Piotr Michalowski
580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104
Memories of Rim-Sin II
2019, Pp. 669-692 in G. Chambon, M. Guichard & A.-I. Langlois (eds), De l’argile au numérique. Mélanges assyriologiques en l’honneur de Dominique Charpin, ISBN 978-90-429-3872-4.
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Abstract
Less than a decade after the death of Hammurabi, the Babylonian state faced its most significant crisis: a set of insurgencies against the regime of his son Samsu-iluna that threatened the very foundations of the realm. Rebel leaders took power in the major cities of southern Babylonia and among them the most prominent was someone named Rim-Sin, who probably took on the name of the old monarch of Larsa. For reasons that are difficult to recover, but perhaps indicating allegiance or synergy with Rim-Sin, some of the other rebel kings also acquired names that began with the element rīmum, "wild bull," as in Rim-Anum, the leader of the uprising in Uruk or Rim-Šara in Umma. But the "false" Rim-Sin, a pretender or samozvanets/samozwaniec, "self-named," as the Russians or Poles would say, may not have been from Larsa, and although we know very little about him, there are some signs that the conflict between him, his fellow insurgents in other cities and the Babylonian Crown had elements that went beyond economic and military action. The available information on the rebellion is hardly abundant (although unpublished materials will eventually make up for this): some economic documents dated to Rim-Sin II and Iluni, the insurgent leader in Ešnunna, a somewhat larger number from the time of Rim-Anum of Uruk, several year names, some letters, including the correspondence of Iluni, as well as information embedded in a few inscriptions of the beleaguered Babylonian monarch. The revolt seems to rise from nowhere, and within months most the bigger cities of the realm
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Key takeaways
- It has been generally agreed that the last formula of Rim-Sin II, Stol's year b-actually his solitary year in power-combined two unrelated facts, a victory over an odious enemy, in one instance identified as Kassite, and the king's elevation to regional hegemony by the mother goddess in the main temple of the city of Keš.
- en.zu lugal-e d nin-mah-e e 2 keš 3 ki temen an ki-bi-da-ta nam-lugal kalam kiš ĝal 2 -la-še 3 gal-bi-ta ba-an-il 2 -la Year: King Rim-Sin, having been mightily elevated by divine Ninmah to the kingship of the entirety of the homeland in Keš Temple, the foundation of the heavens and the earth, … One contemporary letter is often cited in connection with this year (AbB 13, 53):
- Why would Rim-Sin move his base of operations to the dilapidated remains of the old city of Keš and why should he claim divine sanction there, rather than in Nippur, which was apparently in his grasp, seeking the endorsement of the ancient mother goddess rather than the traditional authorization of the god Enlil?
- Moreover, Keš lays close to Maškan-šapir, the secondary capital of the old Larsa Yamutbal polity of Rim-Sin I, and thus his younger namesake could assert his claim to be the rightful inheritor of that kingdom, as he did in the letter cited above.
- Indeed, it may very well be that there never had been any battle around Kiš at this time and that Rim-Sin II was executed in Keš, that is in Tūlūl al-Baraqat, not far from Maškan-šapir, the secondary capital of the old Larsa kingdom, in the heart of the very Yamutbal that he had claimed to "bring light to," but these facts were misconstrued or willfully altered by Samsu-iluna's scribes.