Sumerian King List
Mesopotamia · c. 2100 – 1800 BCE
A dynastic list mixing verifiable kings with reigns of tens of thousands of years.
What the document is
A copied literary-political document surviving in multiple recensions.
Why it matters
It shows how ancient states constructed legitimacy — and where chronology stops being usable.
How we treat this record
Specialists disagree. Competing interpretations are presented side by side.
- Q01What do the antediluvian reign lengths encode?
- Q02Which listed dynasties actually overlapped?
Where this source sits
The land between the lower Tigris and Euphrates
31.32° N, 45.64° E
Open the world fileDocuments that share themes, people, or historical periods with Sumerian King List.
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The oldest surviving long-form literature, assembled across a millennium of tablet traditions.
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Documentedc. 1754 BCE
282 provisions carved on a diorite stele — a legal monument as much as a working law code.
kingship · cuneiform literature · Same period: Babylon
Josephus
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political chronology
Tacitus
Documentedc. 98 – 117 CE
The sharpest surviving analyst of imperial Roman politics, working from senatorial records.
political chronology
Where Sumerian King List connects to the rest of the ancient record — the worlds it belongs to, the chapters it sits in, the documents that record it, and the questions still open.
Worlds
All worlds →Sumer
Southern Mesopotamia · c. 4500 – 1900 BCE
The first society that wrote down what it owed, and so became legible to us.
Sumerian King List comes out of this world
Mesopotamia
Tigris–Euphrates · c. 6000 – 539 BCE
The wider river world where cities, law and bureaucracy first appear together.
Sumerian King List comes out of this world
Deep Time
All deep time →Sumer
4500 – 1900 BCE
Cities, cuneiform, and the earliest written administration on record.
Sumerian King List sits in this chapter
Babylon
1894 – 539 BCE
Law codes, astronomy tablets, and the mathematics of a base-60 world.
Sumerian King List sits in this chapter