Shulgi-simti was the wife or concubine of

Shulgi Shulgi ( dŠulgi, formerly read as Dungi) of Ur was the second king of the Third Dynasty of Ur. He reigned for 48 years, from c. 2094 – c. 2046 BC (Middle Chronology) or possibly c. 2030 – 1982 BC (Short Chronology). His accomplishmen ...

, second king of the

Third Dynasty of Ur The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC (middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider to ...

. She is known from a high number of cuneiform texts coming from her household at

Puzrish-Dagan Puzrish-Dagan (modern Drehem) is an important archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate (Iraq). It is best-known for the thousands of clay tablets that are known to have come from the site through looting during the early twentieth centu ...

new Nippur. Her name is Akkadian, but the exact meaning is uncertain, evidently the name refers to her husband Shulgi and might be translated as ''Shulgi is my glory'', although this is only a guess. The name was given to her while she came to Shulgi. Nothing is known about her former life and her family. There is some debate about her position. Many scholars regard her as queen,Rita P. Wrightː ''Gendered Relations and the UR III Dynasty'', inː Diane Bolger (ed.)ː ''Gender Through Time in the Ancient Near East'', Plymouth, ISBN 978-07591-1092-2, p. 265 but other argue that there are only very few texts referring to her as queen and that those are open to different interpretations. Therefore, it seems most likely that she was just a concubine. Shulgi-simti is mainly known from the archive of her household providing much evidence for people working for her and her economic power. Her secretary, was Maš-gu-la. Several messengers are known. Several men looked after her lifstock Although most of her texts come from Puzrish-Dagan, it seems that she actually lived in Ur. The cuneiform text archive of Shulgi-simti was found by illegal excavations around 1909. The cuneiform tablets are now mainly in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and in the Montserrat Abbey in Spain. The texts in the archive mainly deal with transaction in a religious foundation most likely made by Shulgi-simti. The archive stops with her death. The texts can be divided into two groups, incomes and expenditures. The texts provides the names of people working for Shulgi-simti and many further details about economical transactions. However, in comparison to other households, her estate seems to be rather modest.

References

Literature

*{{cite book, last=Sharlach, first=Tonia M., authorlink1=Tonia Sharlach, title=An Ox of One's Own, Royal Wives and Religion at the Court of the Third Dynasty of Ur, location=Berlin/Boston, publisher= Walter de Gruyter GmbH, year=2017, isbn= 978-1-5015-1447-0 21st-century BC people 21st-century BC women Third Dynasty of Ur