ruled for [x years]”, (SKL 90-1)
   

7. ✴‘collapse formula’:
   

8. “Kish was struck down with weapons”, (SKL 93)
   

9. ✴‘transfer formula’: 
   

10. “The kingship was [then] carried off to E-anna [= Uruk]”, (SKL 94-5)
    

11. ✴‘beginning of a [dynasty] formula’:
    

12. “In Uruk, Mesh-kiag-gasher, son of Utu, was lord and king”, (SKL 96-7).
    

Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming) was able to penetrate more deeply into the relative chronology of the surviving SKL recensions by analysing linguistic differences in the precise way in which these repeated formulae were expressed (see, for example, Table 4 above). 

Far fewer sets of ‘transfer of kingship’ formulae would have been used in the USKL because the Kishite rulers were recorded here as a single dynasty.  Thereafter there would probably have been six sets the last of them recording the transfer of kingship from Uruk B to Ur A (see the first column in Table 2 above).  As we shall see, only three of these survive.  It seems from these three USKL records that all of these formulae were in use in this recension, with the notable exception of the ‘summary of a dynasty formula’, which seems to have been a subsequent addition to the ‘repertoire’. 

Biographical Notes in the SKL  

Table 5

Gianni Marchesi (referenced below, 2010, at p. 233) observed that: 

1. “Some manuscripts [of the SKL] add short biographical notes about particularly remarkable figures.  Thus, we are told that certain personages, before becoming king, were, for instance, a shepherd, a fisherman, a smith, a fuller, a boatman, a leatherworker, a low-ranking priest etc.  Even a female tavern-keeper, [Ku=Babu], seems to have exercised ‘kingship’, and not for a short time [as we have seen].” 
   

He reproduced the most important of these notes (which relate to eight rulers) in an appendix (at pp. 238-42), and these are reproduced in Table 5.  As Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2003, at p. 276), anecdotal information of this kind about individual rulers is completely absent from the surviving part of the USKL, although it has to be said that the fragmentary nature of the surviving USKL tablet means that there is certainty on this point only for one of these eight rulers, King Enmebaragesi of Kish.  (Indeed, since the relevant lacuna in the USKL text contains room for no more than 9 king of Uruk, the last of whom would have been the Uruk III king Lugalzagesi, many scholars doubt that any of the Uruk I kings in Table 5 would have been included in the list.)

Occasionally, the addition of detailed biographical notes in the SKL had unintended consequences.  For example, the biographical note attached to King Sargon of Akkad indicates that he was a contemporary of King Ur-Zababa of Kish.  (This synchronism is also reflected in the Sumerian literary tradition).  However, as pointed out by Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming), in the earliest versions of the SKL, these two kings are separated by four Kish III a+b kings, five Akshak kings and Lugalzagesi of Uruk.  A similar problem arises in the case of King Dumuzi of Uruk: the addition made to his biographical note in BT 14 indicates that he was a contemporary of  Enmebaragesi.  (Furthermore, Dumuzi’s successor in the SKL, Gilgamesh, was recorded as a contemporary of both Enmebaragesi and his son, Akka in the Sumerian literary tradition).  However, in the SKL, Enmebaragesi and Akka  are separated from Dumuzi by four or five early kings (including Mesh-kiag-gasher and Enmerkar), some of whom were given very long reigns.  In other words, the explicitly linear nature of the SKL text (in which one dynasty follows another from the earliest times) is occasionally compromised by the compilers’ use of literary traditions in order to add additional kings and biographical information to the ‘bare bones‘ of the USKL.   

Patronymics and Familial Dynasties in the SKL and USKL

As Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2003, at p. 276,) pointed out there is only sparse use of patronymics in the USKL: as we shall see, only three kings are given patronymics in the surviving part of the text   However, a significant proportion of the kings in the SKL are described as the son of an earlier ruler (almost always the ruler who immediately precedes them),  and this is particularly striking in the Kish I and Uruk I ‘city dynasties’.  

