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Kings of Kish  in the Pre-Sargonic Period

As Aage Westenholz (referenced below, 2020, at p. 695 observed, the title lugal kish (king of Kish):

1. “... developed through time, from meaning:
   

2. ✴quite literally ‘king of Kish’ [for most or not all of the Early Dynastic Period, as discussed in the previous page]; to 
   

3. ✴‘king of the whole world’ ... possibly even as early as Sargon of Akkad.”
   

The present page deals with the use of this title in intermediate ‘Pre-Sargonic Period’, when a small number of rulers whose capitals were not at Kish nevertheless included the title lugal Kish in their royal titulary. 

Meskalamdu and Mesanepada: Kings of Ur and of Kish

Meskalamdu 

Lapis lazuli bead (RIME 1.13.5.1, P431203) from Mari  

Now in the National Museum, Damascus: image from Jean-Claude Margueron (referenced below, at p. 143)

The inscription (P247679) on a seal from the royal cemetery of Ur that is now in the British Museum (exhibit BM 122536) reads: ‘mes-kalam-du10 lugal’, (Meskalamdu, the king).  Given the find spot, we might reasonably assume that Meskalamdu was the king of Ur.  However the inscription (RIME 1.13.5.1, P431203) on an eight-sided bead  from Mari (illustrated above and discussed below) reads:

1. “For [DN]: Mesanepada, king of Ur, the son of Meskalamdu, king of Kish, has consecrated (this bead)”, (translation from  Jean-Claude Margueron (referenced below, at p. 143).  
   

Thus, Meskalamdu seems to provide us with an example of a pre-Sargonic Sumerian ruler who used the title ‘king of Kish’, despite the fact that his capital was located at somewhere other than Kish  (i.e., in this case, at Ur).

Mesanepada

Turning now to Mesanepada himself, who is named as the king of Ur on this bead from Mari illustrated above,  which was found in a jar together with other precious objects in the ‘sacred precinct’ of the Pre-Sargonic palace there.  The excavators characterised these objects as the ‘treasure of Ur’ and  speculated that this ‘treasure’ had been a royal gift from Ur.  However, it has subsequently emerged that the objects themselves are quite disparate, and the circumstances in which this particular object found its way (presumably from Ur) to Mari are actually unknown.  Furthermore, there is some doubt about the identity of the god to whom Mesanepada dedicated it: for example:

1. ✴Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 2008, RIME 1.13.5.1, at p. 392) gave ‘an lugal-[ni]’ (to the god An, his lord); while
   

2. ✴Glenn Magid (referenced below, at p. 10) and the entry  at CDLI, P431203 give ‘{d}lugal-kalam’ (to the god Lugalkalam).
   

Thus, the only thing that we can take from the inscription on the bead is that Mesanepada used the title ‘king of Ur’ at a time when his father, Meskalamdu, (who was presumably still alive) used the title ‘king of Kish’.

Seal of Mesanepada (RIME 1.13.5.2, P431204) from Ur 

Now in the Penn Museum (Sealing 31-16-677), image from museum website  

A second royal inscription of Mesanepada (RIME 1.13.5.2, P431204), which is on a clay sealing from Ur (illustrated above) that came from one of three ‘seal impression strata’ in the levels above the so-called ‘Royal Cemetery’ at Ur (see Gianni Marchesi, referenced below, 2011, at p. 64), reads

1. “Mesanepada, King of Kish, dam nu-gig (husband of the nu-gig)”.
   

Glenn Magid (referenced below, at p. 6) observed that nugig could have been either:

1. ✴the name of one of Mesanepada’s actual wives;  or
   

2. ✴the name of: 
   

3. “... a well-known type of priestess.  If so, then [this inscription] would constitute the earliest evidence for a ritual that is otherwise attested only later in Mesopotamian history: the annual ‘sacred marriage’ between the king and a goddess (embodied in the person of her priestess).”
   

Petr Charvát, referenced below, 2017, at p. 196 and note 37) translated nugig as ‘the Lofty One’, and observed that this could have been either a reference to the ‘nugig priestess’ (a priestess of Inanna) or an epithet Inanna herself.  Pirjo Lapinkivi (referenced below, at pp. 18-20) observed that:

1. “Enmerkar, the legendary king of Uruk, was the earliest Sumerian ruler who called himself Inanna’s husband. ... Even if the evidence [of the Enmerkar legend] is questionable, there are other sources that indicate an affectionate relationship between the Sumerian ruler and the goddess of love as early as the ED II period: [for example], there is a seal impression of Mesanepada ... [that] declares [him] to be ‘the husband of the nu-gig’.  The term nu-gig probably refers to the common epithet of Inanna ... The impression also has designs of a star and a crescent moon, which were both  common symbols for Inanna in her astral aspect (the planet Venus and the morning and evening star).”
   

As we shall see, this is the earliest of a series of indications that the title ‘king of Kish’ might have been in the gift of the goddess Inanna (a suggestion first made by Tohru Maeda (referenced below, 1981, at pp. 7-9). 

Meskalamdu and Mesanepada: Kings of Ur and of Kish: Conclusions

Although each of Meskalamdu and Mesanepada is known to have used each of the titles ‘king of Ur and king of Kish in his royal inscriptions, there is no surviving evidence that either Meskalamdu or Mesanepada ever held both titles at the same time.   However, as we have seen, in the inscription on the bead from Mari, Mesanepada is described as ‘king of Ur, the son of Meskalamdu, king of Kish’, which might mean that both men were alive at this time, and Meskalamdu had adopted the title king of Kish, allowing Mesanepada to take the title king of Ur.  If so, then we would expect that Mesanepada had similarly adopted the title king of Kish in order allow, A’anepada, his son and successor, to take the title king of Ur. 

