Editing Sumerian King List (section)

== Discussion ==
Assyriologist {{interlanguage link|Piotr Steinkeller}} has observed that, with the exception of the [[Epic of Gilgamesh]], there might not be a single cuneiform text with as much "name recognition" as the ''Sumerian King List''. The ''SKL'' might also be among the compositions that have fuelled the most intense debate and controversy among academia. These debates generally focused on when, where and why it was created, and if and how the text can be used in the reconstruction of the political history of Mesopotamia during the third and second millennia BC.<ref name=":11" />

=== Dating, redaction and purpose ===
[[File:Scheil dynastic tablet (1911).jpg|thumb|400px|The [[Scheil dynastic tablet]], containing a part of the Sumerian King List, from [[Uruk|Uruk II]] to [[Ur III]].<ref name=":9" /> Transcription and translation in French (1911).]]
All but one of the surviving versions of the ''Sumerian King List'' date to the Old Babylonian period, i.e. the early part of the second millennium BC.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Postgate|first=J. N.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/24468109|title=Early Mesopotamia : society and economy at the dawn of history|date=1992|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-00843-3|location=London|oclc=24468109}}</ref><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Crawford|first=Harriet E. W.|author-link=Harriet Crawford|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/20826485|title=Sumer and the Sumerians|date=1991|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-38175-4|location=Cambridge|oclc=20826485}}</ref> One version, the ''Ur III Sumerian King List'' (''USKL'') dates to the reign of Shulgi (2084–2037 BC). By carefully comparing the different versions, especially the ''USKL'' with the much later Old Babylonian versions of the ''SKL'', it has been shown that the composition that is now known as the ''SKL'' was probably first created in the Sargonic period in a form very similar to the ''USKL''. It has even been suggested that this precursor of the ''SKL'' was not written in [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]], but in [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]. The original contents of the ''USKL'', especially the pre-Sargonic part, were probably significantly altered only after the Ur III period, as a reaction to the societal upheaval that resulted from the disintegration of the Ur III state at the end of the third millennium BC. This altering of the composition meant that the original long, uninterrupted list of kings of Kish was cut up in smaller dynasties (e.g. Kish I, Kish II, and so forth), and that other dynasties were inserted. The result was the ''SKL'' as it is known from Old Babylonian manuscripts such as the Weld-Blundell prism. The cyclical change of kingship from one city to the next became a so-called ''[[Leitmotif]]'', or recurring theme, in the ''Sumerian King List''.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":11" />

It has been generally accepted that the main aim was not to provide a [[Historiography|historiographical]] record of the political landscape of ancient Mesopotamia.<ref name="Mieroop">{{Cite book|last=Van De Mieroop|first=Marc|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oknsEhcALLEC|title=A History of the Ancient Near East|publisher=Blackwell|year=2004|isbn=0-631-22552-8|pages=}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Michalowski|first=Piotr|date=1983|title=History as Charter Some Observations on the Sumerian King List|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/601880|journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=103|issue=1|pages=237–248|doi=10.2307/601880|jstor=601880 |issn=0003-0279}}</ref><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":13">{{Cite book|last=Pollock|first=Susan|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/40609053|title=Ancient Mesopotamia : the eden that never was|date=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-57334-3|location=Cambridge|oclc=40609053}}</ref> Instead, it has been suggested that the ''SKL'', in its various redactions, was used by contemporary rulers to legitimize their claims to power over Babylonia.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":12" /> Steinkeller has argued that the ''SKL'' was first created during the Akkad dynasty to position Akkad as a direct heir to the hegemony of Kish. Thus, it would make sense to present the predecessors to the Akkadian kings as a long, unbroken line of rulers from Kish. In this way the Akkadian dynasty could legitimize its claims to power over Babylonia by arguing that, from the earliest times onwards, there had always been a single city where kingship was exercised.<ref name=":11" /> Later rulers then used the ''Sumerian King List'' for their own political purposes, amending and adding to the text as they saw fit. This is why, for example, the version recorded on the Weld-Blundell prism ends with the Isin dynasty, suggesting that it was now their turn to rule over Mesopotamia as the rightful inheritors of the Ur III legacy.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":1" /> The use of the ''SKL'' as political propaganda may also explain why some versions, including the older ''USKL'', did not contain the antediluvian part of the list. In its original form, the list started with the hegemony of Kish. Some city-states may have been uncomfortable with the preeminent position of Kish. By inserting a section of primordial kings who ruled before a flood, which is only known from some Old Babylonian versions, the importance of Kish could be downplayed.<ref name=":12" />

