In E-Anna(k) Thus, the early numeral system followed an addition principle and there was no need for a zero. 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). This simplified the tallying procedure by grouping by ten the ciphers for the different powers. Return to top. Interestingly, the list details how these eight kings met the end during the Great Flood that swept the Earth. From about 2500 BC onwards, the cuneiform script was also used to write Akkadian and Eblaite, which are Semitic languages. 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. 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. German Cave Reveals Clues About the First Domesticated Wolves, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9PAxAK6fBk, Scientist concludes death is only an illusion, it is not real, Secret Space Program Whistleblower claims Humans are on Mars since 70s, Time Traveler who spent 2 years in the future year 2749 tells all, The Chronovisor: A device used by the Vatican to look into the future and past, Researchers discover a 2 billion year old Nuclear Reactor in Africa. _. The only problem with this theory is that no one can explain why the period of reign was switched to realistic numbers afterward. 20 (In) Larak En-sipa(d)-zi(d)-Anna(k) The first part of the Sumerian King List: "1-39 After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. The line numeration refers to the lines of the WB prism. When first discovered and published in the beginning of the last century, the Sumerian King List was valued highly as a historical document for its potential to check the validity of the biblical chronology in the Book of Genesis and to reconstruct early world and Mesopotamian (political) history. In On the Third Dynasty of Ur: Studies in Honor of Marcel Sigrist, ed. reigned its 28,800 years. This clay tablet discovered in Larsa, Iraq around the start of the third millennium BC. 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. Before comparing the Antediluvian portion of the King List to the Genesis record, it is important to review the characteristics of the number system used in Mesopotamia as deduced from the earliest archaeological findings. 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. 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. 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. 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. King Enshakushanna was a Sumerian king around mid-3rs millennium B.C who was thought to have governed Sumer for 60 years. "Die Sumerische Knigsliste und erzhlte Vergangenheit." The postdiluvian sections do not appear in other Mesopotamian manuscripts that are not fragments of the King List, and their contents have only been found in the King List. The biblical description is not limited to the Hebrews, but it appears that there was an ancient tradition of the antediluvian world in the early stages of the Mesopotamian culture as well. to legitimise themselves as the rightful rulers of the Ur III dynasty (ca. 1995. Alalgar reigned 36,000 years. 1 king This practice, which Nissen7 calls a strict bookkeeping mentality, was prevalent throughout the Middle East and is also found in the Kings List. 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. Thus it appears that the two documents are related. The new cuneiform numerals tried to reproduce with wedges the rounded impressions of the earlier numerals. reigned its 21,000 years. The first system appears during the Proto-Sumerian Period and was in use until the time of the Akkadian Dynasty. Sumerian and Semitic Religious and Historical Texts. . During the Babylonian Period, however, a quasi-positional notation was developed that allowed for the convenient representation of very large numbers. The influence of the King List was by no means restricted to the domain of politics in ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerian King List seems to have been composed to imply that the dominion of Mesopotamia, determined by the gods, could only be exercised by one city at a given time and for a limited period. became king and reigned 18,600 years. One well-known text recorded on Sumerian clay tablets is the Epic of Gilgamesh , considered to be the oldest work of literature in the world. The Sumerians learned to farm on a grand scale in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a thin, crescent . The same symbol with a small circular impression represented 10x120=1200 (Fig. 1 king These are the two largest units of the system, so that the numbers are expressed as multiples of 3600. Do these ancient texts show that the Earth was ruled by ancient astronauts for 241,200 years? In Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schyen Collection, ed. The highly important Sumerian king list was written in Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets, with the first version probably appearing during the Ur III Period (circa 2150-2000 BC). Then Eridug fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira. Since that date, more than 15 different fragments and at least one fairly complete list have been found and published. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. You can also sign up for our free print newsletter (US only). the sumerian king list, a sumerian textual composition with different versions (actually two are precisely dated the time of the third dynasty of ur and the old babylonian period),. 1. However, the document had a rounded total of the lifetimes of the patriarchs (possibly on the back of the tablet). 