Lugal-Anne-Mundu (ca. 25th century BC) was the most important king of the city-state Adab in Sumer. The Sumerian king list claims he reigned for 90 years, following the defeat of Meskiaj-nanna of Ur. There are few authentic contemporary inscriptions for Lugal-Anne-Mundu's reign; he is known mainly from a much later text, purporting to be copied from one of his inscriptions.

His empire, perhaps the first in recorded history, collapsed upon his death. Following this, the king list indicates that the "kingship" (i.e. the Nippur-based hegemony) fell to a dynasty from Mari, beginning with Anbu; however, it has been suggested that more likely, only the last of these Mari kings, Sharrumiter, held the hegemony after Lugal-Anne-Mundu.^[1] With the break-up of the Adab kingdom, other prominent cities appear to have concurrently regained their independence, including Lagash (Lugalanda), Akshak (which not long afterward won the kingship from Mari, perhaps under Puzur-Nirah), and Umma (whose king Lugal-zage-si eventually went on to seize his own empire throughout the Fertile Crescent).

The "Lugal-Anne-Mundu Inscription" [edit]

According to the fragmentary inscription attributed to Lugal-Anne-Mundu, (but known only from two copies dated from the reigns of Abi-Eshuh and Ammi-Saduqa), he subjected the "Four Quarters" of the world — i.e., the entire Fertile Crescent region, from the Mediterranean to the Zagros Mountains. His empire is said to have included the provinces of Elam, Marhashi, Gutium, Subartu, the "Cedar Mountain land" (Lebanon), Amurru or Martu, "Sutium" (?),^[2] and the "Mountain of E-anna" (Uruk with its ziggurat?). According to the inscription, he "made the people of all the lands live in peace as in a meadow".

He also mentions having confronted a coalition of 13 rebel governors or chiefs, led by Migir-Enlil of Marhashi; all of their names are considered Semitic.^[3]

Arno Poebel published a preliminary translation of one of the fragments in 1909, although he was unable to make out the king's name, which he rendered as "Lugal[.....]ni-mungin".^[4] Hans Gustav Güterbock published a more complete translation in 1934, but quickly dismissed the account as pseudepigraphic and largely fictional. However, some more recent Sumerologists, following Samuel Kramer, have been more willing to give it credence as possibly a late copy of an actual inscription of Lugal-Anne-Mundu.^[5]

See also [edit]

Ancient Near East portal

• History of Sumer

Notes [edit]

1. ^ "Kingdoms of Mesopotamia: Mari" at HistoryFiles
2. ^ The precise identification of "Sutium" is unresolved, but it was apparently a Semitic-speaking region somewhere west of the desert, and probably near Amurru. It is rarely heard from again after this. Cf. Carleton, Buried Empires (1939) p. 235.
3. ^ The names of the 13 rebel chiefs in the inscription (as given by Guterbock) are: Migir-enlil, ensi­ of Marhashi; Enlil-ezzu, ensi of [...]; SHESH-kel (?), ensi of Kel; Su-Anum, ensi of Kagalla (?); [...]-Ellum, ensi of Amdama; Ibi-mama, ensi of Ardama; Nurshu-eli, ensi of [...]; Adad-sharrum, ensi of [...]; Badganum, ensi of [...]; Zumurtanu, ensi of [...]; Rimshunu, ensi of [...]; Abi-han[ish?], ensi of [...]; and [...]-bi-maradda(?), ensi of [...].
4. ^ A. Poebel, Babylonian legal and business documents: from the time of the first dynasty of Babylon, chiefly from Nippur, 1909, pp. 123-4; cuneiform diagram on p. 281.
5. ^ Samuel Kramer, The Sumerians, 51-52.

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