Kingship: Did you mean...?

The Sumerian King List (abbreviated as SKL and also known as Chronicle of the One Monarchy) is an ancient Sumerian document whose earliest version is dated to Mesopotamia's Ur III period (circa 2112 to circa 2004 BCE) relating how kingship...

This lecture discusses kingship in pre-modern Japanese culture. By: Kanda University of International Studies.

Ancient Mesopotamian government was based on the understanding that human beings were created to help and serve the gods. The high priest, king, assembly of elders, governors, and any other officials were recognized as stewards chosen by...

Astarte is the Canaanite/Phoenician goddess of love, sex, war, and hunting who developed from the Mesopotamian deity Inanna/Ishtar. She is usually associated with the storm god Baal but seems to have been much more popular. She traveled to...

The question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" has been asked for millennia, probably since before writing was invented, but at least since circa 1700 BCE when the Sumerian (and later Babylonian) poem, Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi (also known...

A Praise Poem of Lipit-Estar is a Sumerian praise song honoring Lipit-Estar (also known as Lipit-Ishtar, r. c. 1870 to c. 1860 BCE), the fifth king of the First Dynasty of Isin, best known for his legal code written between the time of the...

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, "When on High". The myth tells the story of the great god Marduk's victory over the...

This lesson pack on government and religion in ancient Mesopotamia includes the following content: Three Lesson Plans - Rise of City States - Temples & Divine Kingship - Code of Hammurabi Additional Materials - Open Questions /...

Once upon a time, in the land known as Sumer, the people built a temple to their god, who had conquered the forces of chaos and brought order to the world. They built this temple at a place called Eridu, which, as scholar Gwendolyn Leick...

The Cyrus Cylinder is a document issued by Cyrus the Great, consisting of a cylinder of clay inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform script. The cylinder was created in 539 BCE, surely by order of Cyrus the Great, when he took Babylon from Nabonidus...