‘Familial Dynasty Formulae’ in BT 14

In one early recension (BT 14 = number 3 in Table 1), at least six rulers are given ‘familial dynasty’ formulae: 

1. ✴Kish I
   

2. •Enmenuna
   

3. •BAR.SAL-nuna and
   

4. •Enmebaragesi;
   

5. ✴Uruk I
   

6. •Mesh-kiag-gasher;
   

7. ✴Kish III a+b:
   

8. •Ku- Babu; and
   

9. ✴Akkad:
   

10. •Sargon
    

The usual form of this formula is as follows:

1. “[x] years was the divine dispensation (of kingship) to (the dynasty of) [PN].”
   

The sequence in the Kish I section of BT 14 allows us to see that these ‘familial dynasties’ represented sub-sets of the first ‘city dynasty’ at Kish:

1. “1320 years was the divine dispensation (of kingship) to (the dynasty of) Enmenuna”, (col. ii, line 1).
   

2. “1620 years was the dynasty of Bar.Sal-nuna”, (col. ii, line 8).
   

3. “1525 years was the divine dispensation (of kingship) to (the dynasty of) Enmebaragesi”, (col. ii, lines 19-20).
   

4. “23 [kings]: [they reigned at Kish for a total of x] years, 3 months (and) 3.5 days”, (col. ii, lines 21-3).
   

In the next three sections, I look at the use of these formulae in BT 14 in the wider context of the evolution from the USKL to the SKL. 

Kish I in the USKL and SKL

Table 6: Comparison of the record of the early Kish A kings in the USKL  

and the corresponding ‘Kish I’ list in the SKL   

The original USKL text began with about 30 kings of Kish, which Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2023 at p. 244) dubbed the ‘Kish A’ list.  He argued that it must have been compiled from the Kishites’ own historiographical tradition, in which case:

1. “... the first recension of what would become the [USKL and subsequently the SKL would have been] written in Kish before ca. 2350 BC.”  
   

Table 6 shows how the early part of this list was used as a basis for the SKL record of the rulers of the Kish I dynasty. 

As Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2003, at p. 274) observed:

1. ✴the first six Kishite kings in the USKL were directly translated into the SKL.; and
   

2. ✴the text from the lacuna that followed them was probably the source for part of the SKL list of kings between Pu’annum and Enmnuna.
   

However, this USKL lacuna could only have accommodated 5 of these seven kings, so at least two of these seven SKL kings were  new additions. 

Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2021, at p. 324) argued that Etana would have been one of the original Kish A kings, albeit that: 

1. “... it is certain that the narrative addition [in the SKL] reporting his ascension to heaven was only added in a later editing of the work”, (my translation).
   

Etana and his ascent to heaven is known from literary tradition, but, as Gabriel observed (at p. 320):

1. “The earliest copies of this epic tradition date from the early 2nd millennium BC; the most recent from the middle of the 1st millennium BC.  All known texts are written in the Akkadian language.  Since the protagonist is located in the northern Babylonian city of Kish, the material's origin from the Semitic-speaking population is obvious.  This impression is reinforced by a group of non-textual sources, namely depictions on cylinder seals from the 24th century BC, [which] belong to the so-called Kingdom of Akkad, the first large territorial state in Babylonia established by Semitic-speaking rulers”, (my translation).
   

Actually (as discussed in a later page) there is some doubt about whether some or indeed any of these Akkadian’ seals do actually depict Etana (rather than just the snake and the eagle with which he became associated).  It is nevertheless possible that Etana did indeed find his way into the USKL via a Kishite king list of the Sargonic period.  However, it seems to me to be more likely that he and his son, Balih, were taken directly from the literary sources by the compilers of the early editions of the SKL. 

What is clear from the table above is that the USKL list from Enmenuna to Il-ki-sa-tu was greatly elaborated in the SKL

1. ✴Melim-Kish was introduced as the son of Me-en-nun-na (= Enmenuna), who was given a ‘familial dynastic formula’ in BT 14;
   

2. ✴Samug and his son, Tizqar were also later additions, who were introduced (respectively) as the son and grandson of BAR.SAL-nuna, who was given a ‘familial dynastic formula’ in BT 14; and
   

3. ✴‘Il-ki-sa-tu’ in the USKL seems to have been re-named as Ilkum and/or Ilta-shadu in the SKL.
   

