'Umma
 Aerial view of Umma | |
  Umma Shown within Near East  Umma Umma (Iraq) | |
| Location | Dhi Qar Province, Iraq |
|---|---|
| Region | Mesopotamia |
| Coordinates | 31°40′02″N 45°53′15″E / 31.66722°N 45.88750°ECoordinates: 31°40′02″N 45°53′15″E / 31.66722°N 45.88750°E |
| Type | Settlement |
Part of a series on the |
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| History of Iraq |
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 Iraq portal |
Umma (Sumerian: 𒄑𒆵𒆠 ummaKI;[1] modern Umm al-Aqarib, Dhi Qar Province in Iraq, formerly also called Gishban) was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site.[2] Traditionally, Umma was identified with Tell Jokha. More recently it has been suggested that it was located at Umm al-Aqarib, less than 7 km to its northwest or was even the name of both cities.[3][4]
History[]
In the early Sumerian text Inanna's descent to the netherworld, Inanna dissuades demons from the netherworld from taking Shara, patron of Umma, who was living in squalor. They eventually take Dumuzid king of Uruk instead, who lived in palatial opulence.[5]
Best known for its long frontier conflict with Lagash, as reported circa 2400 BC by Entemena,[6] the city reached its zenith c. 2275 BC, under the rule of Lugal-Zage-Si who also controlled Ur and Uruk. Under the Ur III dynasty, Umma became an important provincial center. Most of the over 30,000 tablets recovered from the site are administrative and economic texts from that time. They permit an excellent insight into affairs in Umma.[7] The Umma calendar of Shulgi (c. 21st century BC) is the immediate predecessor of the later Babylonian calendar, and indirectly of the post-exilic Hebrew calendar. Umma appears to have been abandoned after the Middle Bronze Age.[4]
Archaeology[]
The site of Tell Jokha was visited by William Loftus in 1854 and John Punnett Peters of the University of Pennsylvania in 1885.[8][9] In the early 1900s, many illegally excavated Umma tablets from the Third Dynasty of Ur began to appear on the antiquities market.[10] Tell Jokha has been identified as Umma's dependency Gisha (or Kissa), while the site of Umma itself has been located about 6.5 km to the southeast, at Umm al-Aqarib. At Umm al-Aqarib, archaeologists uncovered levels dating as early as the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900–2300 BCE), including several monumental buildings, one of them variously identified as a temple or palace.[4][11]
In 2017, the Slovak Archaeological and Historical Institute began excavations at Tell Jokha.[12]
Stele of Ushumgal, 2900-2700 BCE. Probably from Umma.[13]
Votive plaque offered by Bara-irnun, queen of Umma, to God Šara in gratitude for sparing her life. Date circa 2370 BC.[14]
Looting[]
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, after Coalition bombing began, looters descended upon the site which is now pockmarked with hundreds of ditches and pits. The prospects for future official excavation and research were seriously compromised in the process.[15]
In 2011, Global Heritage Network, which monitors threats to cultural heritage sites in developing nations, released aerial images comparing Umma in 2003 and 2010, showing a landscape devastated by looters' trenches during that time—approximately 1.12 square km in total.[16] Additional images relevant to the situation at Umm al-Aqarib are included in Tucker's article on the destruction of Iraq's archaeological heritage.[17]
Rulers of Umma[]
Aga of Kish (26th century BCE), king of Kish, probably took over Umma, and consequently Zabala, which was dependant of it in the Early Dynastic Period.[18]
First Dynasty of Umma[]
| Ruler | Proposed reign | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pabilgagaltuku | 26th century BCE | A governor of Umma, he was captured by Ur-Nanshe of Lagash.[19] | |
| Ush ("Ninta") |
|
c. 2500 BCE | Attacked Lagash and removed the boundary stone set up by Mesilim, and was defeated by Eannatum.[19] |
| Enakalle |  |
2500–2400 BCE | Made a boundary treaty with Eannatum.[20] |
| Ur-Lumma |  |
2500–2400 BCE | Son of Enakalle. Challenged Enannatum I, but was defeated by his successor Enmetena.[20][19] |
| Il | .jpg){kind=small} |
2500–2400 BCE | Successor to Ur-Lumna. He rebelled against Enannatum II, and destroyed the dynasty of Ur-Nanshe.[20] |
| Gishakidu |  |
2500–2400 BCE | Son of Il[19] |
| Edin | 2500–2400 BCE | Ruler of Umma [19] | |
| Meanedu | 2500–2400 BCE | Ruler of Umma[19] | |
| Ushurdu | 2500–2400 BCE | Ruler of Umma[19] | |
| Ukush |  |
2400–2300 BCE | Father of Lugal-Zage-Si.[19] |
| Lugal-Zage-Si |  |
2400–2300 BCE | Conquerer of all Sumer, founder of the third dynasty of Uruk, vanquished by Sargon of Akkad.[19] |
Second Dynasty of Umma[]
| Ruler | Proposed reign | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lugalanatum | |
c. 2113 BCE | Vassal to the Gutian Dynasty.[19] |
References[]
- ^ "ORACC – Umma".
