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The '''Sealand Dynasty''', (URU.KÙKI<ref group=nb>Where ŠEŠ-ḪA of King List A and ŠEŠ-KÙ-KI of King List B are read as URU.KÙ.KI</ref><ref>{{ cite journal | title = The Home of the First Sealand Dynasty | author = W. G. Lambert | journal = Journal of Cuneiform Studies | volume = 26 | number = 4 | year = 1974 | pages = 208–209 }}</ref><ref>{{ cite book | title = Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization | author = A. Leo Oppenheim | publisher = University of Chicago | year = 1977 | page = 414 }}</ref>) or the 2nd Dynasty of [[Babylon]] (although it was independent of [[Amorite]] ruled Babylon), very speculatively c. 1732–1460 BC ([[short chronology]]), is an enigmatic series of kings attested to primarily in laconic references in the ''king lists A'' and ''B'', and as contemporaries recorded on the [[Assyria]]n ''Synchronistic king list A.117''. The dynasty, which had broken free of the short lived, and by this time crumbling [[Babylonian Empire]], was named for the province in the far south of [[Mesopotamia]], a swampy region bereft of large settlements which gradually expanded southwards with the silting up of the mouths of the [[Tigris]] and [[Euphrates]] rivers. The later kings bore fanciful pseudo-[[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] names and harked back to the glory days of the dynasty of [[Isin]]. The third king of the dynasty was even named for the ultimate king of the dynasty of Isin, [[Damiq-ilishu|Damiq-ilišu]]. Despite these cultural motifs, the population predominantly bore Akkadian names and wrote and spoke in the [[Akkadian language]]. There is circumstantial evidence that their rule extended at least briefly to [[Babylon]] itself.

==The King list tradition==

The king list references which bear witness to the sequence of Sealand kings are summarized below:

{| class="wikitable"
|- bgcolor="#CCCCCC"
! Position !! King List A<ref group=i name=kla>Babylonian ''King List A'', BM 33332, i 4 to 14 where the names are abbreviated but give their lengths of reign.</ref> !! King List B<ref group=i name=klb>Babylonian ''King List B'', BM 38122, reverse 1 to 13.</ref> !! Purported reign<ref group=i name=kla/> !! Contemporary
|-
| 1 || Ilima[ii] || Ilum-ma-ilī || 60 years || [[Samsu-iluna]] and [[Abi-Eshuh|Abi-ešuh]] (Babylon)<ref group=i name=early>''Chronicle of Early Kings'', tablets BM 26472 and BM 96152, B rev. (Ilum-ma-ilī) 7-10 (Ea-gâmil) 12–14.</ref>
|-
| 2 || Ittili || Itti-ili-nībī || 56 years ||
|-
| 3 || Damqili || Damqi-ilišu II || 36 years || [[Adasi]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync>''Synchronistic King List A.117'', Assur 14616c, i 1 to 10.</ref>
|-
| 4 || Iški || Iškibal || 15 years || [[Bel-bani|Belu-bāni]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 5 || Šušši, brother|| Šušši || 24 years || [[Libaya|Lubaia]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 6 || Gulki…|| Gulkišar || 55 years || [[Sharma-Adad I]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 6a || || mDIŠ-U-EN<ref group=i name=sync/> || ? || [[Iptar-Sin|LIK.KUD-Šamaš]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 7 || Peš-gal || Pešgaldarameš,<ref group=nb>Given as PEŠ.GAL-DÀRA.MAŠ.</ref> his son, same || 50 years || [[Bazaya|Bazaia]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 8 || A-a-dàra || Ayadaragalama,<ref group=nb>Given as A-DÀRA-GALAM.MA.</ref> his son, same || 28 years || [[Lullaya]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 9 || Ekurul || Akurduana || 26 years || [[Shu-Ninua]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 10 || Melamma || Melamkurkurra || 7 years || [[Sharma-Adad II]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|-
| 11 || Eaga || Ea-gam[il] || 9 years || [[Erishum III]] (Assyria)<ref group=i name=sync/>
|}