This brings us to Enmebaragesi and his son, Akka.  Enmebaragesi is possibly a historical figure who is known from two surviving royal inscriptions and both men were recorded in literary sources that were current at Shulgi’s court as contemporaries of Gilgamesh, the hero of Uruk.  They would both naturally have featured in the putative Kishite king list mentioned above.   However, this list seems to have eschewed patronymics, and the addition of Akka’s patronymic was probably the work of Shulgi’s scribe,.     However, the source of the information in the biographical note given to Enmebaragesi in the SKL (that he had defeated the Elamites) is unknown. 

Uruk I in the SKL 

Table 7: Candidates for the Uruk A* kings of the USKL 

As noted above, the way in which the USKL was ‘mined’ as a source for the Uruk I-II kings in the SKL is unclear, since all of the names of the corresponding text in the USKL is now lost: all we can say is thath:

1. ✴there would have been room for only about 9 of them in the present lacuna in the USKL, and Lugalzagesi  would have almost certainly been the last of them; while
   

2. ✴the SKL names 16 Uruk kings before Lugalzagesi (as set out in Table 6).
   

It seems that literary tradition played a significant part in the compilation of the early part of the list: as Douglas Frayne (referenced below, at p. 410) pointed out:  

1. “... epic texts dealing with Enmerkar, Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh, [which were probably] composed in Ur III times, are known to us from Old Babylonian tablet copies ...”;
   

and this is also the case for Dumuzi.  It seems to me that:

1. ✴the concentration of biographical notes and patronymics in this part of the ‘Uruk I’ list suggests that some or all of it might well have been compiled at Isin on the basis of these literary sources; and
   

2. ✴this hypothesis is further supported by the fact that the addition to the biographical note given to Dumuzi in BT 14 (discussed above) indicates a synchronism between Dumuzi and Embaragesi of Kish that cuts across the strict chronological order of the list itself.
   

This line of reasoning underlies the argument of Gösta Gabriel (forthcoming) that:

1. ✴the SKL list from Mesh-kiag-gasher to Udul-kalamma, the grandson of Gilgamesh, was a recent addition taken from literary sources; while
   

2. ✴the following list from Labash to Lugalzagesi was taken from what is now the ‘Uruk’ lacuna in the USKL. 
   

Somewhat unexpectedly, epigraphic evidence seems to have been largely ignored, even for the later part of the list: as  Douglas Frayne (as above) observed, although there are no surviving royal inscriptions for the 12 Uruk I kings (and it is possible that these never existed, even for the later kings in the list, these kings were apparently followed by 4 kings for whom we do have inscriptions (RIME 13–16), but these kings are apparently not recorded in the SKL. (unless, as some scholars believe, the Uruk I king Lugal-ki-GIN in the SKL is the same man as Lugal-kigine-dudu, who is recorded in RIME 1; 14: 14).  Thereafter:

1. ✴only Enshakushana is known from a royal inscription; while
   

2. ✴the other two ‘Uruk II’ kings are otherwise unknown. 
   

Ku-Babu and Sargon in the USKL and SKL

Table 8 

We might reasonably have expected that patronymics would appear frequently in the lists of kings from the Akkadian, Ur III and Isin dynasties, since this was the historical reality.   However, it is noteworthy that, in the USKL only one of the kings of Akkad (Shar-kali-sharri, son of Naram-Sin) is given a patronymic. 

While Ku-Babu was almost certainly recorded in what is now a lacuna in the USKL, there is no reason to think that she was given a biographical note here, particularly since both Puzir-Sin and Ur-Zababa, her direct descendants in the SKL, are recorded in the USKL without patronymics.  As noted above, the biographical note attached to King Sargon of Akkad indicates that he was a contemporary of her putative grandson, Ur-Zababa.  Furthermore, Ur-Zababa, and Sargon appear as contemporaries of Lugalzagesi in the Sumerian literary tradition.  As discussed above, the long gap in the SKL between between Ur-Zabab on the one hand and Lugalzagesi and Sargon on the other was exacerbated by the addition of the Akshak dynasty.  Furthermore, this gap was increased in both the USKL and the SKL by the probably erroneous insertion of the Kishite rulers that follow Ishme-Shamash.  I discuss this putative error and also the likely status of Zimudara, Ishtar-muti and Ishme-Shamash in the following page, which concentrates on the USKL. 

SKL and the Isin Kings 

As we have seen, the recensions of the SKL, which were produced for the kings of Isin, essentially  involved the extension (albeit with significant elaboration) of the USKL. which had been produced for the Ur III king Shulgi:

1. ✴the USKL ended with the reign of Ur-Namma, Shulgi’s father and the founder of their dynasty; and
   

2. ✴the SKL recorded that, after 108 years (the period of the reigns of Ur-Namma, Shulgi and 3 more Ur III kings, the last of whom was Ibbi-Sin):
   

3. “Ur was struck with weapons [and] its kingship was taken to Isin, [where] Ishbi-Erra was king”.
   

The latest SKL recensions then contained the names of a succession of kings of Isin from Ishbi-Erra to  Damiq-ilishu, the 15th and last of member of this dynasty.  Thus, it seems that all of the SKL recensions were compiled for kings of Isin during the 200 years between: 

1. ✴ca. 1987 BC, when Ishbi-Erra expelled the Ealmites from Ur and presumably began to represent himself as the heir of the Ur III kings; and
   

2. ✴ca. 1786 BC, when Damiq-ilishu was defeated by King Rim-Sin of Larsa, bringing this dynasty to an end. 
   

Although the SKL evolved to some extent during the Isin period, these changes were quite insubstantial when seen alongside the huge changes that were made to the USKL in the 100 years or so between Shulgi and the early Isin kings.  These earlier changes clearly reflected the huge difference in status and repute between Shulgi on the one hamd and Ishbi-Erra and his successors on the other.  One is reminded here of the remark made by Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic candidate for vice president of the USA in the 1988 elections, when his opponent, Dan Quayle, compared himself to ex-President Kennedy:

1. “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy  I knew Jack Kennedy.  Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.  Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.”
   

This probably captures the scale of the political problems that faced the early Isin kings when they attempted to rule what was left of the Ur III empire under the political shadow of its greatest rulers, Shulgi and his grandson, Naram-Sin.   To put this remark in perspective, we should start with the tragic story of the fall of Ur.

Ishbi-Erra and the Fall of Ur 

As Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2018, at p. 196) observed:

1. “... at the very beginning of the reign of Ibbi-Sin, the last king of the [Ur III] dynasty, ... [Ur] lost control of most of [its] foreign possessions ... [and] the empire effectively ceased to exist.” 
   

One early sign of this collapse is provided by Ishbi-Erra, who started his career as an officer under Ibbi-Sin before rebelling, capturing Isin, and founding his own ‘Isin dynasty’.  At this point, he naturally established his own series of year names (see ‘year names of Ishbi-Erra’), most of which overlapped with those of Ibbi-Sin (see ‘year names of Ibbi-Sin’), so that, according to Marcel Sigrist (referenced below, at p. 4), Ibbi-Sin 24 (the last year of Ibbi-Sin) = Ishbi-Erra 18.  On this basis, Ishbi-Erra declared his independence from Ibbi-Sin in Ibbi-Sin’s 7th year, and Ibbi-Sin’s weakness at this time is evidenced by the fact that he was forced to accept this situation for the rest of his reign.

There is an important overlap in the names chosen by the respective kings for the year Ibbi-Sin 22 = Ishbi-Erra 16:

1. ✴Ibbi-Sin, the king of Ur, secured Ur and [Uruk ??, which had both been] stricken by a flood [that had been] ordered by the gods, [that had] shaken the whole world; while
   

2. ✴Ishbi-Erra, the king, smote the armies of Shimashki and Elam. 
   

Ibbi-Sin’s failure to mention the invasion of ‘the armies of Shimashki and Elam’ is eloquent in its demonstration of Ibbi-Sin’s impotence, particular since these armies posed an existential treat to his kingship, as we learn from two separate sections of a panegyric to Ishbi-Erra known as ‘Hymn B: Ishbi-Erra and Kindattu’:

1. ✴In the first of these, which is extremely lacunose, we read that: 
   

2. “From Bashimi by the edge of the sea ...... to the edge of Zabshali ......, and from Uru’a (Arawa), the bolt of Elam ...... to the edge of Marhashi .......Kindattu, the man of Elam, ....... ...... Isin, the great spindle of heaven and earth.  The king's battle did not ....... The battle of Elam ...... Sumer. ...... by the edge of the sea. ...... the land of Huhnuri. ...... the wild animals and four-footed ....... The king ...... in the battle”, (segment C).
   

