Sabium
Sabium  Sabūm | |
|---|---|
| King of Babylon | |
| Reign | c. 1845 – c. 1831 BC |
| Predecessor | Sumu-la-El |
| Successor | Apil-Sin |
| Died | c. 1831 BC |
Sabium (sà-bi-um also Sabum sà-bu-um and Zabium) was an Amorite King in the First Dynasty of Babylon, the Amorite Dynasty.[1] He ruled what was at the time a small recently created Amorite kingdom which included the town of Babylon. Sabium makes no claim of kingship of Babylon itself, suggesting that it had not yet grown into the major metropolis it would become under his descendant Hammurabi.[2] His is known to have maintained control over the city of Sippar, conquered by Sumu-la-El.[3] He is roughly cotemporal with Enlil-bani of Isin, Sin-Iddinam of Larsa, Ibal-pi-El I of Eshnunna, and the obscure Aminum of Ekallatum.[4] Because the Old Babylonian period archaeological levels at the city of Babylon were below the water table and not excavated what is known about Sabium is from other sites like Sippar, which Babylon controlled.
About 14 year names of Sabium are known, notably (Note that the god of Ibbi-Anum is Urash and the god of E-sagil is Marduk):[2]
- Year the city wall of Kazallu was destroyed
- Year the army of Larsa was smitten by weapons
- Year Sabium built the city wall of Kar-Shamash
- Year in which Sabium the king built (the temple) E-babbar (of Shamash)
- Year (Sabium) restored the house / temple of Ibbi-Anum
- Year in which Sabium the king built E-sagil, temple raising the head to heaven / temple in which the head of the king is raised
Ibal-pi-El I of Eshnunna is known to have concluded a treaty with Sin-Iddinam of Larsa and Sîn-kāšid of Uruk against Sabium and his ally Ikūn-pī-Sîn of Nerebtum.[5]
It is known that in his 1844 BC accession year Sabium decreed a mīšarum (forgiveness of debt) in the kingdom. This was a fairly common practice for rulers of that period.[6] The god Nabu was first attested in the pantheon of Babylon during the reign of Sabium, with the name dna-bi-um.[7]
In a letter to later ruler of Babylon Sin-Muballit, the later Uruk ruler An-am (c. 1824-1816 BC) reminds him that Sabium had sent one thousand soldiers to Uruk in support in his time.[8] [9][10][11][12]
A Neo-Babylonian text contains a literary chronicle of Sabium and Apil-Sin.[13]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ Beaulieu, Paul-Alain, "A History of Babylon, 2200 bc-ad 75", John Wiley & Sons, 2018
- 1 2 Year Names of Sabium at CDLI
- ↑ Tanret, Michel, and Guido Suurmeijer, "Officials of the Šamaš Temple of Sippar as Contract Witnesses in the Old Babylonian Period", pp. 78-112, 2011
- ↑ Sasson, Jack M., "King Hammurabi of Babylon", Vol. 2. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Ed. Jack M. Sasson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, pp. 901-15, 1995
- ↑ Guichard, Michaël, "Un traité d’alliance entre Larsa, Uruk et Ešnunna contre Sabium de Babylone", Semitica 56, pp. 9-34, 2014
- ↑ De Boer, R., "Two Early Old Babylonian “mananâ” Archives Dated to the Last Years of Sumu-la-El", Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale, 111(1), pp.25-64, 2017
- ↑ Rubin, Zachary, "The Adoption of Nabû and Tašmētu into the Babylonian Pantheon", Journal of ancient near eastern religions 23.2, pp. 166-198, 2024
- ↑ Michalowski, Piotr, "History as charter some observations on the sumerian king list", Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.1, pp. 237-248, 1983
- ↑ Falkenstein, Adam, "Zu den Inschriftenfunden der Grabung in Uruk-Warka 1960-1961: A. von Haller zum 70. Geburtstag am 29. Mai 1962 gewidmet", Baghdader Mitteilungen 2, pp. 1-82, 1963
- ↑ van Koppen, F., "Miscellaneous Old Babylonian period documents", in Chavalas, M.W. (ed.), The ancient Near East: historical sources in translation, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 107-133, 2006
- ↑ Sasson, Jack M., "Kingship", From the Mari Archives: An Anthology of Old Babylonian Letters, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 21-118, 2015
- ↑ Boer, Rients de. "Beginnings of Old Babylonian Babylon: Sumu-abum and Sumu-la-El." Journal of Cuneiform Studies 70.1, pp. 53-86, 2018
- ↑ Waerzeggers, Caroline, "The Neo-Babylonian Chronicle about Sabium and Apil-Sîn: A Copy of the Text (BM 29440)", NABU, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 3, 2015
Further reading
[edit]- Katrien De Graef, "In Taberna Quando Sumus On Taverns, Nadītum Women, and the Gagûm in Old Babylonian Sippar", Gender and methodology in the ancient Near East: Approaches from Assyriology and beyond 10, pp. 77-115, 2018
- Lapushanski, Ilya Yu, "Esagil and the kings of the First Babylonian dynasty", Zhurnal Belorusskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Istoriya 5.3, pp. 33-40, 2023
- Tanret, Michel, and Guido Suurmeijer, "Officials of the Šamaš Temple of Sippar as Contract Witnesses in the Old Babylonian Period", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie & Vorderasiatische Archäologie 101.1, pp. 78-112, 2011
