The Sumerian King List is an ancient stone tablet originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer (ancient southern Iraq) from Sumerian and neighboring dynasties, their supposed reign lengths, and the locations of the kingship. The giant rock monument hidden under the Sea of Galilee could be 12,000 years old! W.20030, 7) or Uruk List of Kings and Sages (ULKS) was discovered by German archaeologists at an ancient temple at Uruk. Alaljar (bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, & lived much longer than non-mixed earthlings) ruled for 36,000 years. reigned its 21,000 years. The language used is clearly Sumerian. Vol. On the other hand, the fact that the Sumerian account shows up as a numerically rounded, incomplete version of the Genesis description, lacking the latters precision and wealth of details, as well as its moral and spiritual depth, is a strong argument for the priority, accuracy and superiority of the biblical record. RA 31: 14766. 444. If Adam and Noah are not included (as in the King List), and the lives of the patriarchs are similarly rounded to two digits, the sum of the lives has six 103 signs, six 102 signs and six 10 signs. A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Text: Manuscripts in the Schyen Collection Cuneiform. Walton, J., The antediluvian section of the Sumerian King List and Genesis 5. Changes during transmission history may also have contributed to these differences. reigned their 241,200 years. In both systems the number of ciphers was very small requiring many repetitions of the same symbol, although grouping of the sexagesimal symbols by tens was employed. The Sumerian King List is an ancient manuscript originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer (ancient southern Iraq) from Sumerian and neighboring dynasties, their supposed reign lengths, and the locations of "official" kingship.Kingship was believed to have been handed down by the gods, and could be transferred from one city to another, reflecting perceived hegemony in . In case there were less that ten symbols of the same kind left, they were usually arranged in up to three rows of three symbols each. However, following the same rules for the selection of symbols to represent the different powers of the base as in the sexagesimal system, it would follow that the small bullet and the small circle would represent one and ten, the large circle the next power of the base (102), and the large circle with the small circle inside ten times that power (103). the kingship was in Kish. The Sumerian King List records in succession the names of most of the kings of Sumer and the lengths of their reigns.1 The document begins at the beginning of history, the time when kingship (first) descended from heaven, and goes up to the reign of Sin-magir (1827 1817 BC3) towards the end of the Isin dynasty. InEridug,Alulimbecame king; he ruled for 28800 years. Nevertheless, the choice of signs employed in Fig. (In) Sippar En-men-dur-Anna(k) Piotr Michalowski, 7791. Given that assumption, the last three signs would have represented 3,600 (6 x 10x60) for a grand total of 241,200 years, the total appearing in the Sumerian list. reigned 625 years. . 1): (1) Document A was based on the epic but its author introduced the particular formulas. "A New Fragment from A List of Antediluvian Kings and Marduks Chariot." H. Behrens, D. Loding, and M. Roth, 55771. There were two non-positional ways of representing the different ciphers: an earlier one using a round stylus, and a later cuneiform way using a triangular stylus. 20001600 B.C.). Most of the material for this period comes from the Archaic Ur tablets. After 1906, 18 other lists have been discovered dating from the second half of the Isin dynasty. It should be noted that, although the particular form of the symbols used to represent the decimal numbers has been assumed, the relationship of the arithmetic structure of the totals is inherently independent of the symbols used. In 5 cities, 8 kings ruled for 241,200 years. You're almost done! reigned 43,200 years; 8 kings Required fields are marked *. JAOS 103: 23747. This is similar to Genesis 5, where the generations from Creation to the Flood are recorded. The texts found appear to relate to both simple and complex economic transactions. After 1906, 18 other lists have been discovered dating from the second half of the Isin dynasty. A total of the eight ages of the patriarchs can also be obtained by tallying all the symbols employed in the individual numbers. The Sumerian King List truly is a perplexing mystery. The six large bullets with a small circle inside could have been written as two rows of three signs each, following the convention of the maximum of three rows of three. reigned its 64,800 years. Each of these states comprised a walled city and its surrounding villages and land, and each worshiped its own deity, whose temple was the central structure of the city. But scholarly research has gradually turned to focus on the historiographical value of the King List at the times when it was composed or redacted. Scholars are unable to explain why the unique list blends mythical pre-dynastic rulers with historical rulers. Your newsletter signup did not work out. 23342154 B.C. If so, then finding numerically related elements of the