An extensive collection of information covering all historical states, including comprehensive features, highly detailed maps, and lists of rulers for each state. Please help by submitting your own features, king list data, photos, audio, or video for inclusion. Visit the site's 'contact' page. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk History Kessler Associates, the History Files, and respective contributors and original sources. All rights reserved. en-gb contact@historyfiles.co.uk (The History Files) https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/images/rss/historyFilesTitle_rss.png https://www.historyfiles.co.uk https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/MainNewLists.htm Otherwise referred to as a fortress, this city was decisively conquered by Shalmaneser I in the mid-thirteenth century BC when he undertook a campaign to subdue the fortresses and settlements of eight northern 'countries'. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaArina.htm Mon, 05 Oct 2026 20:00:00 GMT The first revolution in human communications occurred when the Sumerians developed a written language, followed closely by a similar system for the Egyptians. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumerScript01.htm Sat, 03 Oct 2026 20:00:00 GMT The Sumerian name is unknown for the modern archaeological site of Abu Salabikh, a minor city with an ensi which was rarely mentioned on cylinder seals, but the name Eresh is tentatively linked with it. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaAbuSalabikh.htm Fri, 02 Oct 2026 20:00:00 GMT Some of the earliest Sumerian cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became a complex network of cities and canals. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumerMap.htm Thu, 01 Oct 2026 20:00:00 GMT The city of Isin already existed under 'Ur III' rule but there are no records in the Sumerian period of any rulers here: instead the city only achieved independence and self-governance in the last days of Ur III. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaIsin.htm Wed, 30 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT The Gutians were one of a number of people who formed the population of ancient Mesopotamia although they arrived late on the scene to occupy the central Zagros Mountain range from the later mid-2000s BC. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaGutium.htm Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT At best this city was regarded as being on the northern edges of traditional Sumerian territory, with Tell Muhammad on the outskirts of Baghdad being suggested as a likely candidate. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaAkkad.htm Mon, 28 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT The highly important Sumerian king list was written in Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets, with the first version probably appearing during the Ur III period (circa 2150-2000 BC). https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumerList01.htm Sat, 26 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT This city first appeared in written records around 2600 BC and, during the period of its ascendancy in the twenty-fifth century BC, it was at war with Lagash. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaAkshak.htm Fri, 25 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT This city is the modern archaeological site of Tell Hariri on the west bank of the Euphrates, the most northerly of all the Sumerian city states, and a place of some importance. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaMari.htm Thu, 24 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT The city of Adab (the modern site of Bismaya or Bismya, or UD.NUN in cuneiform) was located between Girsu and Zabalam (to the south) and Nippur (to the north), with its principal deity being the goddess Ninhursag, and avoiding confusion with the archaeological site of Tell Bismaya. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaAdab.htm Wed, 23 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT The bell-less Church of St Anne, Hessenford, was built in 1832 as a chapel-of-ease in St Germans parish, and was consecrated in 1833 with a shotgun being fired in lieu of a bell at weddings. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthWest/Cornwall_Caradon24.htm Tue, 22 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT The city of Hamazi had generally been thought to have been located in the western Zagros mountains, probably between Elam and the later Assyrian heartland, although more recent research has placed it in more hospitable circumstances. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaHamazi.htm Tue, 22 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT The priest-rulers of Lagash are suspiciously absent from the Sumerian king list even though the first dynasty leader, Eannatum, built a short-lived empire out of Sumerian city states, instead being known from inscriptions on several important monuments from around the twenty-fifth century BC onwards. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaLagash.htm Mon, 21 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT The Uruk III period which succeeded Uruk IV saw Uruk itself being thoroughly reconstructed, with Uruk-form tablets disappearing outside of southern Mesopotamia. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumerUrukIII_01.htm Sat, 19 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT One of Elam's oldest city state kingdoms, Awan (or Avan) arose around 2600 BC, but little is known of its origins and, culturally, Elamite states achieved less than their more advanced neighbours. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/EasternAwan.htm Fri, 18 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT By the Early Dynastic III period from 2600 BC small farming villages had consolidated into a thriving centre of industry, with Ur being considered sacred to the god Nanna or Nannar (or 'Sîn' in Akkadian). https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaUr.htm Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT This was already a major city by 3300 BC, and it was here that Sumerian civilisation seems to have reached its creative and social peak with many familiar urban human themes and groupings seeming to have emerged during this period. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaUruk.htm Tue, 15 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT For about six hundred years this culture flourished in the north and east of Mesopotamia in competition with much more powerful cultures from the south. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaGawra01.htm Mon, 14 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT This city flourished in the full bloom of Sumerian civilisation during the Early Dynastic period, at the start of the third millennium BC and was of major importance in the early part of the millennium before decline set in. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaKish.htm Mon, 14 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT At a point around the middle of the fourth millennium BC there appear several cylinder seal impressions in Uruk, Susa, and Choga Mish which show a bearded male figure who may be the first priest-king. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaUruk01.htm Sat, 12 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT At the start of this period in the early 3000s BC (around 3900-3800 BC) the number and size of settlement sites vastly and enthusiastically increased, especially in two regions in southern Mesopotamia: central and southern Sumer. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumerUrukIV_01.htm Fri, 11 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT This city was occupied for around a millennium, starting in the early Jemdet Nasr period (3100-2900 BC) and ending around the time of one of the many dramatic regional floods of the Antediluvian period. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaShuruppak.htm Fri, 11 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT Evidence shows that Sippar was occupied from the Uruk IV period, although there were actually two cities named Sippar, now known as the archaeological mounds of Tell Abu Habbah and ed-Der. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaSippar.htm Thu, 10 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT Archaeologists worldwide were having fits in the first decade of the twenty-first century because numerous sites in modern Iran and the surrounding region were giving up evidence of once being home to a long-lived culture with a vast network of societies which constituted some of the first cities. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/EasternIranUbaid01.htm Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT The location of Larak or Larag has not been identified, but the city is believed to have been sited on the west bank of the Tigris, to the east of Kish and with a patron deity in the form of Pabilsag, god of the trees. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaLarak.htm Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT Second of the early city states to be mentioned in the Antediluvian section of the Sumerian king list, Bad-tibira was situated on the Iturungal Canal, below Umma and to the close north of Uruk and Larsa, today generally linked to the archaeological site of Tell Madineh. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaBadtibira.htm Tue, 08 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT This city was said to be one of five to have been built 'Before the Flood': according to Sumerian mythology, Eridu was founded by the Sumerian deity named Enki, later known by the Akkadians as Ea, god of water and wisdom. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaEridu.htm Sum, 06 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT This was the crossover point between prehistory and the threshold of early urban civilisation, named after the site at which pottery from the period was first discovered, Tell al-'Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumer03.htm Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT As irrigation improved so the more southerly reaches of the Euphrates could at last be occupied by humans and their animals, with southern Mesopotamia being subjected to permanent settlement, mainly pastoralists at first, herding sheep or goats. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaCityStates.htm Fri, 04 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT By the mid-sixth millennium BC the third of the Neolithic Mesopotamian farming cultures had appeared: the Halaf culture (5500-4500 BC) was named after the site of Tell Halaf in the Khabur valley in north-eastern Syria. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaPrehistory04.htm Thu, 03 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT The datable myth of Ziusudra and the great flood exists in a single copy of the fragmentary 'Eridu Genesis', otherwise known as the 'Sumerian Creation Myth'. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumerPostDiluvian.htm Thu, 03 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT Contemporary with the Hassuna culture, the Samarra was based farther south, in the mid-Tigris region, although there was a good deal of overlap in the heartland of central Mesopotamia. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaPrehistory03.htm Wed, 02 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT The Sumerian king list states that eight kings ruled in five cities in the Antediluvian period before the 'Great Flood' swept over the land. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumerAntediluvian.htm Wed, 02 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT The expansion of farming settlement into Mesopotamia is reflected in a sequence of prehistoric cultures, each of which was characterised by a distinctive pottery style, and starting with the Hassuna. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaPrehistory02.htm Tue, 01 Sep 2026 20:00:01 GMT By the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer (or Ki-en-gir, 'land of the Sumerian tongue') was divided into approximately a dozen city states which were independent of one another and which used local canals and boundary stones to mark their borders. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/MesopotamiaSumer.htm Tue, 01 Sep 2026 20:00:00 GMT In Asia Minor and Mesopotamia by 10,000 BC people had abandoned cave dwelling, some in favour of living in the earliest permanent settlements amid other hunter-gatherer populations. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesMiddEast/MesopotamiaPrehistory01.htm Mon, 31 Aug 2026 20:00:01 GMT Showcasing a highly detailed collection of features and king lists for the Near East which covers the emergence of the world's first civilisation. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/MainFeaturesMesopotamia.htm Mon, 31 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT During the medieval civil war which is known as 'The Anarchy', Dunster Castle was one of the most important Norman strongholds in the south-west, and its military contingent supported Empress Matilda. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/CastlesBritain/SouthWest/Somerset_Dunster01.html Sat, 29 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT Many southern Akan sub-groups trace their historical, spiritual, and cultural roots back to Adanse, which is located in the southern part of the Ashanti Region of Ghana, its name translating roughly to 'builders' or 'house builders'. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsAfrica/AfricaAkanAdanse.htm Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT The Church of St Wenna, Morval, has been here in one form or another since AD 504, named after Wenna, one of the children of Brychan of Brycheiniog who travelled to Cornwall with her siblings. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthWest/Cornwall_Caradon23.htm Thu, 27 Aug 2026 20:00:01 GMT This state formed around 1480 as Twifo (the name of the Twi-speaking Akan people who created it), with Hemang as its capital around sixty-five kilometres to the north-west of Ghana's Cape Coast. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsAfrica/AfricaAkanTwifo-Heman.htm Thu, 27 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT The only senior survivor in the 1750 Asante clan war was Abena Pokou who, although she lost the war and her clan's claim to the throne, was able to flee to the west to found a clan state of her own known as Baoule. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsAfrica/AfricaAkanBaoule.htm Wed, 26 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT The Church of St Philip & St James originally was a chapel in the parish of Ottery St Mary, erected in 1838 by Sir J Kennaway of the nearby Escot House. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthWest/Devon_EastDevon32.htm Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:00:01 GMT This group settled in eastern-central Bechuanaland during the period between 1830-1880, along the north-western border with Transvaal which was the home of a number of Nguni tribes which included the Zulu. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsAfrica/AfricaBamangwato.htm Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT The Ndwandwe clan state was a Bantu-speaking-formed tribal group which developed in what today is the union of South Africa, as an Nguni group which arrived from northern parts of East Africa. https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsAfrica/AfricaNdwandwe.htm Mon, 24 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT