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Near East Kingdoms

Ancient Eastern Near East

 

Simashki / Simaški (State) (Western Iran)

FeatureThe 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.

FeatureSouthern 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 states 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.

For a good deal of its early independent history - and certainly prior to the launch of the Achaemenid empire - Elam was much more a land of city states along the same lines as Sumer, and far less a unified state which implacably opposed Sumer. Simashki (more correctly shown as Simaški, but also shown as Shimashki) has obscure beginnings.

Although records are characteristically sparse, it seems that the invading Gutians caused the downfall of the Awanite ruling state in Elam. Its replacement, Simashki, faced a period of alternating diplomacy and attack from the Gutians and Sumerians. During Ur's 'Third Dynasty' during the twenty-first century BC, three of the five 'Ur III' rulers sent daughters to marry princes on the Iranian plateau.

In the end this policy failed. Eastern states of the Zagros mountains and Iranian plateau such as Simashki remained perpetually hostile. Simashki itself played an important role in the overthrow of the 'Ur III' state, but it was aided heavily by the people of Susa, and quite probably by other 'Old Elamite Period' elements of the Simashki state.

The Awan king list (abbreviated below to 'AKL') was written on a cuneiform tablet which was found by archaeologists in Susa and is now in the Louvre in Paris. This mentions several kings who ruled areas of Elam in the last third of the third millennium BC. It covers the rulers of Awan and the rulers of Simashki. It was written in the second quarter of the second millennium BC, in Babylonian cuneiform, although some names may not be in the same order on all versions of the list.

The historical value and reliability of the Simashki portion of the list has been debated in terms of its recording during the Old Babylonian period. The earliest modern assessment was provided by Stolper (1982) who considered it to be an historical source. Gelb & Kienast underscored its higher historical value when compared to the Awan king list. Glassner and De Graef denied the reliability of the list and instead relied on the so-called Genealogy of Shilhakinshushinak from the 'Middle Elamite' period.

However, more recent discoveries have proved that a considerable number of those rulers who are mentioned in the Simashki list are also attested in contemporary sources which agree with the list, and even in the relative sequence of rulers. The Simashki sequence of rulers has been interpreted as being the direct successor of the Awan dynasty which had already created a larger state in Elam.

The Simashki language was only partially related to Elamite which itself was markedly different from Sumerian, but regional variations of it may have been in use as far east as the modern Iranian border, just to the west of Baluchistan. Despite its differences with Elamite and also the language of Marhashi, it was likely part of a broader pre-Indo-European group called Elamo-Dravidian which reached into India.

Elamites of Din Sharri being deported by Ashurbanipal

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City, Gwendolyn Leick (Penguin Books, 2001), 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 First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, Peter Bellwood (Second Ed, Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), 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 Mesopotamia, S Lloyd (Revised Ed, London, 1984), from Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History, J N Postgate (Routledge, 1994), from The First Empires, J N Postgate (Oxford 1977), from History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), from Ancient History: A Theory About Ancient Times, L C Gerts (List 4 of Sumerian rulers, Chapter 12: The Sumerian king list, 2002), from Mesopotamia, Chris Scarre (Ed, Past Worlds - The Times Atlas of Archaeology, Guild Publishing, London 1989), from The Age of the God-Kings, Kit van Tulleken (Ed, Time Life Books, Amsterdam 1987), from The Archaeology of Elam, D T Potts (Cambridge University Press, 1999), from History & Philology, Walther Sallaberger & Ingo Schrakamp (Eds, Arcane III, Brepols, 2015), 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 Ancient Worlds, and Ancient History, Anthony Michael Love (via Sarissa.org), and Images from History (University of Alabama), 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.)

fl c.2200 BC

?

First Simashki ruler mentioned (although not named).

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.

fl c.2050? BC

?

Unnamed Simashki ruler defeated by Shulgi of Ur.

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.

fl c.2030? BC

Gir-Namme / Kirname

First Simashki name on the AKL.

Tazitta (I)

Second name on the AKL.

c.2026 - 2025 BC

Eshnunna breaks away from Ur's control in the second year of Ibbi-Sin's reign, while it seems that Larsa follows suit in the following year, becoming at least semi-independent and forming its own line of kings.

As with much of southern Mesopotamia, Ur is rapidly fading in power and influence as harvests fail and the population declines. Grain prices in Ur soon seem to increase fifteen times over, but the city's massive bureaucracy hinders it from making rapid decisions to ameliorate the situation.

Eparti / Ebarat

Third name on the AKL.

?

Tazitta (II)

Fourth name on the AKL.

c.2017 BC

The over-production of cereal around Ur has led to an increased strain being placed on the soil and a fall in productivity. The tax system has placed an increasing burden on an increasingly larger share of the population. An official under the ruler, Ibbi-Sin, is implored by the king to acquire grain in the north at whatever price is necessary.

On top of all of this, new waves of immigration into the region by Amorites add an extra layer of confusion and conflict. Ibbi-Sin's official, Ishbi-Erra, now takes the opportunity to move to the subject city of Isin and create his own city state there.

fl c.2010? BC

Enpi-Luhhan / Lu?-x-luuhhan

Fifth name on the AKL.

fl c.2007? BC

Khutran-Temtt

fl c.2004 BC

Kindattu

Sixth on the AKL. Seized Elam, then Susa. Defeated Ur.

c.2004 BC

Long oppressed by the 'Third Dynasty' city of Ur, 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 state, although it is pushed out of southern Mesopotamia six years later by the Amorite city state of Isin. However, it does appear to hold on to Kish.

fl c.1990s? BC

Indattu-Inshushinnak (I) / Indaddu

Seventh on the AKL. Simashki ruler of a united Elam?

Tan-Rukhurater

Eighth on the AKL. Simashki ruler of a united Elam?

Indattu-Inshushinnak (II) / Ebarti?

Ninth on the AKL. Simashki ruler of a united Elam?

Indattu-Napir / Indaddu

Tenth on the AKL. Simashki ruler of a united Elam?

fl c.1970? BC

Indattu-Tempt / Indaddu-Tempti

Eleventh on the AKL. Replaced by the Eparti kings?

c.1970? BC

Under the stronger Eparti kings the Elamites swiftly rise to become a regional power, one which is contemporaneous with the Old Babylonian empire. They often threaten conquest both against it and the other Amorite city states of Mesopotamia, such as Isin.

Elam is more closely involved in Mesopotamian affairs than at any other time in its history. It incorporates the lowlands which surrounded Susa and also the Zagros highlands around Anshan, a bipolar domain which is reflected in the ruler's joint title of 'king of Anshan and Susa'. As for the Simashki and their rulers, they disappear entirely from history.

 
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