biblical account in the Sumerian King List would open up important avenues of research into the relationship of biblical and Mesopotamian chronologies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. During the period of the Semitic dynasty of Akkad, the Akkadian language replaced Sumerian as the administrative language, as Sargon I of Agade conquered all of Mesopotamia and extended the empire to the Amanus Mountains to the West, and to the Zagros and Taurus mountains to the East and North.15 The Sumerian signs were used to write the Old Akkadian language which was Semitic. "The Rulers of Laga." Both conceptually and stylistically, the Sumerian King List had exerted a wide-spread and enduring impact on a number of Mesopotamian literary compositions and chronographic sources from the Ur III period to the Hellenistic period (ca. Section 5 summarizes the results, presents a hypothesis for the similarities of both records, and comments on the importance of these findings. A sign for zero was used to indicate internal empty positions. reigned 18,600 years. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The same number system as in Jamdet Nasr is used. In 1960, the Apkullu-list (Tablet No. Februar 2004, ed. I drop (the topic) Larak; The List The first part of the Sumerian King List reads: After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was inEridug. At its peak around 2800 BC, it was most likely the largest city in the world. 1974. InBad-tibira,En-men-lu-anaruled for 43200 years. That the two documents are numerically related is strong evidence for the historicity of the book of Genesis. The tokens were enclosed in a ball of clay covered on the outside with impressions of usually only one seal. 1 The document begins at the beginning of history, the time when 'kingship (first) descended from heaven,' and goes up to the reign of Sin-magir (1827- 1817 BC 3) towards the end of the Isin dynasty. It's an ancient text in Sumerian language, dated back to the 3rd millennium BCE, which is a listing of all Sumer kings, their respective dynasties, locations, and times in power. They are also very different from the phrases repeatedly used for the ending of the different dynasties in the postdiluvian sections (e.g., Kish was smitten with weapons). George, Andrew. In addition, when the number representing the sum of the ages of the biblical patriarchs is interpreted as having been written in the sexagesimal system, the two totals become numerically equivalent. Or is it possible that scholars have classified some of the rulers as mythological, due to their peculiar characteristics? The earliest Sumerian material culture comes from these years. Tablets with true writing appear at the end of the Late Uruk Period (Uruk Level VI), where numbers are accompanied by pictorial and curvilinear symbols made with a pointed stylus. The first identifiable use of purely phonetic elements and grammar appeared during this time. Alaljar ruled for 36000 years. Orientalia Biblica et Christiana 14. 6 and 7 shows that the ages have no relationship between themselves, and neither do the totals. The Sumerian King List has different versions or recensions represented by a number of cuneiform sources (most of these are fragmentary) that are dated to the Ur III period (ca. 21192004 B.C.) JRAS: 25159. Out of all the ancient discoveries from the Mesopotamia region, the "Sumerian King List" is truly the most enigmatic one. This version is based on an inscription on a block of stone found at the site of an ancient city in Sumer named Isin. In Kish Ga ur(?) 5 cities were they; Schmandt-Besserat, D., The earliest precursor of writing. reigned its 21,000 years. The Sumerian King List provides a list of eight kings (some versions have 10) who reigned for long periods of time before the flood, ranging from 18,600 to 43,200 years. He has published about 50 journal papers and 90 conference papers and technical reports. It is much more likely that the Sumerian scribe that composed the original antediluvian list had available a document (possibly a clay tablet) containing numerical information on the ages of eight of the patriarchs similar to that of the Genesis record and that he mistakenly interpreted it as being written in the sexagesimal system. Steinkeller, Piotr. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. In Vergangenheit in mndlicher berlieferung, ed. Biblical Archaeology Society Online Archive. If we do not incorporate the six 10x60 signs (large bullet with small circle inside) of the Sumerian total into an additional next higher order sign, the Sumerian total has 6 signs for 10x602, six signs for 602, and six signs for 10x60. Jrgen von Ungern-Sternberg and Hansjrg Reinau, 11340. In addition, the Sumerian Kings List not only tells us how long these kings ruled on Earth, but it specifically also says that these eight kings descended from heaven, after which they ruled for a surprisingly long period. The fact that the List of the Sumerian Kings mentions eight kings, their names and long kingdoms, as well as their origin the royalty that came down from heaven has made many think: Is it possible that what is written on the List of the Sumerian Kings be real historical references? An earlier one, based on round impressions using a blunt circular stylus, and a latter one, based