3. ✴In the second of these, we read that:
   

4. “... the news was carried to Kindattu, the man of Elam; the Anshanites and Shimashki gave a battle cry; he (Kindattu) approaches the mountains; he addresses his assembled army”, (segment E, see also the translation by Piotr Steinkeller, referenced below, 2007,  at p. 224, note 34). 
   

As Katrien de Graef (referenced below, at p. 446) observed, it seems that Ibbi-Sin had faced an Elamite attack on Ur, only to be saved by Ishbi-Erra.  Both passages identify the leader of the invasion as ‘Kindattu, the man of Elam’, who is named as the 6th king in the so-called only Shimashki King List.  The second passage establishes that Kindattu commanded ‘the armies of Shimashki and Elam’ in an alliance that included Anshan. 

It seems that Ur’s salvation was only temporary, since Ibbi-Sin’s 23rd year was recorded as the year in which:

1. “... the stupid monkey in the foreign land struck against [him]”, (‘year names’ of Ibbi-Sin’, 23). 
   

Later literary sources indicate that this belligerent name referred to another invasion of Ur by Kindattu.  This time, there was to be no salvation for Ibbi-Sin:

1. ✴The ‘Lament for Ur’ recorded that: 
   

2. “The good house of the lofty untouchable mountain, E-kish-nu-gal, [the residence of the moon god Nanna and his wife Ningal], was entirely devoured by large axes.  The people of Shimashki and Elam, the destroyers, counted its worth as only 30 shekels.  They broke up the good house with pickaxes.  They reduced the city to [ruins].  ... Ningal cried, ‘alas, my city,’ and ‘alas, my house‘ .... O Nanna, the shrine of Ur has been destroyed and its people have been killed”, (lines 241-9).
   

3. ✴The roughly contemporary ‘Lament for Sumer and Ur’ similarly recorded that the gods had decided that Ibbi-Sin’s subjects:
   

4. “... should no longer dwell in their quarters [but] ... should be given over to live in an inimical place; that Shimashki and Elam, the enemy, should dwell in their place; that their shepherd, [Ibbi-Sin hmself], should be captured by the enemy in his own palace and like a swallow that has flown from its house, should [be taken] from Mount Zabu on the edge of the [Babylonian marshes] to the borders of Anshan, never to return to his city”, (lines 33-7, my changed word order). 
   

Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2007, at p. 224, note 35) reproduced another text fragment (ACh Ishtar LXVII rev. ii 11–12, which I have not been able to identify), which he translated as follows:

1. “... the reign of destruction of Ibbi-Sin, king of Ur, who, in tears, went as captive to Anshan”. 
   

However, Ishbi-Erra lived to fight another day: the ‘year name of Ishbi-Erra’, 26 records that:

1. “Ishbi-Erra, the king, [drove] out of Ur with his strong weapon the Elamite who was dwelling in its midst.”  
   

Thus, it seems that the transfer of kingship formula in the SKL is somewhat disingenuous, since:

1. ✴it was Kindattu who ‘struck Ur with weapons’ and drove out Ibbi-Sin; and
   

2. ✴the kingship of Ur only reached Ishbi-Erra eight years later, when he drove Ibbi-Sin out of the city.
   

The other important point here is that, although Ishbi-Erra added Ur to his kingdom, Ur itself was totally eclipsed and he and his successors never controlled an empire on the scale of that of the Ur III kings. 

Legitimisation of the Isin Kings in the SKL  

Some 20 years before the publication of the USKL, Piotr Michalowski (referenced below, at p. 240) observed that: 

1. “It has often been stated that [the SKL] contains a fiction, a notion that Sumer and Akkad were always ruled by one dynasty at a time.”
   

As we have seen, this fiction was expressed in the SKL as a list of successive dynasties that dated back far into the mythical past, with the transfer of the kingship from one dynasty to the next expressed formulaically.  Michalowski noted that, at his time of writing:

1. “The most detailed account of the propagandistic nature of the King List was offered by J. J. Finkelstein [referenced below], who ... interpreted [the SKL] as an expression of the idea of centralisation of power [in Mesopotamia] in the hands of one dynasty, ruling from one city, an idea that ... was ultimately realised as a legitimation of the Isin dynasty.”
   

