The Sumerian King's list opens with, "After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu."
Queen Puabi ruled the Mesopotamian city-state of Ur, birthplace of Abraham, around 2500 B.C. The lives of women in ancient Mesopotamia were regulated by a patriarchal hierarchy. Within this social structure, there were many who distinguished themselves and some were able to serve as generals, scribes, and rule in their own right.
Sumerians were creators of one of the world’s earliest civilizations. Ancient Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq, emerged approximately 7000 B.C. By about 3000 B.C., a system of city-states had been founded in the area.
The Sumerians established an extensive trading system to supply wood, stone and other raw materials. That trading system reached Egypt, Turkey, Iran, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and India.
By the Third Dynasty of Ur, kings and queens were building the first monumental temples. Bustling with more than 20,000 inhabitants, Ur had all the features of a city—a central administration, legal codes, monumental buildings, trade networks, art, music and literature.
Queen Puabi died around 4,500 years ago, during the First Dynasty of Ur, a few hundred years before the birth of Abraham. Her tomb was among 1,800 burials excavated at Tell ai-Muqayyar. Thick layers of water-laid clay were found beneath dating back to between 4,000 and 3,000 BC.
A tablet containing six columns of text, written in Sumerian cuneiform, tells the flood story, and describes the creation of humans and animals, and records the names of pre-Noah (antediluvian) cities and their rulers. Inscriptions on the cylinder seal do not mention her husband, suggesting that she ruled in her own right.
A number of other cuneiform tablets were also recovered. These included archives, temple and domestic, from the Early Dynastic period, the Ur III period, Old and Middle Babylonian period, and the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. Many literary and religious texts were also recovered.
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Like this post? Stop by and read “Queen Kubaba: Lugal of Third Sumerian Dynasty.” Kubaba. was a Mesopotamian queen who ruled in the early days of the third dynasty of Kish during 2500–2330 B.C.
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