The Dynastic Chronicle, ''"Chronicle 18"'' in Grayson's ''Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles'' or the ''"Babylonian Royal Chronicle"'' in Glassner’s ''Mesopotamian Chronicles'', is a fragmentary ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

n text extant in at least four known copies. It is actually a bilingual text written in 6 columns, representing a continuation of the

Sumerian king list The ''Sumerian King List'' (abbreviated ''SKL'') or ''Chronicle of the One Monarchy'' is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims to power of various city-states and king ...

tradition through to the 8th century BC and is an important source for the reconstruction of the historical narrative for certain periods poorly preserved elsewhere.

The text

From the extant pieces, the work apparently begins with a list of nine antediluvian kings from five cities, so much resembling that of the Sumerian King List that

Thorkild Jacobsen Thorkild Peter Rudolph Jacobsen (; 7 June 1904 – 2 May 1993) was a renowned Danish historian specializing in Assyriology and Sumerian literature. He was one of the foremost scholars on the ancient Near East. Biography Thorkild Peter Rudolph Ja ...

considered it a variant, and an account of the flood before proceeding on with that of the successive Babylonian dynasties. Due to the poor state of preservation of the center of the text, there are a great many gaps ( lacunae, or lacunas), and the narrative resumes with the post-

Kassite The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babyl ...

king Simbar-Šipak (ca.1025–1008 BC), the final discernible king being Erība-Marduk (ca. 769–761 BC) although it certainly would have continued, possibly until Nabû-šuma-iškun (ca. 761–748 BC), leading

William W. Hallo William Wolfgang Hallo (March 9, 1928 – March, 27, 2015Nabû-nāṣir's reign (747–732 BC). The text dwells on the final resting place of the kings, leading some to propose that the legitimacy of rule determined the location of the burial.

Reconstruction

The following collation should be considered preliminary as small fragments continue to be identified, where 1A, 1B and 1C probably come from the same tablet although they do not actually join and others, such as 79-7-8, 333+ (copy 2 below) have their identification disputed.

References

External links

The Dynastic Chronicle a
Livius
br> CDLI links to tablet fragments are provided in the table (above).

The text

Reconstruction

References

External links

See also