Near East Kingdoms

Ĝalgi'a / Malgium (City State) (Sumer)

Mesopotamian States & Groups Canaanite States & Groups Islamic Empire Israelites & Israel Ancient Mesopotamia (Intro) Rome Syrian States & Groups

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.

It 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. Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement, initially in the form of pastoralists but soon as farmers too.

By the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer was divided into approximately a dozen independent city states which used local canals and boundary stones to mark their borders. Many of the smaller cities emerged in two broad waves, in the mid-third millennium BC and at the start of the second millennium BC. One of these was the city of Malgium (or Malkum, the form preferred by the Ur III administration).

Its modern archaeological site is confirmed as Tell Yassir, although Tell al-Baghdadya was previously put forward as a candidate. The Tell Yassir places the city about twenty kilometres to the north of Mashkan-Shapir, and fifty kilometres to the north of Nippur. Modern Baghdad lies about around one hundred and ten kilometres to the north-west.

Malgium was the Akkadian form of the city's name. Sumerians knew it as Ĝalgi'a or Ĝalgu'a. The city existed by the time of Agade's domination of Sumer, in the mid twenty-fourth century BC, and thrived into the Old Babylonian period. It survived to some degree until the closing decades of the second millennium BC, until at least about 1180 BC.

Its chief deities were Ea (whose temple within the city was known as Enamtila) and Damkina, while there also existed a temple of Ulmašītum. A further temple has been found for the goddess Bēlet-ilī, known as Ekitusgestu, as well as one for the god Anum. Unfortunately the site was heavily looted during the Second Gulf War, to the extent that a great deal of the archaeological record has been erased.

Principal author(s): Page created: Page last updated:

(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 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 History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), from The Archaeology of Elam, D T Potts (Cambridge University Press, 1999), from History of Early Iran, George C Cameron (University of Chicago Press, 1936), and from External Links: Ancient Worlds, and Evolution of Sumerian kingship (Ancient World Magazine), and Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project (Published between 2003-2021, part of the Babylonian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology), and the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, and Eine Urkunde mit einem neuen Jahresnamen des Königs Imgur-Sîn von Malgium, Zsombor J Földi (Illicit Antiquities Trade, Old Babylonian period, Malgium Issue: 2, pp 127-130, available via Academia.edu (in German)), and New Light on the History of Irisaĝrig in Post-Ur III Times, Tohru Ozaki, Marcel Sigrist, & Piotr Steinkeller (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 2021, Vol 111, Issue 1, pp 28-37, available via De Gruyter Brill), and The Discovery of the Location of Malgium (Tell Yassir), Ahmed Ali Jawad et al (Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol 72, 2020, pp 65-86, available via JSTOR).)

fl late 2000s BC?

Known only from a year-name tablet. Took Urusagrig?

c.2000s? BC

The reign of Nur-Eštar of Malgium is known from a tablet which contains a year name: the 'year in which Nur-Eštar, the mighty male, set in place the foundation of Eduru-Mama'.

Late Ur III period pottery tablets (about 2112–2004 BC), often referred to as 'biscuits', typically feature Sumerian cuneiform script which focusses on administrative, bureaucratic, or economic, agricultural transactions, with this one having been recovered from Malgium

c.2017 BC

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 seem to increase fifteen times over, but the city's massive bureaucracy hinders it from making rapid decisions to ameliorate the situation.

The over-production of cereal 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. One of Ibbi-Sin's officials, Ishbi-Erra, 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, although Ibbi-Sin has been able to retake Awan and Susa after another Simashki takeover around 2026-2025 BC.

Now Ishbi-Erra takes the opportunity to move to the subject city of Isin and create his own city state there. Elsewhere Urusagrig has already been lost, to conquest by Malgium in the tenth year of the reign of Ibbi-Sin.

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)

Recovered tablets reveal the fact that six of Malgium's rulers control Urusagrig. They leave the Ur III administrative system in place, presumably alongside its governor and his equally-presumed successor, but the calendar is changed for that of Malgium.

fl c.2004? BC

Known only from two year-name tablets.

