Kish (Sumer)

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Babylonia in the time of Hammurabi, showing his empire at the start and end of his reign

This article is about the Sumerian city. For other uses, see Kish.

Not to be confused with Kesh (Sumer)

Kish (Sumerian: KIŠ^KI, modern Tell al-Uhaymir, Iraq) was an ancient city of Sumer, situated some 12 km east of Babylon, now ca. 80 km south of Baghdad, in the Babil Governorate, Iraq. The Sumerian king list states it was the first city to have kings after a flood mentioned in the king list. The city's patron deity was Zababa in Akkadian times.

"King of Kish" is one of the early titles assumed by Sumerian rulers of other city states used to indicate hegemony over the region. Some scholars believe that Kish had a Semitic population from earliest times, based on some early dynastic king names from the list that are considered to be Semitic.^{[citation needed]}

A French archaeological team under Henri de Genouillac excavated there between 1912 and 1914, and later an Anglo-American team under Stephen Langdon from 1923 to 1933.

[edit] Sources

Karen Rhea Nemat-Nejat Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Greenwood, 1998, ISBN 0-313-29497-6; Hendrickson, 2002, ISBN 1-56563-712-7)
N.K. Sanders (trans) The Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin Classics, 1974, ISBN 0-14-044100-X)
Nissen, Hans The early history of the ancient Near East, 9000-2000 B.C. (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1988. ISBN 0-226-58656-1, ISBN 0-226-58658-8) Elizabeth Lutzeir, trans.