Near East Kingdoms

Ilan Shura (City State) (Northern Mesopotamia)

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In southern Mesopotamia the city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation developed out of the end of the Pottery Neolithic across the Fertile Crescent, a period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices spread far and wide across the Near East and beyond.

At the same time, northern Mesopotamia experienced its own burgeoning development processes, largely starting under the Hassuna culture. These processes took longer here than they did in the south, in what is now northern Iraq, the western edge of Iran, the south-eastern corner of Turkey, and the eastern wedge of Syria.

An urban lifestyle only really appeared in the third millennium BC, thanks in part to such influences being imposed during Sumerian empire-building periods. The collapse of Sumer (officially around 2004 BC) to climate-induced drought and political instability allowed other cities and powers to arise. In the north this was focussed on Amorite and Assyrian groups.

It was Amorites who controlled the city of Ilan Shura (sometimes hyphenated as Ilan-Shura, or contracted as Ilanshura, or even shown as Ilan-Tsura). This small and almost irrelevant city was located in the same river catchment area which hosted Shubat-Enlil and the land of Yamutbal.

A precise location for Ilun Shura seems to be unavailable, although it was firmly within the political sphere of Mari until that city was conquered by Babylon around 1761 BC. In fact, it seems to be known only through its relationship with Mari, and the fact that its only known king married two of the royal daughters of Mari's Zimri-Lim.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), 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), and from External Links: Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, and Two Sisters Quarreled in a Harem (HistoricalTavern at Medium), and The Greatest Library Before Alexandria (History Today).)

fl c.1760s BC

Amorite ruler. Subject to Mari.

c.1760s BC

Haya-Sumu of Ilan Shura is a vassal of Zimri-Lim of Mari. He is primarily known through Mari archive letters in connection to his turbulent marriages to two of Zimri-Lim's eight daughters: Šimatum (first, as his primary wife) and three years later her half-sister Kirum or Kiru.

While southern Mesopotamia flourished during the third millennium BC, it took longer for the same effect to be felt in northern Mesopotamia, with the first larger cities and city states only really emerging towards the end of the millennium (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Both marriages are political alliances but wedding both of them generates intense political rivalry in Haya-Sumu's court. Haya-Sumu himself clearly favours his primary wife, who manages the household and caringly writes to him when he is campaigning.

Kirum on the other hand comes across as petulant and indignant at being only second. In the end Zimri-Lim is forced to recall her. Seemingly nothing more is heard from Illan Shura, and the end of an independent Mari around 1761 BC also ends its archive of letters.