Sumerian King List

The Sumerian King List ( also abbreviated SKL ) is on the Weld - Blundell prism, a Sumerian cuneiform clay tablet with Sumerian and Akkadian rulers from the time of the end of the fourth to the beginning of the second millennium BC by the name, Herrschaftsort and duration of each reign written down. The writing of the Sumerian king list ( BC beginning of the second millennium ) dated no earlier than the reign of Utuḫengal ( end of the third millennium BC), at the latest in the Isin era.

The rulers described

The King List is one of the most important testimonies to the Sumerian history and chronology. The problem, however, is that all dynasties represented were shown in a chronological sequence, although the dynasties - the usually on only city-states or loose upper Highnesses limited - governed partly simultaneously. Also problematic is the lack of some important dynasties like the 2nd Dynasty of Lagash such an important rulers like Gudea.

The king lists were continued during the rule of the Babylonians and Assyrians and date back to the time of the Arsacids in the 2nd century BC

The clay tablet

Narrated the Sumerian king list is in the form of so-called Weld - Blundell prism. It is a Tonquader whose four sides described in cuneiform are each 20 cm high and 9 cm wide. The box is centered vertically - pierced, so that he could be rotated with a corresponding suspension. The Weld - Blundell prism was created around 1800 BC in the Babylonian city of Larsa on the Euphrates.

Today, the Weld - Blundell prism is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK.