Near East Kingdoms

Sabum (City State) (Western Iran)

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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.

Sabum (otherwise Sapum or Zabum in some translations) has yet to be locked down in terms of its location in ancient Elam. It is not entirely clear whether it was a city or a state (or a city which claimed territory as a state extension of that city, a development of the later third millennium BC and early second).

One source identifies it as being on the 'breast' of a mountain range, possibly the Kabir-Kuh range on the western side of the Zagros mountains. Such a location would place it to the near north of Tepe Musiyan, and between Simashki and the Gutians - wild country by Sumerian terms. Sabum is listed as one of the regions of Simashki.

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(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.)

c.2210 BC

Marhashi overruns Elam for a time, and unites eastern efforts in fighting against the Akkadian empire (Sabum is also counted as an opponent). A battle is fought between the two states near Akshak, at the confluence of the Diyala and Tigris rivers. The Akkadian name for the following year suggests that it is the Akkadians under Shar-kali-sharri who claim the victory.

Sargon 'the Great', the warrior king of apparently humble origins, unified Sumer for (perhaps) the first time in recorded history through a series of campaigns and the defeat of the current holder of Sumer's equivalent of a high kingship

One of the daughters of the ruler of Marhashi is married either to Shar-kali-sharri or his son, perhaps as a consequence of the battle, and as a sign of renewed ties of peace.

c.2193 BC

Elam is overthrown by the Gutians as they sweep through southern Mesopotamia from the Zagros highlands, also destroying the Akkadian empire as they go. The Gutians largely concentrate across upper southern Mesopotamia.

They govern the southernmost cities from a distance and seemingly exercise little direct control over Elamite lands. There, the Simashki kings eventually come to power across Elam in the wake of this period of instability.

The Zagros Mountain range provided the Gutians with their home, from their assumed arrival in the region around the period between 2450-2350 BC onwards, as it did the later Medes and Persians

c.2094 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 (and Urua) from Elam and its Simashki rulers, and may be responsible for finishing off rebuilding work at Nippur.

The vassal kings of Kisurra are removed entirely, while at various times Ur's governors are in place at Anshan, Eresh, Sabum, Susa, Urum, and Urusagrig, part of the dynasty's firmly-established administrative system.

In his twenty-sixth year, around 2068 BC, Shulgi attempts to forge an alliance between himself and Libanukshabash, king of Marhashi and the dominant opposition in Elam.

Perhaps this is to renew forty year-old ties of peace, but perhaps it is also to ward off a decline in relations (and Der has been destroyed by unknown circumstances just five years previously). He gives his daughter, Nialimmidashu, in marriage to the king.

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)

fl c.2064 BC

Ruler of Sabum. Name and fate unknown.

c.2054 - ? BC

Ensi (governor) for Shulgi of Ur (Year 40 on).

c.2054 - 2046 BC

Aburanum is appointed as Sabum's ensi (governor) in Year 40 of the reign of Shulgi of Ur, and to help him get to Sabum he and his colleague, Zariqum, are given leather shoes at Puzrish-Dagan for their journeys from Nippur to Sabum and Susa respectively.

Eight years later, 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.

The Kabir-Kuh mountain range in modern Iran, which may have been the location of the ancient state of Sabum, is part of the Zagros mountain range, extending Mehran to Khoram Abad (in Lurestan province)

c.2042 BC

Sabum is recorded as having paid its taxes in Year 4 of the reign of Amar-Sin (circa 2042 BC). This same king of Ur has to campaign locally against Huhnuri and also Arwilukpi, the present king of Marhashi (possibly one and the same campaign). The outcome in Year 7 (circa 2039 BC) is unknown but Marhashi becomes much less of a threat.

c.2030 BC

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

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.

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)