Epilogue

1.But note, however, that the existence of a kingly figure with religious overtones in Uruk Mesopotamia is disputed by some specialists (e.g., Glassner 2003, 204–12), who argue that there is little supporting textual evidence for the title “king” in the Archaic Texts. While this is largely true, there is one exception, and it happens to be a significant one. One of the earliest and most important lexical lists in the corpus of Archaic Texts is a document conventionally referred to as the “Titles and Professions List.” Fragmentary scribal copies of this standardized list are known at Warka already in the earliest Uruk IV–type script (Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993, 110–15). In its complete version, the document lists over 120 categories of specialized administrative and priestly personnel in some sort of hierarchical order. Entries include the titles of administrators in charge of various state offices and in many cases also detail the ranks of lesser officials within individual offices. What makes this list pertinent to the discussion of kingship in the Uruk period is that it starts with a functionary designated by

an enigmatic sign combination, NAM2+ÉSDA. This official is attested already in Uruk III script-type versions of the list, which date to the very end of the fourth

millennium (Jemdet Nasr period). Because of its position at the head of a list of officials presented in declining order of importance, it is highly likely that the

NAM2+ÉSDA functionary stands at the very top of the administrative pyramid in early Sumerian cities.

Who is this man and what does he do? In answer to these questions, Hans Nissen notes that since the sign combination at issue is equated in a much later Sumerian-Akkadian dictionary with the Akkadian word Šarrum, which incontestably means king (Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993, 111), it stands to reason that a comparable meaning can be ascribed to the earlier fourth-millennium

attestation of NAM2+ÉSDA.

In addition, views that deny the existence of kings in fourth-millennium Mesopotamia are undermined, in my opinion, by the striking iconographic continuity that exists between the “priest-king/city ruler” images of the Uruk period and the way Sumerian kings of third-millennium date were represented, whose identity is established without a doubt by associated inscriptions.

2.What I envision is a project similar in research goals, scale, and level of analytical precision to the exhaustive coring program recently undertaken by Dutch, U.S., and Egyptian scholars on the Egyptian Delta (Butzer 2001) and Belgian and Iranian researchers in southwestern Iran (Baeteman, Dupin, and Heyvaert

2004, 2005).

3.The materials published in the series Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka Endberichte may not include many artifacts left in Baghdad as part of the Iraqi share of the finds. In addition, the materials in question were not excavated, collected, or recorded using modern problem-oriented procedures (Nissen 2002).

4. After assessing changes in the relative density of imported and exported materials (chert and, more rarely, copper and lapis lazuli, and bitumen, respectively) at Farukhabad throughout the fourth millennium, Wright concluded that increases in the participation of the site’s inhabitants in long distance trade networks did not take place until after the Uruk period. Elsewhere, I have argued that while this conclusion is warranted by the Farukhabad data it is unlikely that results from the site, a small center 4–5 hectares in extent in a somewhat marginal location, are representative of conditions in the much larger centers at the core of the Uruk world (Algaze 1993 [2005a], 119).