Near East Kingdoms

Adamdun (City State) (Western Iran)

Ancient Mesopotamia (Intro) Canaanite States & Groups Islamic Empire Israelites & Israel Mesopotamian States & Groups Rome Syrian States & Groups

The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture.

Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement during the Pottery Neolithic and, by the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer was divided into approximately a dozen city states, by which time other regions were emerging as population centres in their own right. Elam was located to the east of Sumer, with its own selection of city states at its core (and see feature link).

This region was located on an alluvial plan below the Zagros mountains, and its remoteness meant that it took some time for it to assimilate Sumer's groundbreaking social, agricultural, and administrative inventions. Access to Sumer was in the Zagros foothills, circling the marshes, but this meant difficulties in communication, and a feeling in Sumer of there being comparative barbarians on their eastern flank.

Culturally, Elamite kingdoms achieved less than their more advanced neighbours, and imported much of what they needed, including writing from Sumer and architecture from the later city and empire of Babylon. Elamite records are also extremely sparse in recording local events, and large areas of its history are almost totally unknown except through Sumerian records.

Adamdun is located on the Khuzestan plain a short way to the east of the River Dez and today known as the city of Shushtar. The location is about sixty kilometres or so south-east as the crow flies from the city of Susa, with other cities such as Awan and Chogha Mish also clustered in this area.

Little specific is known about it during the 'Old Elamite' period. Its mentions are brief, although one or two events do serve to highlight twenty-first century BC events, all of which are connected to the 'Third Dynasty' of Ur and the projection of its imperial power into Elam.

Sometimes Elamite cities had rival kingships, mostly poorly-recorded, and sometimes they seemed to combine into one kingdom or perhaps acted as a loosely-joined coalition. Sometimes they even attacked and/or invaded one another's territories, and sometimes the lands of Elam were united under the control of a single king.

Principal author(s): Page created: Page last updated:

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, Samuel Noah Kramer ('List 1' of Sumerian rulers, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC, Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from The Archaeology of Elam, D T Potts (Cambridge University Press, 1999), from The Elamite World, Javier Álvarez-Mon, Gian Pietro Basello, & Yasmina Wick (Eds, Routledge, 2018), and from External Links: Some Thoughts in Neo-Elamite Chronology, Jan Tavernier (PDF), and the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, and Early Kings of Kish, Albrecht Goetze (Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol 15, No 3, 1961, pp 105-111 and available to read via University of Chicago Press Journals), and Archaeology.org, and Adamdun (Pleiades), and A History Of Sumer and Akkad, Leonard W King (Frederick A Stokes Company, 1910, and available as a PDF via Academia.edu).)

c.3100 - 2700 BC

The Uruk IV influence suddenly fades around 3100 BC (or 3200 BC in some modern sources) for reasons unknown. Older traditions re-emerge in places which had previously taken on board Uruk influences.

The Uruk-inspired centre at Susa in Elam seems to be taken over by immigrants from the Zagros mountains (or at least it witnesses an indigenous return to pre-Uruk political and cultural controls). This coincides with Mesopotamian centres diminishing in size or - like Shakhi Kora - being abandoned altogether, while others are created such as Adamdun.

Pottery found at the archaeological site of Shakhi Kora in north-eastern Iraq reveals the adoption of the Uruk IV cultural period and then the apparent abandonment of centralised authority in favour of individual farming

A new political entity emerges which discards Uruk IV cuneiform and language to replace it with 'Proto-Elamite', a precursor to the usage of all later Elamite city states.

This ends the 'Susa II' period for the city and begins 'Susa III'. It also destroys the 'Susiana polity' and, for quite some time, the spirit of regional unity which previously seemed to predominate in the surrounding villages and towns, such as Abu Fanduweh, Chogha Mish, and Tepe Sharafabad.

c.2050 BC

Shulgi of Ur extends his father's empire to include all of the Assyrian city states and their at-present non-Assyrian neighbours such as the Lullubi. He also re-conquers Susa from Elam and its Simashki rulers, and may be responsible for finishing off rebuilding work at Nippur.

