Near East Kingdoms

Zabshali (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.

Zabshali was located in 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.

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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.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', potentially the most important part of the Simashki confederation.

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).

fl c.2023 BC

Ensi (governor) for Ibbi-Sin of Ur.

c.2023 BC

In the fifth year of the reign of Ibbi-Sin of Ur, the year name (supplied in the following year) is named as the year 'Tukin-hatta-migrisha, the king's daughter, was married to the unnamed ensi (governor) of Zabshali'.