Marduk-bēl-zēri, inscribed in
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
as
dAMAR.UTU.EN.NUMUN[Tablet YBC 11546 in the Yale Babylonian Collection.][''Dynastic Chronicle'' vi 2.] or
mdŠID.EN. ref group=i name=sync>''Synchronistic King List'', tablet VAT 11345 (KAV 13), 2. and meaning “
Marduk (is) lord of descendants (lit. seed)”,
was one of the kings of
Babylon during the turmoil following the
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
n invasions of
Šamši-Adad V (ca. 824 – 811 BC). He is identified on a ''Synchronistic King List'' fragment
[ as ''Marduk-'' 'bēl''x, which gives his place in the sequence and reigned around the beginning of the 8th century BC. He was a rather obscure monarch and the penultimate predecessor of Erība-Marduk who was to restore order after years of chaos.
]
Biography
He is known from a single economic text[ from the southern city of Udāni dated to his accession year (MU.SAG.NAM.LUGAL). This city was a satellite cultic center to ]Uruk
Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...
, of uncertain location but possibly near Marad, later to be known as Udannu, associated with the deities dIGI.DU (the two infernal Nergals) and Bēlet-Eanna (associated with Ištar
Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Su ...
). The document records the parts of a chariot including the wagon pole (''mašaddu'') which had been entrusted by Belšunu, the ''šangû'' or chief administrator of Udāni to the temple of dIGI.DU (Igišta, Palil?).[ He is tentatively restored to the '' Dynastic Chronicle''][ where he is described as “a soldier” (lúaga. š but his circumstances are otherwise unknown.]
Inscriptions
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marduk-bel-zeri
8th-century BC Babylonian kings
8th-century BC rulers