Sumerian King List: Difference between revisions

* '''WB 444''' ([[Weld-Blundell Prism]]) <ref>[http://www.livius.org/k/kinglist/sumerian.html translation]</ref>

 

Historical inscriptions, containing principally the chronological prism, W-B 444, Oxford University Press, 1923</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/dl/photo/P384786.jpg |title=WB-444 High Resolution Image from CDLI}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/dl/lineart/P384786_l.jpg |title=WB-444 Line Art from CDLI}}</ref> dated c. 1817 BC, although some scholars prefer c. 1827 BC.<ref>Ancient Iraq: (Assyria and Babylonia), Peter Roger Stuart Moorey, Ashmolean Museum, 1976; ''The Sumerian King List'', T. Jacobsen, University of Chicago Press, 1939, p. 77.</ref> The Kish Tablet or [[Scheil dynastic tablet]] is an early 2nd millennium BC tablet which came into possession of [[Jean-Vincent Scheil]], but only contains list entries for four Sumerian cities.<ref>"The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their Culture", S. Langdon, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 7, No. 3/4, Oct., 1921, p. 133. [https://www.jstor.org/pss/3853561]</ref> UCBC 9-1819 is a clay tablet housed in the collection of the Museum of Anthropology at the [[University of California]].<ref>"The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet", J. J. Finkelstein, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1963, p. 39.</ref> The tablet was inscribed during the reign of the Babylonian King [[Samsu-iluna]], or slightly earlier, with the earliest date of 1712 BC.<ref>Finkelstein, 1963, pp.39-40.</ref> The Dynastic Chronicle (ABC 18) is a Babylonian king list written on six columns, beginning with entries for the antediluvian (prior to the flood) Sumerian rulers. K 11261+<ref>Lambert and Millard, Cuneiform Texts 46 Nr. 5</ref> is one of the copies of this chronicle, consisting of three joined [[Neo-Assyrian]] fragments discovered at the [[Library of Ashurbanipal]].<ref>''Bilingual Chronicle Fragments'', Irving L. Finkel, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2, Apr., 1980, pp. 65-80.</ref> K 12054 is another of the Neo-Assyrian fragments from [[Uruk]] (c. 640 BC) but contains a variant form of the antediluvians on the list. The later [[List of Kings of Babylon|Babylonian king lists]] and [[Kings of Assyria|Assyrian king lists]] repeated the earliest portions of the list, thus preserving them well into the 3rd century BC. At this time, [[Berossus]] wrote ''[[Berossus#History of Babylon|Babyloniaca]]'', which popularized fragments of the list in the [[Ancient Greece|Hellenic world]]. In 1960, the Apkullu-list (Tablet No. W.20030, 7) or “Uruk List of Kings and Sages” (ULKS) was discovered by German archaeologists at an ancient temple at [[Uruk]]. The list, dating to c. 165 BC, contains a series of kings, equivalent to the Sumerian antediluvians, called "Apkullu".<ref>A copy of the tablet appears in Jan van Dijk and Werner R. Mayer, ''Texte aus dem Rès-Heiligtum

in Uruk-Warka, Bagdader Mitteilungen Beiheft 2'' (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1980), text no. 89 (= BaMB 2 89). For an edition of the text, see J. van Dijk, ''Die Inschriftenfunde, Vorläufiger Bericht über die... Ausgrabungen'' in Uruk-Warka 18 (1962), 44-52 and plate 27. [http://www1.pacific.edu/~alenzi/Lenzi_Uruk%20List%20of%20Kings%20and%20Sages%20JANER.pdf]</ref>