The First Dynasty of the Sealand in Mesopotamia

The Sealand kingdom arose from the rebellion against Babylonian hegemony in the latter half of the 18th century BCE., forcing it to share power over Sumer and Akkad. Although its kings maintained themselves throughout the turmoil leading to the demise of the Amorite dynasty at Babylon, it remains one of the most poorly documented Mesopotamian polities.

Until recently, it was known to us mainly through its inclusion into later king lists and chronicles, but the recent publication of well over 400 archival texts from a Sealand palace, soon followed by literary and divinatory tablets, finally makes it possible to study this polity from primary sources. This book proposes a history of the Sealand kingdom based on the new evidence and a reevaluation of previously known sources.

The aspects examined are: the economy — mainly the palatial administration and transformation of agricultural and animal resources; the panthea and the palace-sponsored cult, which show that Sealand I kings may have positioned their rule in a Larsean tradition; the political history, including a discussion of the geography and the relative chronology; the recording and transmission of knowledge on the Sealand I dynasty in Mesopotamian historiography.

"This book provides an excellent collection and analysis of the newly-published Sealand materials, which now ongoing archaeological research in southern Iraq will hopefully further contextualize."
Marc Van De Mieroop in: BMCR (26.03.2019), http://www.bmcreview.org/2019/03/20190332.html

"Avec ces données abondantes et détaillées, l’auteure a fourni un travail utile. L’ouvrage est impressionnant par la présentation des textes qui peuvent aisément être négligés s’ils ne sont pas regroupés et mis en perspective selon les règles de l’histoire. Il ressort au total un tableau clair de cette documentation quatre fois millénaire."
Daniel Bonnetre in: Histara (12.09.2019), http://histara.sorbonne.fr/cr.php?cr=3788