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. George, Andrew. Experts claim that some of the accounts are myths while other are genuine. True In ancient Egypt, sources regarding the ancient past are much more factual than in ancient Mesopotamia, because Egyptian rulers in the remote past are all . "An Ur III Manuscript of the Sumerian King List." These were written in the first part of the List of the Sumerian Kings. Our hypothesis for explaining the similarities in numerical structure and magnitude of the two totals is as follows: The Sumerian scribe that composed the original Antediluvian list had at his disposal a document (possibly a clay tablet) containing numerical information on the ages of eight of the patriarchs similar to that of the Genesis record. . The numbers as a rule were still made with the round end of a stylus and are easy to identify. (In) Bad-tibira(k) En-men-lu-Anna(k) Although they are still not completely legible, they can be seen to correspond to allotments of food, lists of sacrifices, division of fields, herds of animals and textile and metal manufacture. The postdiluvian portion of the King List shows that a large part of it has a high degree of stylistic similarity. The individual signs representing a number had to be added together to obtain the actual value of the number. reigned 625 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. Since that date, more than 15 different fragments and at least one fairly complete list have been found and published. No other culture in the ancient world used the base 60 for their number system. Robert Rollinger, 269301. The Sumerian King List is an ancient listing of the earliest rulers of Sumer and surrounding regions. A detailed analysis of the structure of the King List4 indicates that the author of the first part took his material from lists that gave the names of local rulers in chronological order and the length of time that each had reigned. Thus it appears that the extant texts ultimately descend from a common original, i.e., that they are copies, or copies of copies, of a single original document.4 In a now classical example of textual criticism, Jacobsen4 developed the genealogy of all the different variants and reconstructed the most likely original text of the King List in 1939. The Chronovisor: A device used by the Vatican to look 250,000-year-old artifact: The ultimate evidence of 'Ancient Astronaut' technology? 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 numbers larger than nine, a collective symbol that represented 10 units was used. "Zur Liste der lteren Knige von Babylonien." I drop (the topic) Bad-tibira(k); 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. It was found in the temple library of Nippur, an ancient city of Mesopotamia, now in southeastern Iraq at the turn of the century. 21192004 B.C.). Some scholars argue that the years of reign described in the Sumerian King list were not actual years, but are a reflection of the importance of the king. (In) Eridu(g) A-lulim(ak) (became) king Most noteworthy is that after the Ur III period the primeval flood catastrophe emerged as a watershed on the chronological timeline, dividing world history into the antediluvian era and the postdiluvian era. (In) Shuruppak Ubar-Tutu(k) divine Dumu-zi(d), a shepherd, reigned 36,000 years. The Sumerian King List truly is a perplexing mystery. In addition, some of the phrases and information in the antediluvian section have been found in a Sumerian epic dealing with the beginning of the world.4 There is a close correspondence between the common phrases of these two documents, and the identical order of the primeval cities, which tends to indicate that they are literarily interdependent. Fragments of the Sumerian Kind list were discovered in 1900s by German-American researcher Hermann Hilprecht at Nippur. Or, as the scholars mention, the List of the Sumerian Kings is only a mixture of historical records and mythology? Ten was essentially an intermediate cipher to avoid the need for extensive repetition of the sign for 1. reigned its 28,800 years. The symbols for one, ten, and sixty would not have been needed. ZA 50: 2960. Internet Explorer is no longer supported. It is a short and concise list of the type that probably the original author of WB used for his source (Document A). The Emergence and Development of Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions Related to the Primeval Flood Catastrophe from the Old Babylonian Period. 2). The prism contains four sides with two columns on each side. 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. In Genesis, however, God purposes to purge mankind because the thoughts and designs of men were continually evil, and the Earth was full of violence. At that time, the calendar used at Ebla was Semitic and the counting appears to be in Semitic units which were decimal.11,12,13,14 The same is observed in Mari and Abu-Salabikh. Please refresh the page and try again. "A New Fragment from A List of Antediluvian Kings and Marduks Chariot." This version is based on an inscription on a block of stone found at the site of an ancient city in Sumer named Isin. Some tablets have compartments marked off with incised lines, each one containing a different number. its kingship to Shuruppak was carried. was discovered immediately below this Shuruppak flood stratum. InEridug,Alulimbecame king; he ruled for 28800 years. 2004. For a full explanation of this king list and how it parallels the biblical account of extremely long antediluvian ages, see our article " Biblical . 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. 290 B.C.). "Miscellaneous Communications." Number symbols used during the Proto-Sumerian and Early Dynastic Periods (33002334 BC). God in His infinite wisdom has certainly preserved documentation that, yet again, proves the Biblical record. And the total length of their domination was 241,200 years! This period is marked by the hegemony of the Sumerians under the leadership of Ur-Nammu, founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur, who conquered other Sumerian and Akkadian city-states. And finally, the clear parallels between the Sumerian and biblical antediluvian data, qualitative as well as numerical, open up the possibility of establishing some chronological correlations between the rest of the Kings List and the early chapters of the book of Genesis. Since that date, more than 15 different fragments and at least one fairly complete list have been found and published. 