Ur-Zababa

For a war god, see Zababa.

Ur-Zababa is a name listed on the Sumerian King List as the second king of the 4th Dynasty of Kish. The king list also says Sargon of Akkad was a cup-bearer for Ur-Zababa before becoming ruler of Akkadian Empire.

Family

According to the King list, Ur-Zababa was a son of King Puzur-Suen. His mother is unknown.^[1][2] His grandmother was the famous Queen Kugbau.

Sargon legend

Sargon legend is a Sumerian text purporting to be Sargon's biography. In the text Ur-Zababa is mentioned, who awakens after a dream. For unknown reasons, Ur-Zababa appoints Sargon as a cupbearer. Soon after this, Ur-Zababa invites Sargon to his chambers to discuss a dream of Sargon's, involving the favor of the goddess Inanna. Ur-Zababa was deeply frightened.

When Sargon returns to Ur-Zababa, the king becomes frightened again, and decides to send Sargon to King Lugal-zage-si of Uruk with a message on a clay tablet asking him to slay Sargon.^[3][4]

Other sources

The Weidner Chronicle (ABC 19) agrees with both the SKL and the Sargon Legend in making Sargon the cupbearer to Ur-Zababa, mentioning him in a single line as ruling in between Kubaba (Kugbau) and Sargon.

Ur-Zababa ordered Sargon, his cupbearer, to change the wine libations of Esagila.

It goes on to say that Sargon failed to comply fully with this order, and though he became king, he was eventually punished by the Sumerian deities for his improper observances.^[5]

Most copies of the King list give Ur-Zababa an unrealistic reign of 400 years, but one copy reading "six years" is held to be more plausible.

It is known that Lugal-zaggesi of Uruk and Umma destroyed Kish toward the end of his reign, before himself being deposed by Sargon. It is often assumed that Sargon also played a role in Ur-Zababa's downfall, but the relevant texts are too fragmentary to be explicit.

Ur-Zababa's successors in Kish as named on the king-list, beginning with Zimudar, seem to have been vassals of Sargon, and there is no evidence that they ever really exercised hegemony in Sumer.^[6]

Notes

1. ↑ The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History: Kaffka by Bonnie G. Smith
2. ↑ Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien: Festschrift für Claus Wilcke
3. ↑ "The Sargon Legend." The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. Oxford University, 2006
4. ↑ Cooper & Heimpel 1983: 67–82
5. ↑ Weidner Chronicle
6. ↑ Kish at The History Files