- ^ W. G. Lambert, "The Names of Umma", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 49 (1990), pp. 75–80.
- ^ [1] Vitali Bartash, "On the Sumerian City UB-meki, the Alleged “Umma”, Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin 2015:2, Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, November 2015, ISSN 1540-8760
- ^ a b c Trevor Bryce, The Routledge Handbook of The Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire, Routledge, 2009, pp. 738–739.
- ^ Inanna's descent to the netherworld - ETCSL
- ^ Jerrold S. Cooper, History from Ancient Inscriptions: The Lagash-Umma Border Conflict, Undena, 1983, ISBN 0-89003-059-6
- ^ P. A. Parr, "A Letter of Ur-Lisi: Governor of Umma", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 24 (1972), pp. 135–136
- ^ Loftus, William K. (1857). Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana, Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana: With an Account of Excavations at Warka, the "Erech" of Nimrod, and Shush, "Shushan the Palace" of Esther, in 1849–52. Robert Carter & Brothers.
- ^ Peters, John P. (1897). Nippur; Or, Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates: The Narrative of the University of Pennsylvania Expion to Babylonia in the Years 1888–1890 (PDF). University of Pennsylvania Babylonian Expion. Putnam.
- ^ Georges Contenau, Contribution a l'Histoire Economique d'Umma, Librairie Champion, 1915
- ^ Haider Oraibi Almamori, "The Early Dynastic Monumental Buildings At Umm Al-Aqarib", Iraq, 76 (December 2014), pp. 149-187
- ^ Drahoslav Hulínek and Tibor Lieskovský, Report Archaeological project SAHI - Tell Jokha, 2016, Slovak Archaeological and Historical Institute, 2016
- ^ "Stele of Ushumgal". www.metmuseum.org.
- ^ "Site officiel du musée du Louvre". cartelfr.louvre.fr.
- ^ [2] Guardian article on Umma looting
- ^ [3] Satellite Imagery Briefing: Monitoring Endangered Cultural Heritage
- ^ Diane Tucker (21 September 2009). "Brutal Destruction of Iraq's Archaeological Sites Continues". uruknet.info.
- ^ Frayne, Douglas (2009). The Struggle for Hegemony in "Early Dynastic II" Sumer. The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 2010. p. 65-66.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sallaberger, Walther; Schrakamp, Ingo (2015). History & Philology (PDF). Walther Sallaberger & Ingo Schrakamp (eds), Brepols. pp. 74–80. ISBN 978-2-503-53494-7.
- ^ a b c Van De Mieroop, Marc (2004). A History of the Ancient Near East: Ca. 3000-323 BC. Wiley. pp. 50–51. ISBN 9780631225522.
- ^ King, L. W. (Leonard William) (1910). A history of Sumer and Akkad : an account of the early races of Babylonia from prehistoric times to the foundation of the Babylonian monarchy. London : Chatto & Windus. p. 96.
See also[]
References[]
- B. Alster, Geštinanna as Singer and the Chorus of Uruk and Zabalam: UET 6/1 22, JCS, vol. 37, pp. 219–28, 1985
- Tonia M. Sharlach, Provincial taxation and the Ur III State, Brill, 2003, ISBN 90-04-13581-2
- Trevor Bryce, The Routledge Handbook of The Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire, Routledge, 2009
- B. R. Foster, Umma in the Sargonic Period, Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 20, Hamden, 1982
- Georges Contenau, Umma sous la Dynastie d'Ur, Librarie Paul Geuthner, 1916
- Jacob L. Dahl, The Ruling Family of Ur III Umma: A Prosopographical Analysis of an Elite Family in Southern Iraq 4000 Years ago, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten/Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), 2007, ISBN 90-6258-319-9
- Shin T. Kang, Sumerian economic texts from the Umma archive, University of Illinois Press, 1973, ISBN 0-252-00425-6
- Diana Tucker, "Brutal Destruction of Iraq's Archaeological Sites Continues", online article from September 21, 2009 posted on www.uruknet.info, http://www.uruknet.info/?p=58169
External links[]
Media related to Umma at Wikimedia Commons- Photograph of site looting - Oriental Institute
- The Province of Umma - CDLI
- Explore Umma on Global Heritage Network
- Brutal Destruction of Iraq's Archaeological Sites Continues
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