The reign of Šu-Kakka of Malgium is known from a tablet which contains a year name: the 'year in which Šu-Kakka killed aurochs and wild cows'. This king is mentioned again in connection with the 'year in which Šu-Kakka erected Bad-Enlila'.

His son is one of the eight kings of the 2017-2019 batch of tablet finds, but is already known from a previous find (Rudolf H Mayr, 2012) which establishes his relationship with Šu-Kakka. The same his true for Nabi-Enlil's own son, Šu-Amurrum.

The Second Gulf War witnessed the collapse of internal Iraqi authority and the subsequent widespread looting and virtual destruction of many ancient archaeological sites, with looted tablets which mention Urusagrig here being seized in the USA

Son (see Mayr 2012, 415 seal J). Also in Urusagrig.

Son (see Mayr 2012, 416 seal K). Also in Urusagrig.

Son. Name not known, but can be assumed from next king.

Son of Warassa.

fl c.1900s? BC

Son of Ilī-abī. Known from a year-name tablet.

c.1900s? BC

The reign of Imgur-Sîn of Malgium is known from a tablet which emerges onto the antiquities market prior to its publication in AD 2013 (tablet 'Kress 272' (CDLI P500510)), having been looted from Malgium's archaeological site.

The name for the second year of his reign is the year in which the 'Tigris/Zubi canal of Imgur Sîn' is dug. Dating is uncertain, but the use of Ma-al-gi-im places it somewhere immediately after the Ur III period, in the twentieth century BC (or possibly the nineteenth if further names are inserted above his in the list of rulers).

Some of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became the complex Sumerian network of cities and canals (click or tap on map to view full sized)

A further year-name tablet is known for this king: the 'year in which King Imgur-Sin erected Bad-Enlila in the Upper Land, and erected (also) Bad-gar.lum facing the Native Land'.

c.1914 BC

Gungunum of Larsa celebrates the defeat of Malgium in his nineteenth year name, naming it the 'year on the orders of An, Enlil, and Nanna (that the army of) Malgium was defeated by weapons...'.

Relationship unknown.

Son of [xx-i]b?-ni.

c.1844 BC

Sin-iddinam of Larsa is well-known for his building activities in Larsa's Ebabbar shrine. His military activities include building new city walls around Mashkan-Shapir, the defeat in battle of Malgium (about 1844 BC), and the conquest of the town of Ibrat on the Tigris, possibly to be located near today's Kut el-Amara.

Smaller finds from the site of ancient Mashkan-Shapir have included eleven cylinder seals, several stone pendants, typical burial goods, weaponry artefacts, model chariots with a connection to Nergal, and a clay cone of the little-known Larsa ruler, Zabaya

Relationship unknown. Known to be a royal figure.

Son.

fl c.1782 BC

Son of Apil-Ilišu. Contemporary with Hammurabi of Babylon.

c.1782 BC

Having already been attacked in the fourth year of the reign of Hammurabi over the city of Babylon, Malgium is now fully seized (in the tenth year of the reign of Hammurabi).

c.1764 - 1763 BC

Rim-Sin of Larsa is now under severe pressure by Hammurabi of Babylon. He appeals for help to his ancestral cousins in Elam. Under Shimut-wartash I they answer his appeal by attacking Eshnunna, Gutium, Malgium, and Subartu. Hammurabi quickly deals with the attack within a year.

The year name for the following year (Hammurabi's thirtieth on the throne) is: 'Year Hammurabi the king, the mighty, the beloved of Marduk, drove away with the supreme power of the great gods the army of Elam who had gathered from the border of Marhashi, Subartu, Gutium, Tupliash (Eshnunna), and Malgium who had come up in multitudes, and having defeated them in one campaign, he (Hammurabi) secured the foundations of Sumer and Akkad'.

Babylon began life as a modest town which had been seized from Kazallu, but was quickly fortified by the building of a city wall in the nineteenth century BC

c.1761 BC

Mari, which had previously been a minor ally against the kingdom of 'Upper Mesopotamia', is finally defeated by Babylon. Malgium is defeated in the same year, its city walls destroyed. Much of the city's population is deported to Kish, Isin and, especially the minor Old Babylonian city of Pī-Kasî.