Interestingly, Mesanepada’s son and successor, A’anepada, is always and only entitled ‘king of Ur’ in his six surviving royal inscriptions (see Douglas Frayne, referenced below, 2008, at pp. 395-8). 

Eanatum, Ensi of Lagash and King of Kish 

Eanatum Boulder, from Girsu (now in the Musée  du Louvre: AO 2677)

Image from the museum website   

As discussed above, Aage Westenholz (referenced below, 2020, at p. 697) argued that, even if the prisoners listed on the ‘Prisoner Plaque’ at Kish (many of whom came from distant localities) could be shown to have been taken in battle, this would :

1. “... scarcely [prove] the existence of a territorial state in the north, [centred on Kish, as hypothesised by Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2013)], any more than [the evidence for] Eanatum’s campaigns  ... [against enemies from distant cities] prove the existence of a territorial state in the south, centred on Lagash.”  
   

This is a reference to a campaign recorded of the so-called ‘Eanatum Boulder’ (illustrated above), in which we read that:

1. “Because Inanna so loved Eanatum, the ensi (ruler) of Lagash, she gave him nam-luga[ (the kingship) of Kish, together with nam-ensi2 (the rulership) of Lagash:
   

2. ✴Elam trembled before him (and) he sent the Elamite back to his land. 
   

3. ✴Kish trembled before him. 
   

4. ✴He sent [Zuzu], the king of Akshak, back to his land. 
   

5. Eanatum, the ruler of Lagash, who subjugates foreign lands for [the god] Ningirsu, defeated:
   

6. ✴Elam, Subartu [= Shubur, Assur, Assyria ] and Uru at the Asuhur [canal (?) ... ; and]
   

7. ✴Kish, Akshak and Mari at the Antasura of Ningirsu”, (RIME 1.9.3.5, P431079, lines 98-126). 
   

(See Map 3 above for Assur/ Subartu, Akshak and Mari.).  Steinkeller had argued (at p. 150) that, since Eanatum’s  battle(s) were explicitly fought near Lagash, they had been largely defensive, but Westenholz countered (at p. 688) that:

1. “... Eanatum surely did more than merely seeing his enemies off: 
   

2. ✴Zuzu of Akshak was pursued all the way to the safety of his own city, soundly beaten. 
   

3. ✴Eanatum ... claimed to be ‘king of Kish’, and a fragment of an inscription of his has actually been excavated there, as if to prove the veracity of that claim. 
   

4. Even so, his dominion over the north was probably quite short-lived.”
   

(The inscription to which Westenholz referred is in the Ashmolean Museum (Ashm, 1930-204; P221781): Westenholz read ‘[é-an-na-túm / …] / [dumu] a-ku[r-gal’ in the broken passage, and identified this as Eanatum, son of Akurgal, ensi of Lagash).

Postgate J. N., “City of Culture 2600 BC: Early Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at Abu Salabikh”, (2024) Oxford 

1. Westenholz A., “Was Kish the Center of a Territorial State in the Third Millennium?—and Other Thorny Questions”,  in:
   

2. Arkhipov I. et al. (editors), “The Third Millennium: Studies in Early Mesopotamia and Syria in Honor of Walter Sommerfeld and Manfred Krebernik”, (2020) Leiden and Boston, at pp. 686-715 
   

Charvát P., “The Origins of the LUGAL Office”, in

1. Drewnowska O. and Sandowicz M. (editors), “Fortune and Misfortune in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at, Warsaw, 21–25 July 2014”, (2017) Winona Lake, IN, at pp. 193-200
   

2. Marchesi G., “Historical Framework (Chapter 2)”, in:
   

3. Marchesi G. and Marchetti N. (editors), “Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia”, (2011) Winona Lake, IN, at pp. 97-126 
   

Frayne D. R., “The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Vol. 1: Presargonic Period (2700-2350 BC)”, (2008) Toronto 

Lapinkivi P., “The Sumerian Sacred Marriage and Its Aftermath in Later Sources”, in: 

1. Nissinen M. and Uro R. (editors), “Sacred Marriages: The Divine-Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity”, (2008) University Park, PA, at pp. 7-42 
   

Magid G., “Sumerian Early Dynastic Royal Inscriptions”, in:

1. Chavalas M. W. (editor), “The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation”, (2006) Malden, MA and Oxford, at pp. 4-16 
   

Margueron J.-C., "Mari and the Syro-Mesopotamian World", in:

1. Aruz J. and Wallenfels R. (editors), “Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium BC, from the Mediterranean to the Indus”, (2003) New York, at pp. 135-64  
   

Maeda T., “‘King of Kish’ in Presargonic Sumer”. Orient, 17 (1981 ) 1-17 

Marchesi G. (2006, "Statue Regali, Sovrani e Templi del Proto Dinastico: I Dati Epigrafici e Testuali”, in:

1. Marchetti N., "La Statuaria Regale nella Mesopotamia Proto Dinastica”, (2006) Rome, at  pp. 205-71 
   

Postgate J. N., “Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History”, (1994) Abingdon