on cuneiform impressions made with a stylus of triangular section. Its ideological stance and chronographic style, structure and data exerted a wide-spread and enduring impact on a number of Mesopotamian literary compositions (e.g., the Curse of Agade, the Lamentation over Sumer and Ur, the Sumerian Flood Story) and later chronographic sources (e.g., the Rulers of Lagash, the Babylonian Dynastic Chronicle, the Assyrian King List, Berossos Babyloniaca) from the Ur III period to the Hellenistic period (ca. The version replicated here is based on an inscription which was found on a block of stone that had been discovered in archaeological investigations at the site . reigned 28,800 years; The italicized lines correspond to phrases that Jacobsen considers were written by the scribe as he added the material of the antediluvian section to an earlier version of the King List, which he was also bringing up to date, in the middle of the Isin dynasty. Jacobsen concludes that The man who added the antediluvian section is also responsible for the last part of the list; his literary peculiarities appear in both places.4 This scribe added the 3rd dynasty of Ur (21122004 BC)3 and the dynasty of Isin down to Sin-magir (18271817 BC), so the antediluvian section appears to have been also added after that time. JCS 32: 6580. In Von Sumer bis Homer: Festschrift fr Manfred Schretter zum 60. "Die Sumerische Knigsliste und erzhlte Vergangenheit." About eighty percent of the words written on the approximately 10,000 tablets found at Ebla are in Sumerian. The Elamites apparently adopted the sexagesimal system from the Sumerians and only used a decimal notation when counting animals.5 Although the Semitic kingdoms of Ebla, Mari, and Abu-Salabikh adopted the cuneiform writing and the cuneiform numbers, the calendar was Semitic and the counting appears to be in Semitic units which were decimal. The Sumerian King List records in succession the names of most of the kings of Sumer and the lengths of their reigns. The Flood swept thereover. London: Luzac & Co. Galter, Hannes D. 2005. . I drop (the topic) Bad-tibira(k); The main problem with this explanation is that there is a detailed numerical correspondence between the two lists that would have been difficult to remember from one generation to the other. By comparison with other historical documents, inscriptions and archaeological dating, it appears that the list does not correspond to a strict succession but that there is considerable overlap and contemporaneity between several of the dynasties that are presented in the list as having existed one after the other. 1963. Privacy Policy and This paper carefully and thoroughly examines the numerical relationships between the two documents. What if the details found in the Sumerian King List are one hundred percent accurate and that, unlike the mainstream scholars, these impassible reigns were a possibility, at a time when civilization, society and our planet were very different from what it is today? "Listes Susiennes des dynasties de Sumer-Accad." The Sumerian King List is an ancient manuscript originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer from Sumerian and neighboring dynasties, their supposed reign lengths, and the locations of "official" kingship. Interestingly, the list details how these eight kings met the end during the Great Flood that swept the Earth. and reigned 28,800 years; Perforated, the prism must originally have a wooden spindle going through its centre so that it might be rotated and read on all four sides. The Sumerian King List records in a chronological succession the names of most of the kings of Sumer and the lengths of their reigns. The cuneiform system also employed only two elements, the wedge and the triangle, but used four wedges to represent the large circle of the earlier system. Therefore, the early number system, based on rounded signs, has been used to represent the numerical part of the list in Fig. Also, it would have appeared very strange that no intermediate ciphers between 602 and 10 were used in the total. "Sumero-Babylonian King Lists and Date List." Among all the extant exemplars of the Sumerian King List, the Weld-Blundell prism in the Ashmolean Museum cuneiform collection represents the most extensive version as well as the most complete copy of the King List. They essentially represent attempts to bring the added section into conformity with the style of the rest of the King List. He stated that the new part was copied and adapted from information that. All the documents show extensive and detailed agreement among themselves. Although the Sumerian system had a sexagesimal base, the symbol for ten (the small circle) was used as an intermediate symbol between powers of sixty. Only the last two numbers would have needed the symbol of the large bullet with a small circle inside (10x60 = 600). In On the Third Dynasty of Ur: Studies in Honor of Marcel Sigrist, ed. These symbols were the equivalent of the small bullet and circle of the earlier system. Despite the commonalities these versions or recensions share, they can diverge from one and another in both content and style. By the Sumerian Period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the cuneiform system had totally replaced it. Their homeland in