=== Reliability as a historical source ===
During much of the 20th century, many scholars accepted the ''Sumerian King List'' as a historical source of great importance for the reconstruction of the political history of Mesopotamia, despite the problems associated with the text.<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":10" /><ref name=":15" /> For example, many scholars have observed that the kings in the early part of the list reigned for unnaturally long time spans. Various approaches have been offered to reconcile these long reigns with a historical time line in which reigns would fall within reasonable human bounds, and with what is known from the archaeological record as well as other textual sources. [[Thorkild Jacobsen]] argued in his major 1939 study of the ''SKL'' that, in principle, all rulers mentioned in the list should be considered historical because their names were taken from older lists that were kept for administrative purposes and could therefore be considered reliable. His solution to the reigns considered too long, then, was to argue that "[t]heir occurrence in our material must be ascribed to a tendency known also among other peoples of antiquity to form very exaggerated ideas of the length of human life in the earliest times of which they were conscious." In order to create a fixed chronology where individual kings could be absolutely dated, Jacobsen replaced time spans considered too long with average reigns of 20–30 years. For example, Etana ruled for 1500 years according to the ''SKL'', but instead Jacobsen assumed a reign of circa 30 years. In this manner, and by working backwards from reigns whose dates could be independently established by other means, Jacobsen was able to fit all pre-Sargonic kings in a chronology consistent with the dates that were at that time (1939) accepted for the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Jacobsen |first=Thorkild |url=https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/as11.pdf |title=The Sumerian king list |date=1939 |publisher=the University of Chicago press |isbn=0-226-62273-8 |location=Chicago (Ill.) |oclc=491884743}}</ref> Jacobsen has been criticised for putting too much faith in the reliability of the king list, for making wishful reconstructions and readings of incomplete parts of the list, for ignoring inconsistencies between the ''SKL'' and other textual evidence, and for ignoring the fact that only very few of the pre-Sargonic rulers have been attested in contemporaneous (i.e. Early Dynastic) inscriptions.<ref name=":7">{{Cite web|title=ANE TODAY - 201611 - The Sumerian King List or the 'History' of Kingship in Early Mesopotamia|url=https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2016/11/sumerian-king-list-history-kingship-early-mesopotamia/|access-date=2021-06-29|website=American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)|language=en-US}}</ref>

Others have attempted to reconcile the reigns in the ''Sumerian'' ''King List'' by arguing that many time spans were actually consciously invented, mathematically derived numbers. Rowton, for example, observed that a majority of the reigns in the Gutian dynasty were 5, 6, or 7 years in length. In the [[sexagesimal]] system used at that time, "about 6 years" would be the same as "about 10 years" in a [[decimal]] system (i.e. a general round number). This was sufficient evidence for him to conclude that at least these figures were completely artificial.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=Rowton|first=M. B.|date=1960-04-01|title=The Date of the Sumerian King List|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/371575|journal=Journal of Near Eastern Studies|volume=19|issue=2|pages=156–162|doi=10.1086/371575|s2cid=161074704 |issn=0022-2968}}</ref> The longer time spans from the first part of the list could also be argued to be artificial: various reigns were multiples of 60 (e.g. [[Jushur]] reigned for 600 years, [[Puannum]] ruled for 840 years) while others were [[Square root|squares]] (e.g. [[Ilku]] reigned for 900 years (square of 30) while [[Meshkiangasher]] ruled for 324 years (square of 18)).<ref name=":15">{{Cite journal|last=Young|first=Dwight W.|date=1988|title=A Mathematical Approach to Certain Dynastic Spans in the Sumerian King List|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/544384|journal=Journal of Near Eastern Studies|volume=47|issue=2|pages=123–129|doi=10.1086/373263 |jstor=544384 |s2cid=162342434 |issn=0022-2968}}</ref>