He pointed out (at p. 242) that Ishbi-Erra, the founder of the dynasty, had:

1. “... attained high status and, eventually, control of Isin only through his service to the [last] kings of Ur.  Briefly stated, I should like to propose that ... [the Isin kings’] claim to legitimacy  was] the central issue of the [SKL].  The fiction that each city of Mesopotamia in turn held the ...  [kingship of the entire region] served to bolster their claims of hegemony over all the territories that had once been under the rule of the Ur III dynasty.  In this sense the [SKL] complements the evidence of:
   

2. ✴the lists that enumerate the Ur and Isin kings as if they constituted one unbroken chain of rulers [see, for example, Andrew George, referenced below, at pp. 206-7)];
   

3. ✴the liturgical composition [known as the ‘Lament for Damu’ (AO 5374, Musée du Louvre)], which lists the kings of these dynasties as incarnations of the god Damu; [and]
   

4. ✴... the perpetuation of particular forms of ‘royal hymns’ by the Isin kings [using Ur III models].
   

5. This conscious attempt to link the Isin dynasty with the Ur III kings was most dramatically realised in [the Old Babylonian  ‘Lament over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur’], a literary text that exploited the fall of Ur.”
   

He drew attention to one particular passage of this lament, in which Enlil responded to the lament of Nanna, the god of Ur:

1. “... why do you concern yourself with crying? The judgment uttered by the assembly [of the gods] cannot be reversed.  The word of An and Enlil knows no overturning.  Ur was indeed given kingship, but it was not given an eternal reign.  From time immemorial, since the Land was founded, ... who has ever seen a reign of kingship that would [last] for ever?  The reign of [the Ur III kings] had been long indeed, but had to exhaust itself”, (lines 365-9).
   

As Michalowski pointed out, this lament and the SKL:

1. “... reflect the same ideology: Isin is [next] in line to hegemony, and that is simply the way things are.” 
   

More recently, Niek Veldhuis (referenced below, at p. 393) placed the compilation of the SKL at Isin in the context of:

1. “The creation of the new lexical corpus in the early Old Babylonian period, [which] may be understood, paradoxically, as an attempt to preserve and guard traditional knowledge of Sumerian.  [Although Sumerian] was a dead language by this time, [it was still] of prime importance for political ideology [and] the language of royal inscriptions and royal praise songs.  The [SKL], backed by a variety of Sumerian legendary texts and songs, explains how, since antediluvian times, there had always been one king and one royal city reigning over all of Babylonia.  This view implied that there were no separate local histories; all city-states were Babylonian, or, more properly of ‘Sumer and Akkad’, so that, [for example]:
   

2. ✴Enmerkar and Gilgamesh of Uruk;
   

3. ✴Sargon of Akkad; and
   

4. ✴Shulgi of Ur;
   

5. could all be celebrated as great predecessors [of the Isin kings].” 
   

Jerrold Cooper (referenced below, at p. 12) developed this point as follows:

1. “Niek Veldhuis [as above] has written about the Sumerian 'invented tradition’, the fact that the scribal curriculum we know from ca. 1800 BC ... can be read through the tense of the so-called Sumerian King List, a text promulgated under Shulgi, that asserts, quite fallaciously, that from antediluvian times onward there had been only one legitimate king of Babylonia at a time, and that this one kingship circulated among different cities.”
   

However, as we have seen, the insertion of ‘intervening dynasties’ into what was probably originally an unbroken list of Kishite kings (who were, as a consequence, split up into three or four separate dynasties) was the work if the Isin kings.  In other words:

1. ✴while Shulgi, like the Isin kings, was of questionable legitimacy and probably did develop earlier Sumerian and Akkadian king lists in order to portray himself as the natural successor of men like Gilgamesh of Uruk and Sargon of Akkad (as I discuss in the following pages);
   

2. ✴there is no evidence in the surviving USKL text to support Cooper’s assertion that Shulgi claimed in this recension that, since time time immemorial: 
   

3. “... there had been only one legitimate king of Babylonia at a time, and that this one kingship circulated among different cities.”