Mesopotamia, called Sumer, emerged roughly 6,000 years ago along the floodplains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq and Syria. Attention is paid to the internal characteristics of the two sets of numerical values and their formal similarity. From about 2500 BC onwards, the cuneiform script was also used to write Akkadian and Eblaite, which are Semitic languages. reigned its 28,800 years. First published in: CEN Tech. 3 kings The lives of the biblical patriarchs, however, have a precision of one year. "The Seed of Kingship." Theres another king list from ancient Egypt known as the Turin King List, which tells of a number of mysterious kings who once ruled Egypt for thousands of years, before the Pharaohs. The List of the Sumerian Kings tells an incredible story that many find hard to believe: After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. c. 3400-3100 BC ( Late Uruk Period) [1] [2] Predecessor. thesis, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 8 kings On a separate section, are entries that correspond to subtotals of the individual numbers. Jacobsen, Thorkild. J. They state the name of an important Sumerian capital, supply a list of its rulers and then describe each royal dynastys downfall: [City A] was smitten with weapons; its kingship was carried to [city B].. These symbols were repeated until 600 was reached when the symbol used for ten (a small circle) was impressed inside the large oblong symbol for 60. Sumerian King List: list of rulers of ancient Sumer, used as a framework for the study of Mesopotamian chronology. 15 facts about the Sumerian King List: When gods ruled Earth. "The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet." 2004. Number symbols used during the Akkadian Period (23342154 BC). (In) Bad-tibira(k) En-men-lu-Anna(k) Please refresh the page and try again. Though it lists many of the rulers and ruling city-states of ancient Sumer and Akkad, what more does. A third Sumerian King List is a list of the rulers of Larsa, said to have been found at Senkereh (Larsa) and now deposited in the museum of Yale University, and first published by Professor A. T . I drop (the topic) Sippar; There are more than a dozen of copies of Sumerian King Lists, found in Babylon, Susa, and Assyria, and the Royal Library of Nineveh from the VII century BC. Because both systems were sexagesimal and had a limited number of signs, frequent repetitions of the same sign were necessary. Up to this time, a positional notation for sexagesimal numbers had not become established and separate signs were used for 1, 10, 60, 10x60, 602, and 10x602. 2). No other culture of the ancient world developed a sexagesimal number system, although non-Sumerian groups adopted the Sumerian script to represent their languages and used their numerical system. Number symbols used during the Sumerian Period (21122004 BC). Davila, James R. 1995. Number symbols used during the Proto-Sumerian and Early Dynastic Periods (33002334 BC). No two of these documents are identical. The next power of the base (601) was expressed as a large version of the units (600) symbol. Bibliography: Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner. Thus, the Sumerian King List not only documents a great flood early in man's history, but it also reflects the same pattern of decreasing longevity as found in the Bible men had extremely long life spans before the flood and much shorter life spans following the flood (Wood, 2003). Thus, the first 6 signs would have represented 216,000 years (6 x 10x602), and the next six, 21,600 (6 x 602) for a total of 237,600 years. The total would then have six 103 signs, six 102 signs, and six 10 signs for a sum of 6600 years. 17631753 B.C.). This tablet also has particular linguistic features that show that it is not an isolated part of the King List (such as the total absence of the grammatical formulas so characteristic of the latter). . Finkel, Irving S. 1980. Cuneiform Texts I. 182 relations. Chen, Y. S. 2009. A representation based on the non-positional cuneiform system, however, would have been very similar. Thus it appears that the two documents are related. son of Utu, became high priest The first considerable fragment of the Sumerian King List was published in 1906. Homes were constructed from bundled marsh reeds or mud bricks, and complex irrigation canals were dug to harness the silt-laden waters of the Tigris and Euphrates for farming. That section, however, is significantly different from the rest of the list which deals with kings reigning after the Flood. The earlier large circle which stood for 602 was now represented by four long wedges making a diamond shape, and the large bullet with the small circle inside (10x60) was written with an elongated wedge and a triangular impression superimposed on its right side (Fig. "History as Charter: Some Observations on the Sumerian King List." 1983. The Sumerian King List Isin version [There are a number of versions of The Sumerian King List which do not always agree with each other. 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 the lengths of their reigns may vary. Terms of Service apply. 