For the next half century he and his successors continuously control, dominate, or destroy various cities and states of the Zagros mountains and the nearer Iranian plateau, placing their own Sumerian governors in charge where necessary.

The small Elamite city of Adamdun (located somewhere close to Awan) became Shushtar to the later Sassanid rulers of Persia, and Shushtar or Shooshtar to today's Iran

Adamdun is known to have two patensis (patensi, singular), or priest-kings (from the Sumerian ensi, originally a priest-king position of its own but now used for governor-level administration).

fl c.2040s? BC

Patensi (ensi) of Adamdun for Shulgi of Ur.

c.2046 BC

Surviving records show that tax payments are made by Adamdun and Sabum to Shulgi in Year 48 of his reign. An ensi clearly remains in place at Sabum for this period of time, although Adamdun's ensi changes in this period.

fl c.2040s? BC

Patensi (ensi) of Adamdun for Shulgi of Ur.

c.2042 BC

Zariqum, former ensi in Susa before being transferred for an uncertain period of time to Assur as its nu-banda (captain) and then ensi, is now returned to Susa to act again as its ensi. He is inducted with great ceremony in the presence of ten important witnesses who include amongst their number Nagidda of Adamdun.

c.2030 BC

The seventh year of the reign of Shu-Sin of Ur is named as the year 'Shu-sin, the king of Ur, king of the four quarters, destroyed the land of Zabshali'.

The ruins of the once-vast city of Ur were excavated in 1922 by Sir Leonard Woolley, which is when the 'Royal Tombs' were discovered (External Link: Creative Commons Licence 4.0 International)

He also dedicates a statue of himself for the god Enlil, with it being made from gold which has been taken as booty from the lands of the Su people, and the lands of Zabshali, Shigrish, Iabulmat, Alumiddatum, Karta, Shatilu, Bulma, and Nushushmar (and possibly other equally vague and little-known Elamite territories, but the dedication is cut short). The suggestion here is that he no longer controls or dominates much of Elam.

? - 2014 BC

Ruler of Adamdun. Captured by Ibbi-Sin of Ur.

c.2019 - 2014 BC

The ninth year of the reign of Ibbi-Sin of Ur is named as the year 'Ibbi-Sin, the king of Ur, went with massive power to Huhnur, [and struck a] bolt [in]to the land of Anshan...'.

Ibbi-Sin in his fourteenth year (circa 2014 BC) has a year name for overwhelming 'Susa, Adamdun, and Awan like a storm, [so that he] subdued them in a single day and captured the lords of their people'. All three cities are clustered on the Khuzestan plain on the eastern flank of the Tigris.

Elamite cities on the plain to the east of Sumer benefited from direct contact, but cities with more easterly locations also swiftly caught up, connected into a network of trading routes which stretched east to the Indus and north to Hissar and the BMAC (click or tap on map to view at an intermediate size)

c.2004 BC

Long oppressed by the 'Third Dynasty' city of Ur, the Simashki ruler, Kindattu, together with the people of Susa, sacks the city and leads its king into captivity, ending the third dynasty and Sumerian civilisation.

With this threat removed, the land of Elam becomes a powerful kingdom under its Simashki rulers, although it is pushed out of southern Mesopotamia six years later by the Amorite city state of Isin whilst apparently holding onto Kish.

Adamdun disappears from the historical record, which is always patchy anyway for Elamite cities. Habitation continues however, and the city is known as Šurkutir (Shurkutir) by the Achaemenid empire following their settlement in the region as the Parsua. Today it is the city of Shushtar in the county of the same name, part of Iran's Khuzestan province.

The final resting place for Cyrus the Great, creator of the Achaemenid empire, was in this stone tomb at his imperial capital of Pasargardae (modern Fārs Province)