Endnote 1 – The Birth of Kingship

The theory of Sumerian democracy was essentially developed by the great Assyriologist and cuneiformist Thorkild Jacobsen (1904–1993) in his years at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute before he left for Harvard. See Thorkild Jacobsen, “Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 11 (1943), pp. 159–172 (reprinted in Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture, ed. William L. Moran [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970], pp. 157–170); and, “Early Political Developments in Mesopotamia,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 52 (1957), pp. 91–140 (reprinted in Jacobsen, Image of Tammuz, pp. 132–156). The theory is not without its critics; see most recently Walther Sallaberger, “Nippur als religiöses Zentrum Mesopotmiens im historischen Wandel,” in Gernot Wilhelm, ed., Die Orientalische Stadt: Kontniutät, Wandel, Bruch (Saarbrücker Druckerei, 1997), pp. 147–153. The theory also has its defenders; see Gebhard J. Selz, “Über Mesopotamische Herrschaftkonzepte: Zu den Ursprüngen mesopotamischer Herrscherideologie im 3 Jahrtausend,” in Thomas E. Balke, Manfred Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, eds., Dubsar anta-men: Studien zur Altorientalistik, Festschrift für Willem H.Ph. Römer (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1998), pp. 281–314.