Proto-Cuneiform · Accounting · Barley · Beer · The First Named Individual

Patron god of Lagash · warrior of Enlil · theological sovereign of the Early Dynastic city-state

Ensi / Lugal · Stele of the Vultures · treaty with Umma · first surviving international legal document

Ensi · son of Enannatum I · continuation of the Umma border dispute · cone inscriptions

Queen consort of Lugalanda · administrator of the household of Bau · independent economic agent

Lugal · the Reform Cones · first documented reform programme · abolished extractive offices

Wife of Urukagina · administrator of the household of Bau · executor of reform administration

The offices abolished by the Reform Cones · via negativa · the list of what was forbidden is the record of what existed

Administrator of funerary rites · fee-setter · the ritual-economic interface before reform

Scribal administrator · keeper of the Bau temple accounts · documenter of the redistributive economy

Ensi of Umma → King of Uruk → first to claim all of Sumer · destroyer of Lagash · precursor to Sargon

Empire · Conquest · The Birth Legend · Cupbearer to King · Akkadian Dynasty

Hymns · The Exaltation of Inanna · First Named Author · En-Priestess of Nanna · Daughter of Sargon

God-King · The Victory Stele · Hubris · The Curse of Agade · Empire at Its Height

Vizier · lugal sa-za · 18-year tenure · Treaty with Abarsal (earliest surviving international treaty)

Queen mother · maliktum · succession manager · co-regent during minority

Council of elders · structural check on royal authority · treaty confirmation

Provincial governor · district mayor · interface between palace and sixty vassal polities

Military commander · campaign letter · one of the earliest surviving field-to-centre military reports

Temple Building · Cylinders A & B · Piety · Ningirsu · Dreaming Architecture

The Code of Ur-Nammu · Oldest Law Code · Ziggurat of Ur · Ur III Dynasty Founder

Ur III · Administration · Literature · Self-Praise · The Running King

Scribal School · Cuneiform Pedagogy · Tablet House · Sumerian Education

Assyrian Trade Colonies · Letters · Commerce · Credit · Long-Distance Trade

The Codex · Law · Kingship · Justice · Old Babylonian Empire

Pythagorean Triples · Old Babylonian Mathematics · Sexagesimal · The Larsa Tablet

King of Mari · restorer of the dynasty · patron of the 25,000-tablet palace archive · killed by Hammurabi

Chief queen · administrator in the king’s absence · intelligence correspondent · daughter of Yamhad

Diplomatic marriages · letters home from vassal courts · informal intelligence network · political agents

Predecessor king · son of Shamshi-Adad · displaced by Zimri-Lim · correspondence with his critical father

Chief palace administrator · textile and metal inventories · the functional centre of the apparatus

‘The Answerer’ · ecstatic prophet · relayed Dagan’s speech · the prophecy-in-the-archive

Provincial administrator · tribal mediation · agricultural reporting · the hinge between palace and land

Archive administrator · letter drafting · curator of 25,000 tablets · decider of what is kept

King of Babylon · ally of Zimri-Lim · eventual destroyer of Mari · read here through his letters INTO the Mari court

Military Reform · Provincial System · Mass Deportation · The Neo-Assyrian War Machine

Nineveh · Military Campaigns · Engineering · The Palace Without Rival · Siege of Lachish

The Library of Nineveh · Literacy · Military · The Learned King · Cuneiform Preservation

King of Assyria · the literate king · builder of the Library of Nineveh · collector of the Mesopotamian canon

Co-king of Babylon · brother of Ashurbanipal · rebelled against the Assyrian succession plan · died in the palace fire

Chief scholar · royal adviser · head of the scholarly establishment · letter-writer of state

Senior royal scholar · scribal teacher of Ashurbanipal · exorcist · interpreter of omens

Custodian of the girginakku · cataloguer · the hand behind the preservation of the Mesopotamian corpus

Tablet cataloguer · colophon assigner · ummânu · canonical copyist

Temple Accounts · Administrative Cuneiform · Livestock Records · The First Bureaucracy

School Father · Scribal Pedagogy · Cuneiform Transmission · The Edubba Dialogues

Contract Law · Obligation · Sumerian Legal Formulae · Witnessing · dubsar kitim

Edubba Disputations · Scribal Competition · Nippur · Dialogue 3

Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh · āšipu · Literary Editing · First Named Literary Editor

Babylon · The Hanging Gardens · The Exile · Ishtar Gate · Builder-King

Archaeology · Sîn Worship · Harran · The Absent King · The Verse Account

System B Lunar Theory · Synodic Month · Chaldaean Astronomy · Tersitu Tablets

The Epic · Enkidu · The Flood · Mortality · The Cedar Forest · Two-Thirds Divine

The First Individual Complaint · Sumerian Job · Theodicy · Why Me? · Nippur

Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh · Editor · Redactor · The Eleven-Tablet Epic

Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi · Theodicy · Why Do the Good Suffer? · The Babylonian Job

Wisdom Literature · Master and Slave · Nihilism · Comedy · The Equal Weight of All Reasons

Kabbalah · Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism · Sabbatai Zevi · Walter Benjamin · Hochschule

Love · War · Descent · Sovereignty · The First Goddess

Wisdom · Water · Craft · Civilisation · The Trickster God

Wind · Storms · Kingship · Fate · Lord of the Air

Earth · Birth · Healing · The Mother of Gods

Underworld · Death · Grief · The Great Below

Sun · Justice · Truth · The Witness of All Things

Moon · Time · Cattle · The Measurer of Days