Near East Kingdoms

Simurrum (Zagros Mountain City) (Northern Mesopotamia)

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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 was Simurrum (or Shimurrum, more correctly Šimurrum).

The city was located at the southern end of Lake Darbandikhan in what is now eastern Iraq, on the River Sirwan, one of two feeders for the River Diyala to the north-east of modern Baghdad. On its eastern flank it was overshadowed by the foothills of the Zagros mountains and the land of Gutium. A precise location is not yet available, although several possibilities have been put forward in research.

It was briefly important, between about 2350 BC to the fall of the Ur III empire around 2004 BC. It appears to have been abandoned when the region endured a brief dark age decline after 1595 BC due to aridisation and cultural collapse. Mesopotamian sources regarded the people of this region as highlanders, not particularly differentiating between then and the better-known Lullubi, amongst others.

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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), 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.)

c.2320s? BC

The start of the reign of Sargon of Akkad sees him defeating and capturing Lugalzaggesi of Uruk and Umma, claiming the empire and the kingship for his own and humiliating Lugalzaggesi by chaining him.

Sargon 'the Great', the warrior king of apparently humble origins, unified Sumer for (perhaps) the first time in recorded history through a series of campaigns and the defeat of the current holder of Sumer's equivalent of a high kingship

fl c.2320s? BC

Ruler of Simurrum.

Expanding his territory Sargon defeats Lagash and Kazallu, invades Syria and the Levant four times, and campaigns against the Gutians, the Hatti, Marhashi, and Simurrum.

c.2250s?s BC

Facing revolts from the start of his reign, Naram-Sin of the Akkadian empire conquers Ebla in Syria, defeats a coalition which is led by Kish, another coalition which is led by Uruk (when combined these coalitions include all of the major cities of Mesopotamia), and also attacks Nippur and the Hatti.

fl c.2250s BC

Ruler of Simurrum. Labelled 'governor' by Akkad.

Naram-Sin gives governorships to his sons and also conquers the hillfolk Lullabi and Simurrum in the north. With Akkad declining markedly (and especially so after the death of Naram-Sin), Elam and Marhashi declare their independence (although they are again re-conquered for a time).

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

fl c.2210s BC

Ruler of Simurrum.

c.2210s BC

Anubanini is a contemporary of Iddin-Sin of Simurrum. Together they rebel against the Gutian control of Eridu-pizir, presumably regaining the independence of both peoples.

Anubanini is best-known for his 'Anubanini petroglyph', a rock relief in the modern Kermanshah province of Iraq. Lullubi rock reliefs are amongst the oldest in the region, even predating those of Elam.

It would seem that, under Anubanini, the Lullubi become regionally powerful for a short time, raiding as far as the Persian Gulf and Elam (and quite possible as one of the Simashki dependencies). Classifying Anubanini himself as Lullubi, however, cannot be confirmed.

Around the same time both Sumer and Egypt endure a short (climate-induced) dark age which lasts for at least a century. The Lullubi probably retain their independence during this period.

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)

? - c.2050 BC

Ruler of Simurrum. Captured and exiled to Drehem.

c.2050 BC

The Lullabi continue to crop up in the historical record. Along with the city of Simurrum, their cities are raided at least nine times by Shulgi of Ur in the middle years of the 2000s BC.

It would seem that at least the last raid turns into domination or conquest (around 2050 BC, the forty-fourth year of Shulgi's reign). Tabban-darah of Simurrum is captured and exiled to Drehem and Shulgi's son, Amar-Sin, later has Lullubians forming a contingent in his armies.

fl c.2040s BC

Ruler of Simurrum under Amar-Sin of Ur.

c.2040s? BC

A great renovator of Sumer's ancient sites, Amar-Sin of Ur apparently works on the ziggurat at Eridu, although the city has to be abandoned during his reign. The main temple at Ashur is restored following its recent destruction, and a potential temple at Adab is also restored. His governor in Simurrum is Sillus-dagan.

This aerial view from 2023 shows the River Diyala at the late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) site of Shakhi Kora in today's Kurdistan region of Iraq

c.2025 BC

Eshnunna breaks away from Ur's control in the second year of Ibbi-Sin's reign, while it seems that Larsa follows suit in the following year, becoming at least semi-independent and forming its own line of kings. That third year is named by Ibbi-Sin as the one in which Simurrum is destroyed, revealing its attempt to break away. It certainly does become independent following the fall of Ur around 2004 BC.

c.1595 BC

The Babylonian empire has been steadily declining following the arrival of the Hittites in the north, and due to over-farming of the fields which leads to increased salinisation and failing crops. The culture of the Hittites emerges, as does that of the Hurrian empire of Mitanni.

Around this time, 1595 BC, the Hittite ruler, Mursili I, leads his army down the Euphrates in a lighting raid which sees Babylon being sacked and its leadership destroyed. The power vacuum allows the Kassites to emerge as Babylonia's new masters, but the short dark age of this period also leads to a number of cities being abandoned. Both Sippar and Tutub are casualties, as is Simurrum.

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