During the last few decades, scholars have taken a more careful approach. For example, many recent handbooks on the archaeology and history of ancient Mesopotamia all acknowledge the problematic nature of the ''SKL'' and warn that the list's use as a historical document for that period is severely limited up to the point that it should not be used at all.<ref name="Mieroop" /><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=von Soden|first=Wolfram|url=https://archive.org/details/ancientorientint0000sode|title=The Ancient Orient|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans|others=Donald G. Schley (trans.)|year=1994|isbn=0-8028-0142-0|pages=[https://archive.org/details/ancientorientint0000sode/page/47 47]|url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":14">{{Cite book|last=Nissen|first=Hans Jörg|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/899007792|title=The early history of the ancient Near East, 9000-2000 B.C.|date=1988|others=Elizabeth Lutzeier, Kenneth J. Northcott|isbn=978-0-226-18269-8|location=Chicago|oclc=899007792}}</ref><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":13" /> It has been argued, for example, that the omission of certain cities in the list which were known to have been important at the time, such as [[Lagash]] and [[Larsa]], was deliberate.<ref name=":4" /> Furthermore, the fact that the ''SKL'' adheres to a strict sequential ordering of kingships which were considered equal means that it does no justice at all to the actual complexities of Mesopotamian political history where different reigns overlapped, or where different rulers or cities were not equally powerful.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":14" /> Recent studies on the ''SKL'' even go so far as to discredit the composition as a valuable historical source on Early Dynastic Mesopotamia altogether. Important arguments to dismiss the ''SKL'' as a reliable and valuable source are its nature as a political, ideological text, its long redactional history, and the fact that out of the many pre-Sargonic kings listed, only seven have been attested in contemporary Early Dynastic inscriptions.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":12" /><ref name=":7" /><ref name=":11" /> The final volume on the history and philology of third millennium BC Mesopotamia of the [[European Science Foundation|ESF]]-funded ARCANE-project (Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean), for example, did not list any of the pre-Sargonic rulers from the ''SKL'' in its chronological tables unless their existence was corroborated by Early Dynastic inscriptions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Marchesi|first=Gianni|title=Toward a Chronology of Early Dynastic Rulers in Mesopotamia|url=https://www.academia.edu/10655886|journal=In W. Sallaberger and I. Schrakamp (Eds.), History & Philology (ARCANE 3; Turnhout), Pp. 139-156|date=January 2015 }}</ref>

Thus, in the absence of independent sources from the Early Dynastic period itself, the pre-Sargonic part of the ''SKL'' must be considered fictional. Many of the rulers in the pre-Sargonic part (i.e. prior to Sargon of Akkad) of the list must therefore be considered as purely fictional or mythological characters to which reigns of hundreds of years were assigned. However, there is a small group of pre-Sargonic rulers in the ''SKL'' whose names have been attested in Early Dynastic inscriptions. This group consists of seven rulers: [[Enmebaragesi]], [[Gilgamesh]], [[Mesannepada]], [[Meskiagnun]], [[Elulu]], [[Enshakushanna]] and [[Lugal-zage-si]].<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":7" /><ref name=":12" /> It has also been shown that several kings did not rule sequentially as described by the ''Sumerian King List'', but rather contemporaneously.<ref name="Mieroop" /> Starting with the Akkadian rulers, but especially for the Ur III and Isin dynasties, the ''SKL'' becomes much more reliable.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":9">{{Cite book|last1=Sallaberger|first1=Walther|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/904661061|title=History & philology|last2=Schrakamp|first2=Ingo|date=2015|isbn=978-2-503-53494-7|location=Turnhout|pages=1–133|chapter=Part I: Philological data for a historical chronology of Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium|oclc=904661061}}</ref> Not only are most of the kings attested in other contemporaneous documents, but the reigns attributed to them in the ''SKL'' are more or less in line with what can be established from those other sources. This is probably due to the fact that the compilers of the ''SKL'' could rely on lists of year names, which came in regular use during the Akkadian period. Other sources may have included votive and victory inscriptions.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":1" />

However, while the ''SKL'' has little value for the study on Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, it continues to be an important document for the study on the Sargonic to Old Babylonian periods. The ''Sumerian King List'' offers scholars a window into how Old Babylonian kings and scribes viewed their own history, how they perceived the concept of kingship, and how they could have used it to further their own goals. For example, it has been noted that the king list is unique among Sumerian compositions in there being no divine intervention in the process of dynastic change.<ref name=":12" /> Also, the style and contents of the ''Sumerian King List'' certainly influenced later compositions such as the ''Curse of Akkad'', the ''Lamentation over Sumer and Akkad'', later king lists such as the ''Assyrian King List'', and the ''[[Babyloniaca (Berossus)|Babyloniaca]]'' by [[Berossus]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Sumerian King List (SKL) [CDLI Wiki]|url=https://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=the_sumerian_king_list_skl|access-date=2021-07-03|website=cdli.ox.ac.uk}}</ref>