7 to represent decimal numbers is entirely reasonable as it follows the same rules of the sexagesimal system. reigned its 108,000 years. The scribe would have been puzzled at the last set of six small circle signs. It is worth mentioning that in the ancient text there is a ruler who has been archaeologically and historically verified;it is Enmebaragesi de Kish, approximately 2,600 BC. The helmet, which is 22.7cm high, 27 cm long and 21 cm wide, was meticulously made from a single sheet of gold. Fragments of the Sumerian Kind list were discovered in 1900s by German-American researcher Hermann Hilprecht at Nippur. (SYC). Exactly what the convention would have been is not known. Phrases and words attributed to the scribe are indicated by italicized letters. The Sumerians learned to farm on a grand scale in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a thin, crescent . to legitimise themselves as the rightful rulers of the Ur III dynasty (ca. The first indications of writing and numbers are found in the Late Uruk Period.7 At the beginning of this period, however, tally stones or tokens made of clay of different shapes have been found. Many earlier complicated symbols disappeared. The list is characterized by extremely long durations for the different reigns, especially the earlier ones. Among the numerous ancient texts, manuscripts and scrolls that completely disagree with mainstream history or at least offer a complementary view we find the ancient Sumerian King list which according to many is one of the most mysterious and important ancient texts ever discovered on Earth. The first considerable fragment of the Sumerian King List was published in 1906. Sunken city of Pavlopetri or Atlantis: 5,000-year-old city discovered in Greece. However, if the ages of the Patriarchs are rounded to the two highest digits as in the Sumerian list (that appears to be rounded to the two highest sexagesimal ciphers), their representation would be as shown in column 4 of Fig. Figure 6. This number also has a precision of 3,600. These are the two largest units of the system, so that the numbers are expressed as multiples of 3600. The list includes the King's reign lengths and the locations of the kingship, and the list of kings is sequential. Since that date, more than 15 different fragments and at least one fairly complete list have been found and published. In addition, the parallels between the Sumerian and biblical antediluvian data open up the possibility of establishing chronological correlations between the rest of the Kings List and the book of Genesis. Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research. The Sumerian list assigns an average reign duration of 30,150 years, with a total duration for the period of 241,200 years, compared to an average age of the biblical patriarchs of 858 years and a sum of 8575 years for their full lives. Paperback. He should have eliminated some kings because large sections in each of his sources would have been irrelevant because they dealt with rulers reigning at periods when their city was not in possession of the kingship.4. 3 kings; they ruled for 108000 years" Fragments of the Sumerian Kind list were discovered in 1900's by German-American researcher Hermann Hilprecht at Nippur. as an important ideological tool to legitimise themselves as the rightful successors of the Ur III rulers. 8 kings descended from heaven and ruled for 241,200 years the Sumerian King List unveiled, The Sumerian Civilization & the Sumerian King List, The Sumerian King List unveiled some really astounding things to historians. Most versions of the king list follow a similar narrative pattern in recording kings of the Sumerian city-states, some of which existed simultaneously. Many tablets have been found with the information divided into three different sections. The text usually referred to as the 'Sumerian King List' (SKL) is a composition somewhere between a literary text and a list proper, which deals with the history of kingship in Babylonia from the beginning of time to the early centuries of the second millennium BCE. During this interval, writing became much easier and simpler to use, mostly through a change in writing techniques. According to the text, before the Great Flood, a group of 8 intelligent beings ruled over Mesopotamia for a period of 241,200 years. This political doctrine is believed to have been employed by the early rulers of the Isin dynasty (ca. The first, called the Ubaid Period, takes place between 5,000 and 4,100 BC. The following survey is based principally on the descriptions of Friberg,5 Flegg,6 Nissen,7 Walker,8 and the University of Wisconsin9 among others. [16] The list These sources were discovered at different quarters of ancient Mesopotamia and its periphery, including Nippur, Isin, Kish, Larsa, and Susa. There would have been no use for the large bullet impression because the first power of the base was already represented by the small circle, and no use for the large bullet with the small circle inside because ten times the first power of the base was the square of the base which was represented by the large circle. The list composed in Ancient Sumerian offers details about numerous generations of kings that ruled over the land of ancient Sumer. By defeating Gutium around 2119 BC, Utu-hegal had brought back the kingdom to Sumer. 7. The isolated antediluvian list that has been mentioned above has many similarities but also marked differences with the antediluvian section of the King List. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years.". Happen to see our new campaign on Fox News? 2). This practice, which Nissen7 calls a strict bookkeeping mentality, was prevalent throughout the Middle East and is also found in the Kings List. 1 king This ancient record, known as the Sumerian King List, describes how our planet was controlled by eight unknown monarchs for an incredible 241,000 years in the distant past. The best-preserved copy is a clay prism purchased in Iraq shortly after World War I that currently resides in the . Sixteen copies (indicated as A, B, C. P) of this text are known, all of them written in Sumerian, although some of them clearly show Akkadian influence. . Sollberger, E. 1967. When the kingdom durations of the antediluvian section are expressed in an early sexagesimal numerical system, all durations except two are expressed as multiples of 602. Thank you for signing up to receive email newsletters from Answers in Genesis. It is not likely that the original antediluvian source he used tried to present the antediluvian kings in such a consecutive way; it seems that the scribe forced this concept of his own in order to conform his new material to the style of the copy of the King List he was adding to. Since that date, more than 15 different fragments and at least one fairly complete list have been found and published. The number system for representing the counting, however, remained the same as in the previous periods, with the same two different symbols (the bullet and the circle) and the same two sizes (Fig. This is a culmination of the tendency started in the Early Dynastic II Period of restricting the impressions of the triangular stylus within a narrow segment of the possible directions the stylus could theoretically take. This meant that few changes in the direction of writing were necessary and the speed of writing could be increased.7. . In the latter half of the last century, scholars began to focus more on the historiographical value of the King List at the times when it was composed or redacted. The Sumerian King List is an ancient listing of the earliest rulers of Sumer and surrounding regions. Friberg, Jran. The earlier method of incising to make the curvilinear pictorial symbols was gradually replaced by the technique of making impressions of short, straight lines by holding a stylus of triangular section at an angle. For the next power of the base (602), a large circle was used that was made by vertically pressing the larger end of the stylus into the clay. its kingship to E-Anna(k) Try downloading another browser like Chrome or Firefox. (In) Eridu(g) A-lulim(ak) (became) king Eventually, a sign for zero was adopted in the Babylonian system, but it was only used to denote internal empty places, the new numerical symbol was not used to the right of a number as the last symbol.6 This meant that the numbers were not unambiguous and the actual value had to be determined very carefully from the context. Thus, the totals of both the adjusted Genesis and Sumerian lists have six of the signs for ten times the square of the base, six of the signs for the square of the base, and six signs for the next lower value of their respective system. The Waubonsie Stone in Chicago: An Ancient Altar for Sacrificing Babies? Throughout . But is the List of the Kings Sumerian a mixture of historically verifiable kings and mythological beings? He adopted the title "Lord of Sumer and king of all lands" and later "King of Sumer and Akkad" to elevate his reign all over Mesopotamia. At the beginning of the Sumerian King List, it is described that eight kings ruled the earth for a total of 241,200 years, and then the devastating flood swept over their land. The form of the final list shows that the author did not reject any material from the local lists. . Additional rulers, introductory and summary formulae for each dynasty and anecdotal information for certain individual rulers were inserted. A. R. George et alii, 199-205. Jacobsen4 has compared these manuscripts with well-dated documents outside of the King List and has determined the time when these usages disappeared from the then current language. The antediluvian portion of the King List appears to have been originally composed very early in Sumerian history. The papyrus is now located in the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) at Turin. Since the publication of the first fragment of the Sumerian King List in 1906, the value of the King List was initially perceived to be its potential to check the validity of the biblical chronology in the Book of Genesis, or to reconstruct early world and Mesopotamian (political) history. The probability that the resemblance between the two documents is fortuitous is very small. From Wikipedia: 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 the late third and early second millennium BC. It is difficult to ascertain if the verb he reigned after the various reigns and the city summaries of the number of kings and the total duration of their reigns were derived from source A or if they were added by the scribe. While this may not seem like too much of a mystery, its what is inscribed along with the list of kings that makes it so puzzling. Historical and Grammatical Texts. The scribe would have expected to see the next smaller cipher of the system, namely the large bullet with the small circle inside (10x60). The line numeration refers to the lines of the WB prism. It is an update of earlier Sumerian king lists to add Isins kings to Sumers royal roster. In 1960, the Apkullu-list (Tablet No. It ends with King Sin-magir of the so-called Isin dynasty (around 1827-1817 BC). "Knigslisten und Chroniken." In Le Palais et la royaut, ed. Then the flood swept them over. This simplified the tallying procedure by grouping by ten the ciphers for the different powers. 