A legal statement about the ownership of a piece of land The cuneiform inscription on this kudurru records the granting by Eanna-shum-iddina, the governor of the Sealand, of five
gur of corn land in the
district of Edina in south Babylonia to a man called Gula-eresh. The
boundaries of the land are laid out; the surveyor is named as Amurru-bel-zeri
and the transfer completed by two high officials who are also named.
Nine gods are invoked to protect the monument, along with seventeen
divine symbols. The symbols of the important Mesopotamian gods are most
prominent: the solar disc of the sun-god Shamash,
the crescent of the moon-god Sin
and the eight-pointed star of Ishtar,
goddess of fertility and war. The square boxes beneath these signs
represent altars supporting the symbols of gods, including horned
headdresses, the triangular spade of Marduk,
and the wedge-shaped stylus of Nabu,
the god of writing.
A prominent snake is shown on many kudurru and may, like many
of the symbols, be related to the constellations. The text ends with
curses on anyone who removes, ignores or destroys the kudurru.
The Sealand was one of the wealthiest regions of Babylonia. A dynasty
called 'Sealand' first appears in records dating to the middle of the
second millennium BC. It controlled the coastline of the south of Iraq
and thus the trade routes down the Gulf. The Sealand rulers were
defeated by the Kassite kings of Babylon in the fifteenth century BC and
governors like Eanna-shum-iddina were appointed to administer the region.
Height: 14.25
inches
ANE 102485
Room 55, Later
Mesopotamia, case 2
L.W. King, Babylonian boundary stones and memorial tablets (London,
Trustees of the British Museum, 1912), pp. 76-79, plates I-IV
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