A History of Sumer and Akkad: An account of the early races of Babylonia from prehistoric times to the foundation of the Babylonian monarchyKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
A History of Sumer and Akkad: An account of the early races of Babylonia from prehistoric times to the foundation of the Babylonian monarchy
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Akkadians; Babylonia -- History; Sumerians
We have but a few short inscriptions of Urumush, and those of a votive
character, but they enable us to form some estimate of the extent and
condition of his empire. The only designation he assumes in those
of his inscriptions that have been recovered is "King of Kish," so
that we are without the information which might have been derived
from a study of his subsidiary titles. Such titles would no doubt
have been added in any lengthy text, and their absence from his known
inscriptions is simply due to their brevity. On the other hand, the
fact that these short inscriptions have been found on sites so widely
scattered as Abû Habba, Niffer, and Tello, is probably significant.
The inscriptions from Abû Habba[23] and Tello consist simply of his
name and title engraved on fragments of stone vases, and, since they
bear no dedication to a local deity, they might possibly have been
carried there as spoil from Kish. But fragments of precisely similar
vases, bearing the same inscription, have been found at Niffer, and, as
the texts upon two other vases from the latter place prove that they
were deposited there by Urumush himself, it is a fair assumption that
their presence on the other two sites is to be explained in the same
way. We may therefore conclude that both Sippar and Lagash were under
the control of Urumush. In other words, it is not improbable that the
limits of his authority in Babylonia extended from the extreme north of
Akkad to the south of Sumer.
It is fully in accordance with this view that Urumush should have
controlled the central sanctuary at Nippur, and his vases found upon
that site, which bear dedications to Enlil, prove that this was so.
From one of them we learn too that the power of Kish was felt beyond
the limits of Sumer and Akkad. The text in question states that the
vase upon which it is inscribed formed part of certain spoil from Elam,
and was dedicated to Enlil by Urumush, "when he had conquered Elam
and Barakhsu."[24] It is possible that the conquest of Elam and the
neighbouring district of Barakhsu, to which Urumush here lays claim,
was not more than a successful raid into those countries, from which
he returned laden with spoil. But even so, the fact that a king of
Kish was strong enough to assume the offensive against Elam, and to
lead an expedition across the border, is sufficiently noteworthy. The
references to Elam which we have hitherto noted in the inscriptions
from Tello would seem to suggest that up to this time the Elamites had
been the aggressors, and had succeeded in penetrating into Sumerian
territory from which they were with difficulty dislodged. Under Urumush
the conditions were reversed, and we shall shortly see reason for
believing that his success was not a solitary achievement, but may be
connected with other facts in the history of Kish under the Semitic
rulers of this period. Meanwhile we may note the testimony to the power
and extent of the kingdom of Kish, which is furnished by the short
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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