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. _. Out of all the ancient discoveries from the Mesopotamia region, the "Sumerian King List" is truly the most enigmatic one. In this phase, the first use of symbols with determinative value has been found. Variations due to different local traditions may account for some of these divergences. 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.). After the first heavenly king's tenure ended, the scepter fell into the hands of Alalngar, who ruled for 36,000 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. In 1960, the Apkullu-list (Tablet No. 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. Paris. Many tablets have been found with the information divided into three different sections. "Bilingual Chronicle Fragments." CRRA 19. "The Seed of Kingship." Since Hilprechts discovery, at least 18 other exemplars of the kings list have been found, most of them dating from the second half of the Isin dynasty (c. 2017-1794 BCE.). 1 king In Bad-tibira, En-men-lu-ana ruled for . 290 B.C.). Later, during Babylonian time, a quasi-positional system was devised. Happen to see our new campaign on Fox News? The language represented was probably Sumerian but that is not certain. It was considered that at no time was there more than one king. Apparently, the different cities each had their own separate list of local rulers, irrespective of any overlord the city may have had at the time. 3 kings; they ruled for 108000 years. He stated that the new part was copied and adapted from information that. That the two documents are numerically related is strong evidence for the historicity of the book of Genesis. An intermediate cipher for 10 was developed to ease the need for repetition and it was used by itself and to multiply the different powers of 60. In Section 3, a study is made of the Sumero/Babylonian numerical systems to ascertain the development of the different methods used to represent numbers and the peculiarities and limitations of the different systems that could have possibly been used to represent the original antediluvian Kings List. The origins of Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia are still debated today, but archaeological evidence indicates that they established roughly a dozen city-states by the fourth millennium BC. 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. Michalowski, Piotr. This ancient text describes in great detail a time when Earth was ruled by beings referred to as Gods for thousands of years. The tokens were enclosed in a ball of clay covered on the outside with impressions of usually only one seal. II: Texts and Transliations. Mustatils in Saudi Arabia: Gates for Animal Sacrifice to Unknown Gods? The 8-inch-high Weld-Blundell prism (below)probably discovered during the 1921 excavation of Larsa, in southern Mesopotamiais the most complete extant copy of the list. Meshkiangasher. "Listes Susiennes des dynasties de Sumer-Accad." List of the Ages of the Antediluvian biblical Patriarchs. "A New Nippur Duplicate of the Sumerian Kinglist in the Brockmon Collection, University of Haifa." I would like to express my gratitude to my wife Evangelina V. Lpez for her patience and understanding during the research and preparation of this work. In Von Sumer bis Homer: Festschrift fr Manfred Schretter zum 60. This list was inscribed during the reign of Damiqilishu of Isin (1816-1794 BC). COPYRIGHT UNSOLVED MYSTERIES & PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES, 2017-2018. 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. It has, nevertheless, been criticized by non-Christians as well as liberal theologians as being mythological, or at best symbolic and incomplete. Atlanta, Ga.: SBL. It does so by repetitively . 2). The best-preserved copy is a clay prism purchased in Iraq shortly after World War I that currently resides in the . 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. The first part of the Sumerian King List reads: After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was inEridug. First published in: CEN Tech. The most controversial ancient Sumerian text reveals the list of eight ancient kings that are also known as gods, who descended from the sky and ruled for over two hundred thousand years. The fact that numerical elements of the biblical antediluvian account appear so distinctly in the context of a secular Sumerian historical document such as the Kings List, is strong evidence for the historicity of the early chapters of the book of Genesis. Thus, an elongated wedge represented the number one and a vertically impressed triangular shape represented the number ten. The giant rock monument hidden under the Sea of Galilee could be 12,000 years old! 444. An example of the use of intermediate ciphers is found in the Roman number system, where ciphers for 5 times the powers of 10 were developed even though the system was fundamentally decimal (V, L, and D for 5, 50, and 500). In conclusion, there were two different but related systems for representing numbers in the Sumero-Babylonian culture. The wedges of the cuneiform symbols now appear only at the top or the left of the sign. These appear to represent different counting units and the objects being counted.10 The token method of counting was combined with the use of cylinder seals. Similarly, the large circle with the small circle inside (10x602) was substituted by a diamond made with four long wedges with a triangular impression inside. It lists rulers from the antediluvian dynasties to Suen-magir, the fourteenth ruler of the Isin dynasty (ca. Schmandt-Besserat, D., The earliest precursor of writing. According to literary sources, he led various campaigns against the land of Aratta . During this interval, writing became much easier and simpler to use, mostly through a change in writing techniques. The number symbols, however, could be written in two ways: either as cuneiform signs, inscribed with a stylus of triangular section, or as circular signs made with the blunt end of a circular stylus.5 That means that two different types of stylus were used simultaneously. Number symbols used during the Sumerian Period (21122004 BC). It lists a long succession of cities in Sumer and its neighbouring regions where kingship was invested, the rulers who reigned in those cities and the length of their reigns. Then the flood swept them over. The symbol for 10 was made by pressing the stylus vertically into the clay and had the appearance of a circle. reigned 18,600 years. At its peak around 2800 BC, it was most likely the largest city in the world. To obtain the total of the eight reign durations, the scribe would have used the tallying method. The H. Weld-Blundell Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, vol. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28,800 years. ), continued through the Ur III period, and culminated in the Old Babylonian period. . P. Michalowski et al., 12329. 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. It begins: When kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu [the oldest of the Sumerian cities]. Then come the names and regnal years of each of the kings who ruled from that city. It is an update of earlier Sumerian king lists to add Isins kings to Sumers royal roster. According to the text, before the Great Flood, a group of 8 intelligent beings ruled over Mesopotamia for a period of 241,200 years. Langdon, S. 1923a. In fact, the language of the change of dynasty gives the impression that it was trying to avoid saying so. The list begins with the antediluvian rulers and ends with the Dynasty of Isin (1827-1817 BC). If Adam the first man and Noah the Flood hero are not included to match the contents of the Kings List, their total ages would be 6695. The prism contains four sides with two columns on each side. Nissen7 speculates that the changes in the technique of writing may have had their basis in the increased demand for scribes in an expanding economy. 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. 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. by German-American scholar Hermann Hilprecht at the site of ancient Nippur and published in 1906. These sources were discovered at different quarters of ancient Mesopotamia and its periphery, including Nippur, Isin, Kish, Larsa, and Susa. He only used two high order ciphers to represent the durations (in units of 3,600 years) but used a third smaller cipher in the last two reigns to conform to the structure of the total he had adopted. JCS 32: 6580. and Old Babylonian period (ca. According to Jacobsen, This view, that the antediluvian dynasties were more or less contemporaneous, is clearly incompatible with the King List proper, which directly aims at following the route of the the kingship from one city to another.4. A special sign for zero was not necessary. 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. 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. Raul E. Lopez has an M.S. The first considerable fragment of the Sumerian King List was published in 1906. Piotr Michalowski, 7791. Additional rulers, introductory and summary formulae for each dynasty and anecdotal information for certain individual rulers were inserted. 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 . The list is characterized by extremely long durations for the different reigns, especially the earlier ones. It would have seemed very reasonable to assume that the signs were wrong and that the large bullet had been dropped. The formulas for the change of dynasty and the mention of their totals are very consistent in the postdiluvian part and are very different from those used in the antediluvian one. Number symbols used during the Babylonian Period (2004 BC75 AD). Sumerian King List: list of rulers of ancient Sumer, used as a framework for the study of Mesopotamian chronology. "Genealogical and Geographical Thought in the Sumerian King List." Most versions of the king list follow a similar narrative pattern in recording kings of the Sumerian city-states, some of which existed simultaneously. Because it suggests that the ancient rulers hadimplausible lengthy reigns: Alulimbecame king; he ruled for 28800 years. "The Rulers of Laga." The Sumerian King List and the Rule by god Indra on Rotation . Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research. Only two signs, the wedge and the triangle, were used to represent the different powers of 60 and 10 times the different powers of 60 depending on the position of the symbol in the number string. If Adam and Noah are dropped from the biblical list, the number of people in the two lists is then the sameeight. That reconstruction has been accepted and used by most scholars. The following is the translation by Jacobsen4 of his critical edition of the Sumerian text of the antediluvian section of the King List together with a few selected lines of the postdiluvian section for comparison (see the text following for explanation of the italics, bold and underlining): 1 When the kingship was lowered from heaven W.20030, 7) or "Uruk List of Kings and Sages" (ULKS) was discovered by German archaeologists at an ancient temple at Uruk. It is curious that the 10x60 signs of the last two durations add up exactly to one of the 602 signs, the basic unit of all the other numbers and the overall total, and that the 10x60 unit was not used until the last two reign durations of the list. the kingship was in Kish. 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. 17631753 B.C.). Figure 4. The clay tablets on which the SKL was recorded were generally found on sites in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian King List, on the other hand, contains an initial section that makes reference to the Flood and to Sumerian kings of extremely long reigns before the Flood.1 The antediluvian portion of the King List is very different from the biblical account. 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. its kingship to Bad-tibira(k) The first considerable fragment of the Sumerian King List was published in 1906. 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