List of kings of Babylon

The following is a list of the kings of Babylonia (ancient southern-central Iraq), compiled from the traditional Babylonian king lists and modern archaeological findings.

The Babylonian King List

The Babylonian King List is not merely a list of kings of Babylon, but is a very specific ancient list of supposed Babylonian kings recorded in several ancient locations, and related to its predecessor, the Sumerian King List. As in the latter, contemporaneous dynasties are misleadingly listed as successive without comment.

There are three versions, which are known as "King List A"[1] (containing all the kings from the First Dynasty of Babylon to the Neo-Assyrian king Kandalanu), "King List B"[2] (containing only the two first dynasties), and "King List C"[3] (containing the first seven kings of the Second Dynasty of Isin). A fourth version was written in Greek by Berossus. The "Babylonian King List of the Hellenistic Age" is a continuation that mentions all the Seleucid kings from Alexander the Great to Demetrius II Nicator.[4]

Middle Bronze Age

Early Amorite city-states

Kings of Larsa

List of the kings of Larsa (39th year of the reign of Hammurabi)
King Hammurabi of Babylon (right) (r. 1728–1686 BC) on his law code stele
Further information: Larsa

Babylonian Empire (Middle Bronze Age)

First Dynasty of Babylon, (Amorite Dynasty)

First Dynasty of Babylon (ca. (1830–1531 BC)
Further information: First Dynasty of Babylon

Sealand Dynasty (Dynasty II of Babylon)

Further information: Sealand Dynasty

These rulers may not have ruled Babylonia itself for more than the briefest of periods, but rather the formerly Sumerian regions south of it. Nevertheless, it is often traditionally numbered the Second Dynasty of Babylon, and so is listed here.

Early Kassite Monarchs

Further information: Early Kassite rulers

This dynasty also did not actually rule Babylon, but their numbering scheme was continued by later Kassite Kings of Babylon, and so they are listed here.

Late Bronze Age

Kassite Dynasty (Third Dynasty of Babylon)

Kassite Dynasty (ca. 1507–1155 BC)
King Meli-Shipak II (centre) (ca. 1186–1172 BC)
Further information: Kassites

Iron Age

Dynasty IV of Babylon, from Isin

The name of the dynasty, BALA PA.ŠE, is a paronomasia on the term išinnu, “stalk,” written as PA.ŠE and is the only apparent reference to the actual city of Isin.[5] It is therefore also known as the Second Dynasty of Isin or Isin II.

King Marduk-nadin-ahhe (r. 1100–1082 BC)

Dynasty V of Babylon

Known as the 2nd Sealand Dynasty, the evidence that this was a Kassite Dynasty is rather tenuous.[6]

Dynasty VI of Babylon

Known as the Bīt-Bazi Dynasty after the region from where this minor Kassite clan drew its ancestry.[7]

Dynasty VII of Babylon

This was an Elamite Dynasty.

Dynasty VIII of Babylon

Dynasty IX of Babylon (Dynasty of E)

King Nabu-apla-iddina (right) (r. 888–855 BC)

Dynasty X of Babylon (Assyrian)

King Marduk-apla-iddina II (left) (r. 722–710 BC)
Further information: Neo-Assyrian Empire

Dynasty XI of Babylon (Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Dynasty)

Further information: Neo-Babylonian Empire
King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (r. 605–562 BC)

Achaemenid Babylonia

Further information: Persian Mesopotamia and Achaemenid Empire

In 539 BC, Babylon was captured by Cyrus the Great. His son was later crowned formally as King of Babylonia. This list uses the Greek names of the Achaemenid Persian kings.

Seleucid Babylonia

Further information: Seleucid Empire

Babylon was captured by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. It was captured by the Parthians in 141 BC.

See also

References

  1. ↑ BM 33332.
  2. ↑ BM 38122.
  3. ↑ The text is in a private collection and was published in: Arno Poebel (1955). "Second Dynasty of Isin According to a New King-List Tablet". Assyriological Studies. University of Chicago Press (15).
  4. ↑ Meissner, Bruno (1990). Reallexikon der Assyriologie. 6. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 90. ISBN 3-11-010051-7.
  5. ↑ J. A. Brinkman (1999). Dietz Otto Edzard, ed. Reallexikon Der Assyriologie Und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Ia – Kizzuwatna. 5. Walter De Gruyter. pp. 183–184.
  6. ↑ Bruno Meissner (1999). Dietz Otto Edzard, ed. Reallexikon Der Assyriologie Und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Meek - Mythologie. Walter De Gruyter. p. 8. “The Kassite name of Simbar-Šipak, the Kassite derived theothoric element (dKaššû = “the Kassite (god)”) in the name of the third king, and the tribal affiliation of the second monarch could suggest that this dynasty represented a revival of Kassite power following the native Babylonian rulers of the Second Dynasty of Isin; but the evidence at present must be regarded as tenuous.”
  7. ↑ J. A. Brinkman (1982). "Babylonia, c. 1000 – 748 B.C.". In John Boardman; I. E. S. Edwards; N. G. L. Hammond; E. Sollberger. The Cambridge Ancient History (Volume 3, Part 1). Cambridge University Press. pp. 296–297.
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