198083. In contrast, the antediluvian section has been found as a separate entity in a tablet dated to the end of the 3rd millennium without reference to lists of other rulers. The incentive to the studies here presented was furnished by the excavations of the Oriental Institute at Tell Asmar. ThenEridugfell and the kingship was taken toBad-tibira. Finkelstein, J. J. 290 B.C.). Researchers have mixed feelings about the Sumerian King list. Poebel, Arno. It also lacks the detailed information of Genesis and its moral and spiritual emphases. Thus, an elongated wedge represented the number one and a vertically impressed triangular shape represented the number ten. The phrases ending each dynasty (I drop Eridu(g), I drop Bad-tibira(k), etc. Dumuzid, the shepherd, ruled for 36000 years. En-men-gal-anaruled for 28800 years. The mind-boggling lengthy reigns described in the SumerianKing list has led to the creation of countless theories trying to explain the implausible lengthy reigns. reigned 43,200 years; The wedge now also stood for the powers of 60 and the triangle for ten times the powers of 60 depending on their position within the sequence of ciphers representing the number (Fig. Mustatils in Saudi Arabia: Gates for Animal Sacrifice to Unknown Gods? Nissen7 rejects the theories that the earliest known writing must have had more primitive predecessors. As with the symbol for 600, a small circle was impressed inside the larger circle (3,600) to multiply it by ten and represent 36,000. The prism contains four sides with two columns on each side. The list begins about 266,000 years ago, at a time when "Kingship first descended from heaven" in the ancient Sumerian city of Eridu in southeastern Iraq. Then Bad-tibira fell and the kingship was taken to Larag. Although this number was written using a decimal number base, the scribe assumed it was sexagesimal and incorporated it into his document after making some slight emendations. The rulers in the earliest dynasties are represented as reigning fantastically long periods. Lugalbanda. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. 1 king However, there are many authors and researchers who disagree, suggesting that what is on the List of the Sumerian Kings can not be mythology at all, and point to the fact that scholars today in part recognize some of the Kings detailed in the list. Furthermore, the antediluvian section has a particular set of formulas different from those used in the postdiluvian section. Because it suggests that the ancient rulers hadimplausible lengthy reigns: Alulimbecame king; he ruled for 28800 years. The only problem with this theory is that no one can explain why the period of reign was switched to realistic numbers afterward. A simple tally of the ciphers used yields six 10x602 signs, six 602 signs and six 60 signs. The Last Sumerian King Discovered, Enki's Order Revival 2,602 views Premiered Sep 29, 2021 128 Dislike Share Save Sumerian Origins 54.1K subscribers Sumerian Origins Podcast. For those reasons, Jacobsen4 concludes that the scribe adding the antediluvian section was not copying directly from the epic but was using a different source (Document A) that was literarily related to the epic. On one side of the tablet are many individual entries of numbers accompanied by pictorial symbols, probably signifying the objects being counted or the names of persons. D.Phil. W.20030, 7) or "Uruk List of Kings and Sages" (ULKS) was discovered by German archaeologists at an ancient temple at Uruk. reigned 28,800 years; Get notified of the best booming posts weekly. For a full explanation of this king list and how it parallels the biblical account of extremely long antediluvian ages, see our article " Biblical . 35 reigned its 18,600 years. This was the case of Semitic groups such as at Ebla and Mari, but although they used the cuneiform system, they retained a Semitic calendar and decimal counting. The following discussion of the King List is based to a large extent on his original work. The Weld-Blundell Collection II. The Sumerian King List records the lengths of reigns of the kings of Sumer. For comparison with the Sumerian King List, Adam and Noah are not included. The early chapters of the book of Genesis contain numerical information about the ages of the biblical patriarchs and their chronological relationships during the antediluvian world. "A New Nippur Duplicate of the Sumerian Kinglist in the Brockmon Collection, University of Haifa." One quarter of a million years is assigned to the first eight kings before the Flood and more than 25,000 years for the first two dynasties after the Flood. Some of these rulers such as Etana, Lugal-banda and Gilgamesh are mythical or legendary figures known also from Sumerian and Babylonian literary compositions. Institution user? The Genesis account gives us a glimpse into that obscure portion of the history of mankind, and provides information for a chronology of that period. reigned its 18,600 years. 5). 19531730 B.C.) 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. New York: Srpinger. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Successor. Discovered over the years by scholars in many regions of ancient Mesopotamia, copies of what is believed to be a unique manuscript, referred to as Sumerian King List or the List of the Sumerian Kings, details how in the distant past, our planet was ruled by eight some versions have ten mysterious kings for a mysterious period of 241,200 years. and king and reigned 324 years. In the early 1900s, the colorful, cranky German-American scholar Hermann Hilprecht examined a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet that had been excavated at the site of ancient Nippur.a What he held was the first fragment of the Sumerian King Listan ancient Mesopotamian document claiming to identify every king in Sumerian history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thus, in six of the eight numbers, the durations were given as units of 602, and in the last two with a precision of 10x60. The presence or absence of symbols defined the number unambiguously and the order of the symbols did not matter. In Section 2, the Sumerian King List is surveyed in the light of its chronological context. and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University. Superfluous details were omitted, and curved lines were replaced by short straight segments. Return to top. Since Hilprechts discovery, at least 18 other exemplars of the king list have been found, most of them dating from the second half of the Isin dynasty (c. 20171794 B.C.E.). When in the season of 1931/32 we opened up strata of Agade and Early Dynastic times, the chronology of these periods naturally occupied our thoughts greatly, and the author . However, the optimistic view on the List as a historical document was soon met with a wave of scepticism as scholars began to turn attention to the ideological perspective of the King List, the omission of several important historical dynasties, and the incredibly long reigns of some early rulers on the List. A few of the existing manuscripts of the List have an initial section dealing with kings before the Flood that is significantly different from the rest of the list. "Bible Discoveries" is a segment on the "Quick Study" program that validates stories recorded in the Bible through science and written history. 30 I drop (the topic) Sippar; Notice that all the numbers taken together yield three 10x602 signs, thirty-six 602 signs, and six 10x60 signs. ), continued through the Ur III period, and culminated in the Old Babylonian period. The individual signs representing a number had to be added together to obtain the actual value of the number. . In this stage some signs were used to represent syllables. You can also sign up for our free print newsletter (US only). 12(3):347-357, 1998. Such political doctrine is said to have been used by the early rulers of the Isin dynasty (ca. by German-American scholar Hermann Hilprecht at the site of ancient Nippur and published in 1906. 25 its kingship to Sippar was carried. 2003. Locus Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin Publisher. In other words, scholars are telling us that some things written on the list of Sumerian kings are correct, while others-like relentlessly long reigns-can not be. In addition, if the number representing the sum of the ages was wrongly assumed as having been written in the sexagesimal system, the two totals become numerically equivalent. Originally published in Journal of Creation 12, no 3 (December 1998): 347-357. The small number of symbols made the system very intuitive and available to the masses but needed a fair number of repetitions. Edzard, D. O. It has, nevertheless, been criticized by non-Christians as well as liberal theologians as being mythological, or at best symbolic and incomplete. For example, in the Sumerian account of the Flood (as given in the Gilgamesh epic) there is no reason given for the decision of the gods to destroy mankind. Paris. As a consequence, there was a revival of the Sumerian language, but only in religious and literary areas, as the language remained unimportant for administrative purposes. The ancient Sumerians created one of humanity's first great civilizations. The short strokes had a head, which was more deeply impressed and therefore wider. was carried. But why introduce 60 years (6 x 10) when already the first two sets of signs amount to more than two hundred thousand years? The standard version of this epic was written in Akkadian, and was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam, a Turkish Assyriologist, in the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh during the middle of the 19 th century. There are no allusions at all to a fault committed by man. Thus, many of the dynasties listed as consecutive were in reality contemporaneous. The script was not yet cuneiform, but the signs are more linear. Who Built the East Bay Mystery Walls in California? 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