Marduk-aḫḫē-erība, inscribed in cuneiform contemporarily as mdAMAR.UTU-ŠEŠ-MEŠ-SU, meaning: “Marduk has replaced the brothers for me,” a designation given to younger sons whose older siblings have typically predeceased them,[2] ruled c. 1042 BC as the 9th king of the 2nd Dynasty of Isin and the 4th Dynasty of Babylon, but only for around 6 months using the date formula: MU 1 ITI 6,[3] which first appears in Kassite times and is open to interpretation.[b] According to the Synchronistic Kinglist[i 2] he was a contemporary of the Assyrian king Aššur-bêl-kala where only the beginning of his name appears below that of his immediate predecessor Adad-apla-iddina.
| Marduk-aḫḫe-eriba | |
|---|---|
| King of Babylon | |
 Hilprecht’s line art for the Marduk-aḫḫē-erība kudurru[i 1] | |
| Reign | c. 1042 BC[a] |
| Predecessor | Adad-apla-iddina |
| Successor | Marduk-zer-X |
| House | 2nd Dynasty of Isin |
Biography
editThe only contemporary source is a kudurru[i 1] (line art pictured),[4] or gray limestone boundary marker, in a private collection in Istanbul, which records a land grant to a certain Kudurrâ, a “Ḫabiru” and servant of the king, in a region of northern Babylonia called Bīt-Piri’-Amurru.[5] The term Ḫabiru may be a socio-economic designation rather than an indication of "Hebrew" ethnicity, since the name Kudurrâ is possibly not linguistically of semitic derivation. The field was surveyed[c] by a diviner, a scribe named Nabû-ēriš the son of (i.e. descendant of) Arad-Ea, an administrator and a mayor.[6]
It has been suggested that he is the 5th king represented in the Prophecy A[i 3] by the single line, “A prince will arise, and his days will be short. He will not rule in the land.”[7] This is a late Assyrian tablet found at Assur and first published in 1923, which narrates a sequence of 12 Babylonian kings.
See also
editInscriptions
editNotes
edit- ^ Previous scholarship assumed that Marduk-kabit-ahheshu, the founder of the second dynasty of Isin, ruled for the first years of his reign concurrently with the last Kassite king, but per Beaulieu (2018), more recent research suggests that this was not the case, necessitating a revised chronology of the kings after Marduk-kabit-ahheshu. Marduk-ahhe-eriba has previously been dated to about 1046 BC, with 1042 BC being Beaulieu's revised date.[1]
- ^ The Kinglist A, tablet BM 33332, iii 2 which gives the beginning of his name as: mdŠÚ-ŠEŠ-
- ^ Termed rēš eqli našû, to lift the head of the field.
References
edit- ^ Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2018). A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75. Pondicherry: Wiley. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-1405188999.
- ^ J. A. Brinkman (1968). A political history of post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158-722 B.C. Analecta Orientalia. p. 144.
- ^ A. Poebel (1955). The Second Dynasty of Isin According to a New King-List Tablet. University of Chicago Press. p. 11.
- ^ H. V. Hilprecht (1896). Old Babylonian Inscriptions Chiefly from Nippur, volume I part II. Philadelphia: Amer. Philos. Society. pp. 65–67. text 149.
- ^ J. A. Brinkman (1999). Dietz Otto Edzard (ed.). Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Libanukasabas – Medizin. Walter De Gruyter. p. 374.
- ^ Eleanor Robson (2008). Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History. Princeton University Press. pp. 169, 174.
- ^ Tremper Longman (July 1, 1990). Fictional Akkadian autobiography: a generic and comparative study. Eisenbrauns. p. 161.