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Sealand Dynasty

2.1 Ilum-ma-il

The Sealand Dynasty, (E-KU) or the 2nd Dynasty of


Babylon (although it was independent of Amorite ruled
Babylon), very speculatively ca. 17321460 BC (short
chronology), is an enigmatic series of kings attested to
primarily in laconic references in the king lists A and
B, and as contemporaries recorded on the Assyrian Synchronistic king list A.117. The dynasty, which had broken free of the short lived, and by this time crumbling
Babylonian Empire, was named for the province in the far
south of Mesopotamia, a swampy region bereft of large
settlements which gradually expanded southwards with
the silting up of the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers. The kings bore fanciful pseudo-Sumerian names
and harked back to the glory days of the dynasty of Isin.
The third king of the dynasty was even named for the ultimate king of the dynasty of Isin, Damiq-iliu. Despite
these cultural motifs, the population predominantly bore
Akkadian names and wrote and spoke in the Akkadian
language. There is circumstantial evidence that their rule
extended at least briey to Babylon itself.

Ilum-ma-il,[i 6] or Iliman (m ili-ma-an),[i 2] the founder


of the dynasty, is known from the account of his exploits in the Chronicle of Early Kings[i 3] which describes
his conicts with his Amorite Babylonian contemporaries
Samsu-iluna and Abi-eu. It records that he attacked
and brought about the defeat of (Samsu-ilunas) army.
He is thought to have conquered Nippur late in Samsuilunas reign [3] as there are legal documents from Nippur dated to his reign.[i 7] Abi-eshuh, the Amorite king of
Babylon, and Samsu-ilunas son and successor, set out
to conquer Ilum-ma-il, by damming the Tigris, to ush
him out of his swampy refuge, an endeavor which was apparently confounded by Ilum-ma-ils superior use of the
terrain.

2.2 Damqi-iliu

The last surviving year-name for Ammi-ditana commemorates the year in which (he) destroyed the city wall of
Der / Udinim built by the army of Damqi-iliu.[i 8] This is
1 The King list tradition
the only current contemporary indication of the spelling
of his name, contrasting with that of the earlier king of
[4]
The king list references which bear witness to the se- Isin.
quence of Sealand kings are summarized below:
An additional king list[i 5] provides fragmentary readings
of the earlier dynastic monarchs.[1] The king list A totals the reigns to give a length of 368 years for this dynasty. The Synchronistic King List A.117 gives the sequence from Damqi-iliu onward, but includes an additional king between Gulkiar and Pegaldarame, m DIU-EN (reading unknown). This source is considered reliable in this respect because the forms of the names of Pegaldarame and Ayadaragalama match those on recently
published contemporary economic tablets (see below).[2]

2.3 Gulkiar

Gulkiar, meaning raider of the earth, has left few


traces of his apparently lengthy reign. The colophon
of a tablet giving a chemical recipe for glaze[i 9] reads
property of a priest of Marduk in Eridu, thought to
be a quarter of Babylon rather than the city of Eridu,
is dated mu.us-sa Gul-ki-ar lugal-e year after (the one
when) Gul-kisar (became?) king. A kudurru[i 10] of the
period of Babylonian king Enlil-ndin-apli, ca. 1103
1100 BC, records the outcome of an inquiry instigated
by the king into the ownership of a plot of land claimed
by a temple estate. The governors of Bit-Sin-magir
2 Evidence of individual reigns
and Sealand, upheld the claim based on the earlier actions of Gulkiar who had drawn for Nanse, his divine
The sources for this dynasty are sparse in the extreme, mistress, a land boundary. It is an early example of a
with insucient evidence to enable their placement in Distanzangaben statement recording that 696 years had
absolute chronology or to support the somewhat dubious elapsed between Nab-kudurr-uur, Enlil-ndin-aplis
father, and Gulkiar.[5]
length of reigns alleged on the king list A.
1

