Near East Kingdoms

Rapiqum / Rapiqu (City) (Sumer)

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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.

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 cities was Rapiqum (otherwise recorded as Rapiku or Rapiqu).

A date of founding is unknown, but the city is first mentioned in written records by the Ur III government of Shulgi (circa 2094-2047 BC). It certainly became a developed city during (or before) the Old Babylonian period in the early second millennium BC.

A precise location is also unknown, although it is known to have been situated in Sumer's north, which would place it in or around the level of Agade. It may have been sited along the Euphrates within this region. Its conquest by Shamshi-Adad's kingdom of 'Upper Mesopotamia' and it subsequently being handed to Hammurabi of Babylon also supports a northern Sumerian location.

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(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 Historical Geography of the Euphrates and Habur According to the Middle- and Neo-Assyrian Sources, H F Russell (Iraq, Vol 47, pp 57-74, 1985), from A Babylonian Geographical Treatise on Sargon of Akkad’s Empire, W F Albright (Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 45, pp 193-245, 1925), and from External Links: 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 Beginnings of Old Babylonian Babylon: Sumu-abum and Sumu-la-El, Rients de Boer (Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol 70, 2018, and available to read via JSTOR).)

c.2500 BC

Sumerians continue to control southern Mesopotamia during the 'Early Dynastic' period. The major city states are: Adab, Akkad, Bad-tibira, Borsippa, Eridu, Girsu, Isin, Kish, Lagash, Larsa, Mari, Nippur, Shuruppak, Ur, and Uruk.

This figurine of a woman was dated by archaeologists at about 2500 BC, having been uncovered in the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash

The minor cities and city states include Rapiqum at least by the twenty-first century BC by which time the scribes of Abu Salabikh bear Semitic names. Sumer is now a multi-lingual region, with at least two major languages being spoken in the form of Sumerian and Semitic (sometimes labelled proto-Akkadian, with that later being a dominant form of non-Sumerian).

Semitic predominates in northern Sumer and in northern Mesopotamia beyond that - such as at Ashur and Nineveh - as this is the route of entry into Sumer itself for Semitic-speakers.

Its use is most notable in early Akkadians, while Sumerian still dominates in the south and Amorites are already penetrating into north-western Mesopotamia to assume gradual control of small cities such as Terqa.

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)

c.1828 -1823 BC

After about 1862 BC, the city of Eshnunna under Ibiq-Adad II has been expanding its territory to incorporate the Diyala valley as far as its confluence with the Tigris. Previously independent minor cities are now subjugated (seemingly between about 1828-1823 BC).

These cities include Dur-Rimush, Nerebtum, Rapiqum, Shaduppum (around 1823 BC), and Uzarlulu. It may be Apil-sin of Babylon who takes advantage of this by opportunistically grabbing for himself a few of Shaduppum's territorial holdings (which also include Tutub).

The city of Shaduppum is subsequently built anew on a fresh site by Ibiq-Adad II. The act is commemorated by Ibiq-Adad II in a subsequent year name.

The ancient city of Shaduppum - the modern archaeological site of Tell Harmal - now lies in the Baghdad governorate of Iraq, and within the borders of modern Baghdad itself

c.1810 - 1800 BC

In the thirteenth year of his reign - about 1809 BC - Rim-Sin of Larsa defeats a coalition of forces which is led by Uruk, Isin, and Babylon, with a contingent from Rapiqum amongst others. He captures some villages near Uruk, but a pause occurs until further action is possible.

c.1782 BC

Having already been attacked in the fourth year of the reign of Hammurabi, the city state of Malgium is now seized (in the tenth year of the reign of Hammurabi). The city of Rapiqum is also captured, with Hammurabi's next year name being 'year [he] seized the city wall / city, the land and the territory of Rapiqum and Szalibi'.

A letter from the ambassador in Babylon of Zimri-Lim in Mari shows that the capture of Rapiqum is actually managed by Shamshi-Adad of the kingdom of 'Upper Mesopotamia'. Control of the city is then gifted to Hammurabi at a time at which Babylon is still quite weak and relatively insignificant.

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

1235 - 1227 BC

Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria begins a series of regional conquests by capturing Babylonia. After a period of direct rule, puppet rulers are placed on the throne until the Assyrians are thrown out in 1217 BC. The king also claims to have conquered Mari, Hana, and Rapiqu.

c.1100 BC

Assyria's Tiglath-Pileser I campaigns aggressively in all directions, fighting Aramaeans and Mushku in the Syrian west: '[defeating] them from the foot of Mount Lebanon, Tadmar of Amurru, Anat of Suhi and as far as Rapiqu of Babylonia'. He prevents the Mushku from invading Assyria itself. He also conquers cities such as Amrit and the cities of the Lullubi.

The mysterious four thousand year-old lost city which was discovered on the site of Kunara, near Sulaimani city in Iraqi Kurdistan is thought to be a city of the Lullubi, an equally mysterious people of northern Mesopotamia

The city would appear to survive into the early first millennium BC, but never as anything more than a marker point for Assyrian conquests. Its final mention comes in the 700s BC during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, after which it is forgotten.