An additional king list<ref group=i>Formed from BM 35572 and eleven other fragments.</ref> provides fragmentary readings of the earlier dynastic monarchs.<ref>{{ cite book | title = Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Meek – Mythologie | author = J. A. Brinkman | editor = Dietz Otto Edzard | publisher = Walter De Gruyter | volume = 8 | year = 1999 | page = 7 }}</ref> The ''king list A'' totals the reigns to give a length of 368 years for this dynasty. The ''Synchronistic King List A.117'' gives the sequence from Damqi-ilišu onward, but includes an additional king between Gulkišar and Pešgaldarameš, mDIŠ-U-EN (reading unknown). This source is considered reliable in this respect because the forms of the names of Pešgaldarameš and Ayadaragalama match those on recently published contemporary economic tablets (see below).<ref name=dalley>{{ cite book | title = Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology. Volume 9 Babylonian Tablets from the First Sealand Dynasty in the Schoyen Collection | author = Stephanie Dalley | authorlink=Stephanie Dalley | publisher = CDL Press | year = 2009 | pages = 1–16 }}</ref>

==Evidence of individual reigns==

The sources for this dynasty are sparse in the extreme, with insufficient evidence to enable their placement in absolute chronology or to support the somewhat dubious length of reigns alleged on the king list A.

===Ilum-ma-ilī===

'''Ilum-ma-ilī''',<ref group=i>Tablet Ashm. 1922.353 from Larsa.</ref> or Iliman (mili-ma-an),<ref group=i name=klb/> the founder of the dynasty, is known from the account of his exploits in the ''[[Chronicle of Early Kings]]''<ref group=i name=early/> which describes his conflicts with his Amorite Babylonian contemporaries Samsu-iluna and Abi-ešuḫ. It records that he “attacked and brought about the defeat of (Samsu-iluna’s) army.” He is thought to have conquered [[Nippur]] late in Samsu-iluna’s reign <ref>{{ cite book | title = Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles | author = Albert Kirk Grayson | publisher = J. J. Augustin | year = 1975 | page = 221 }}</ref> as there are legal documents from Nippur dated to his reign.<ref group=i>Five legal tablets such as CBS 4956, published in Chiera (1914), CBS 11013, published as BE VI 2 text 68, 3N-T 87, UM 55-21-239 catalogued as SAOC 44 text 12, and OIMA 1 45, from Nippur.</ref> [[Abi-eshuh]], the [[Amorite]] king of Babylon, and [[Samsu-iluna]]’s son and successor, “set out to conquer Ilum-ma-ilī,” by damming the [[Tigris]], to flush him out of his swampy refuge, an endeavor which was apparently confounded by Ilum-ma-ilī’s superior use of the terrain.

===Damqi-ilišu===

The last surviving year-name for [[Ammi-ditana]] commemorates the “year in which (he) destroyed the city wall of [[Der (Sumer)|Der]]/Udinim built by the army of '''Damqi-ilišu'''.<ref group=i>Tablets MCS 2 52, YOS 13 359.</ref> This is the only current contemporary indication of the spelling of his name, contrasting with that of the earlier king of Isin.<ref>{{ cite book | title = The world's oldest literature: studies in Sumerian belles-lettres | author = William W. Hallo | publisher = BRILL | year = 2009 | page = 183 }}</ref>

===Gulkišar===

'''Gulkišar''', meaning “raider of the earth,” has left few traces of his apparently lengthy reign. He was the subject of a royal epic concerning his enmity with [[Samsu-Ditana|Samsu-ditāna]], the last king of the first dynasty of Babylon.<ref>{{ cite journal | title = 15) On the origin of the goddess Ištar-of-the-Sealand, Ayyabītu | author = Odette Boivin | journal = Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires (NABU) | year = 2016 | issue = 1 (Mars) | page = 25 }}</ref> The colophon of a tablet giving a chemical recipe for glaze<ref group=i>Tablet BM 120960 thought to have been recovered from Tall 'Umar (Seleucia) on the Tigris.</ref> reads “property of a priest of Marduk in Eridu,” thought to be a quarter of Babylon rather than the city of Eridu, is dated ''mu.us-sa Gul-ki-šar lugal-e'' "year after (the one when) Gul-kisar (became?) king.”<ref>{{ cite book | title = Glass and Glassmaking in Ancient Mesopotamia | author = A. Leo Oppenheim | publisher = The Corning Museum of Glass Press | year = 1970 | page = 60 }}</ref> A kudurru<ref group=i>Kudurru in the University Museum, Philadelphia, BE I/1 83 15.</ref> of the period of Babylonian king [[Enlil-nadin-apli|Enlil-nādin-apli]], c. 1103–1100 BC, records the outcome of an inquiry instigated by the king into the ownership of a plot of land claimed by a temple estate. The governors of Bit-Sin-magir and Sealand, upheld the claim based on the earlier actions of Gulkišar who had “drawn for Nanse, his divine mistress, a land boundary.” It is an early example of a ''Distanzangaben'' statement recording that 696 years had elapsed between [[Nebuchadnezzar I|Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur]], Enlil-nādin-apli’s father, and Gulkišar.<ref name=brinkman>{{ cite book | title = A political history of post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158–722 B.C. | author = J. A. Brinkman | publisher = Analecta Orientalia | year = 1968 | page = 118 }}</ref>

