Kingdoms of the Eastern Near East

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 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 is correctly shown as Simaški, but it can also be shown as 'Shimashki'. It was frequently recorded by Sumer as LÙ.SU (a tablet from Emar supplied the translation to make it possible to link the two names).

This state has obscure beginnings. At its core was the city of Simash (or Kimash). That city is yet to be discovered. The Simashki kings arose in the district of the same name, which has been linked by Herzfeld to the region of today's Isfahan in central Iran, midway between Tehran in the north and Shiraz in the south. This general placing in the Zagros mountains seems largely to be accepted, but a capital city has not been pinpointed.

Although records are characteristically sparse, it seems that the invading Gutians caused the downfall of the Awanite ruling state in Elam. As its northern replacement, removed quite some way from the heart of Elam, Simashki faced a period of alternating diplomacy and attack from Gutians and Sumerians alike. 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 attempts to promote a peaceful co-existence.

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 in the timeline below to 'AKL') was written on a cuneiform tablet which was found by archaeologists in Susa and is now in the Louvre in Paris. It 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.

The list was created in its known form in the second quarter of the second millennium BC, at least two centuries after the end of the Simashki rulers. The text is written in Babylonian cuneiform and exists in several versions, although some names may not be in the same order on all of those versions.

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 went further by underscoring its higher historical value when compared to the Awan king list. Glassner and De Graef went the other way by denying 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 the Elamite language which itself was markedly different from Sumerian. However, regional variations of Elamite may have been in use as far east as the modern Iranian border with Pakistan, just to the west of Baluchistan. Despite its differences with Elamite and also with the language of Marhashi, it was likely part of a broader pre-Indo-European group called Elamo-Dravidian which would have covered the Indus Valley civilisation and reached into India.

The Simashki state is known to have comprised six core dependencies. Each was a fighting force in its own right (and perhaps with a city at its core), but all fought as part of Simashki when required, casting the Simashki state more in the light of a confederacy. Those six were Alumiddatum, Garta or Karda, Iapulmat (Nibulmat), Shatilu, Sigrish (Shigrish or Sigirish), and Zabshali. Of those, Zabshali frequently stands out as an especial troublemaker as far as Sumer was concerned.

Another eleven dependencies were also connected with Simashki, making its likely geographical reach quite substantial. These were Arahir, Azahar (Zahara), Garnene, [Lu?]-lu-bi-im (most likely the Lullubi), Nishgamelum, Nususmar (Nushushmar), Pulma, Sisirtum, Ti-ir-mi-um, [x]-[x]-li, [x]-[x-x-a]m, and Zitanu. Sabum has also been classed as a region of Simashki, which would make perfect sense if it is to be located on the western side of the Zagris mountains.

Near East Kingdoms

Ancient Eastern Near East

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