2.4

Pegaldarame and Ayadaragalama

Pegaldarame, son of the ibex, and Ayadaragalama,


son of the clever stag, were successive kings and descendants (DUMU, sons in its broadest meaning) of
Gulkiar.
Recently published tablets mainly from the Martin
Schyen collection, the largest privately held collection
of manuscripts to be assembled during the 20th century,
cover a 15 to 18 year period extending over part of each
kings reign. They seem to originate from a single cache
but their provenance was lost after languishing in smaller
private collections since their acquisition on the antiquities market a century earlier. The tablets include letters, receipts, ledgers, personnel rosters, etc., and provide year-names and references which hint at events of
the period. Messengers from Elam are provisioned,[i 11]
Anzak, a god of Dilmun (ancient Bahrain) appears as
a theophoric element in names,[i 12] and Nr-Bau asks
whether he should detain the boats of Enunna,[i 13] a
rare late reference to this once thriving Sumerian conurbation. In addition to normal commercial activity, two
omen texts[i 14] from another private collection are dated
to the reign of Pegaldarame and a kurugu-hymn mentions Ayadaragalama.[i 15] A variant version of the Epic
of Gilgame relocates the hero to Ur and is a piece from
this period.[2]

REFERENCES

[2] Babylonian King List B, BM 38122, reverse 1 to 13.


[3] Chronicle of Early Kings, tablets BM 26472 and BM
96152, B rev. (Ilum-ma-il) 7-10 (Ea-gmil) 1214.
[4] Synchronistic King List A.117, Assur 14616c, i 1 to 10.
[5] Formed from BM 35572 and eleven other fragments.
[6] Tablet Ashm. 1922.353 from Larsa.
[7] Five legal tablets such as CBS 4956, published in Chiera
(1914), CBS 11013, published as BE VI 2 text 68, 3N-T
87, UM 55-21-239 catalogued as SAOC 44 text 12, and
OIMA 1 45, from Nippur.
[8] Tablets MCS 2 52, YOS 13 359.
[9] Tablet BM 120960 thought to have been recovered from
Tall 'Umar (Seleucia) on the Tigris.
[10] Kudurru in the University Museum, Philadelphia, BE I/1
83 15.
[11] MS 2200/40 and MS 2200/455.
[12] MS 2200/394, 444, 321 and so on.
[13] MS 2200/3.
[14] R. Kovacs 5304 and 5309.
[15] R. Kovacs 5306.

Ayadaragalamas reign seems to have been eventful, as a [16] MS 2200/81.


year-name records expelling the massed might of two
enemies, speculated to be Elamites and Kassites, the
Kassites having previously deposed the Amorites as rulers 4 Notes
in Babylon. Another records the building of a great ring
against the Kalu (Kassite) enemy and a third records the [1] Given as PE.GAL-DRA.MA.
year when his land rebelled. A year-name gives year
when Ayadaragalama was king after Enlil established [2] Given as A-DRA-GALAM.MA.
(for him?) the shepherding of the whole earth, and a
list of gods includes Marduk and arpanitum, the tute5 References
lary deities of The Sealand.[i 16][2]
A neo-Babylonian ocial took a bronze band dedicatory
inscription of A-ia-da-a-ra, MAN king of the world,
to Tell en-Nasbeh, probably as an antique curio, where it
was discarded to be found in the 20th century.

2.5

Ea-gmil

Ea-gmil, the ultimate king of the dynasty, ed to Elam


ahead of an invading horde lead by Kassite chief UlamBuria, brother of the king of Babylon Kashtiliash, who
conquered the Sealand, incorporated it into Babylonia
and made himself master of the land.

Inscriptions

[1] Babylonian King List A, BM 33332, i 4 to 14 where the


names are abbreviated but give their lengths of reign.

[1] J. A. Brinkman (1999).


Dietz Otto Edzard, ed.
Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen
Archologie: Meek Mythologie 8. Walter De Gruyter.
p. 7.
[2] Stephanie Dalley (2009). Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology. Volume 9 Babylonian Tablets
from the First Sealand Dynasty in the Schoyen Collection.
CDL Press. pp. 116.
[3] Albert Kirk Grayson (1975). Assyrian and Babylonian
chronicles. J. J. Augustin. p. 221.
[4] William W. Hallo (2009). The worlds oldest literature:
studies in Sumerian belles-lettres. BRILL. p. 183.
[5] J. A. Brinkman (1968). A political history of post-Kassite
Babylonia, 1158722 B.C. Analecta Orientalia. p. 118.

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

Text

Sealand Dynasty Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand_Dynasty?oldid=642633171 Contributors: ENeville, Chris the speller,


Egsan Bacon, Yobot, Xqbot, Ashrf1979, AvicBot, ID0283658235, BigEars42, Jodosma and Anonymous: 3

6.2

Images

6.3

Content license

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