===Pešgaldarameš and Ayadaragalama===

'''Pešgaldarameš''', “son of the ibex,” and '''Ayadaragalama''', “son of the clever stag,” were successive kings and descendants (DUMU, "sons" in its broadest meaning) of Gulkišar.

Recently (2009) published tablets mainly from the [[Schoyen Collection|Martin Schøyen collection]], the largest privately held collection of manuscripts to be assembled during the 20th century, cover a 15 to 18 year period extending over part of each king’s reign. They seem to originate from a single cache but their provenance was lost after languishing in smaller private collections since their acquisition on the antiquities market a century earlier.<ref name=dalley/>{{rp|v}} The tablets include letters, receipts, ledgers, personnel rosters, etc., and provide year-names and references which hint at events of the period. Messengers from [[Elam]] are provisioned,<ref group=i>MS 2200/40 and MS 2200/455.</ref> Anzak, a god of [[Dilmun]] (ancient Bahrain) appears as a theophoric element in names,<ref group=i>MS 2200/394, 444, 321 and so on.</ref> and Nūr-Bau asks whether he should detain the boats of [[Eshnunna|Ešnunna]],<ref group=i>MS 2200/3.</ref> a rare late reference to this once thriving Sumerian conurbation. In addition to normal commercial activity, two omen texts<ref group=i>R. Kovacs 5304 and 5309.</ref> from another private collection are dated to the reign of Pešgaldarameš and a kurugu-hymn mentions Ayadaragalama.<ref group=i>R. Kovacs 5306.</ref> A variant version of the [[Epic of Gilgamesh|Epic of Gilgameš]] relocates the hero to [[Ur]] and is a piece from this period.<ref name=dalley/>

Ayadaragalama’s reign seems to have been eventful, as a year-name records expelling the “massed might of two enemies,” speculated to be [[Elamites]] and [[Kassites]], the Kassites having previously deposed the [[Amorites]] as rulers in Babylon. Another records the building of a “great ring against the Kalšu (Kassite) enemy” and a third records the “year when his land rebelled.” A year-name gives “year when Ayadaragalama was king – after Enlil established (for him?) the shepherding of the whole earth,” and a list of gods includes [[Marduk]] and [[Sarpanitum]], the tutelary deities of the Sealand.<ref group=i>MS 2200/81.</ref><ref name=dalley/> Excavations conducted between 2013 and 2017 at Tell Khaiber, around 20 km from [[Ur]], have revealed the foundations of a large mudbrick fortress with an unusual arrangement of perimeter close-set towers and is dated, by an archive of almost 200 administrative tablets, to Ayadaragalama.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/01/castle-sealand-kings-ancient-iraqs-rebel-rulers|title=Castle of the Sealand kings: Discovering ancient Iraq’s rebel rulers - The Guardian|website=www.theguardian.com/|date=2017-09-01|accessdate=2017-09-02}}</ref>

A neo-Babylonian official took a bronze band dedicatory inscription of ''A-ia-da-a-ra'', MAN ŠÚ “king of the world,” to [[Tell en-Nasbeh]], probably as an antique curio, where it was discarded to be found in the 20th century.

===Ea-gâmil===

'''Ea-gâmil''', the ultimate king of the dynasty, fled to [[Elam]] ahead of an invading horde led by [[Kassites|Kassite]] chief [[Ulamburiash|Ulam-Buriaš]], brother of the king of Babylon [[Kashtiliash III]], who conquered the Sealand, incorporated it into [[Babylonia]] and “made himself master of the land.”

==Inscriptions==

<references group="i"/>

==Notes==

<references group="nb"/>

==References==

{{Reflist}}

{{Babylonian kings}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sealand Dynasty}}
[[Category:States and territories established in the 18th century BC]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in the 15th century BC]]
[[Category:Babylonian kings]]

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