Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur, inscribed <sup>d</sup><small>IM-MU-à  Eà  </small>, meaning "O Adad, protect the name!," and dated very tentatively c. 1217âÂÂ1187 BC, was the 32nd king of the 3rd or Kassite dynasty of Babylon and the country contemporarily known as Karduniaà ¡. His name was wholly Babylonian and not uncommon, as for example the later Assyrian King Esarhaddon (681âÂÂ669 BC) had a personal exorcist, or aà ¡ipu, with the same name who was unlikely to have been related. He is best known for his rude letter to Aà ¡à ¡ur-nirari III, the most complete part of which is quoted below, and was enthroned following a revolt in the south of Mesopotamia when the north was still occupied by the forces of Assyria. He may not have assumed authority throughout the country until around the 25th year of his 30-year reign, although the exact sequence of events and chronology remains disputed.
There is surprisingly little contemporary evidence for this king considering the purported length of his reign, which was the longest recorded in the Kassite dynasty. The tablet known as King List A shows him following Adad-à ¡uma-iddina and his predecessor-but-one, Enlil-nadin-à ¡umi, but in Chronicle P he makes his appearance in the narrative before them. Brinkman argues that this is for stylistic purposes but the Walker Chronicle suggests a simpler explanation. Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur was elevated to the position of king in the south of the country years before he conquered Babylon and made himself its king. The early part of his reign may well have been concurrent with that of the three kings preceding him on King List A, but it is quite probable that he followed them in ascending the throne of the city of Babylon. It is a characteristic trait of this tablet that concurrent kings and dynasties are presented successively as if one followed another.
A late copy of an inscription on a bronze statue from Ur, begins âÂÂWhen Anu and Enlil looked with steady favour on Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur, the shepherd who pleased their heart, at that time Marduk, the great lord, named his name as ruler of (all) land[s],â supporting the theory that he reigned in Uruk and Nippur before being appointed by Marduk in Babylon.
The brevity of his reign over Babylon proper also explains the minimal contemporary inscriptions found. Only sixteen dated economic or legal texts attest to his reign, with just two of them from Babylon, bearing the curious double-dating formula adopted by Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur and his immediate successors. These are inscribed 7 KAM 3 KAM and 9 KAM 3 KAM, speculated to represent his 27th and 29th years. Twelve of the extant tablets have provenance from excavation at Ur. The earliest of these is dated to his 3rd year and records that à  amaà ¡-zÃÂra-à ¡ubà ¡i had inspected and âÂÂpluckedâ 103 sheep. Much of the remainder concern cattle, their sale and the legal actions taken to secure recompense for their theft. The determination of innocence or guilt was often arbitrated by âÂÂriver ordeal,â a process still poorly understood. In two documents, the judge was Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur, the à ¡akkanakku, âÂÂappointee, governor,â a role similarly adopted by his predecessor à  agarakti-à  uriaà ¡ and two other texts feature the same group of miscreants, Abu-á¹ÂÃÂbu, ZÃÂru-kënu and Sîn-pà «tu, suspects in three separate cases of cattle rustling.
The cities of Nippur, Dur, Isin and Marad had been sacked by the marauding Elamites under their king, Kidin-Hutran III, and two of these, Nippur and Isin were the subjects of construction work by Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur. Bricks from Isin were excavated in 1975/76 with a Sumerian inscription recording his work on the Egalmaḫ and also earlier from Nippur recording work on the Ekur (example text pictured). He had been credited with rebuilding the walls of Nippur in the Walker Chronicle.
Tukulti-Ninurta I, the king of Assyria, had captured Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur's predecessor, Kaà ¡tiliaà ¡u IV, on one of his two campaigns and conquered Babylon during the second one, perhaps around 1225 BC. He had taken the Babylonian kingship and then ruled there probably through governors, for seven years. There is an economic text from Nippur dated to his accession year. When exactly the three native kings, Enlil-nÃÂdin-à ¡umi, Kadaà ¡man-Ḫarbe II and Adad-à ¡uma-iddina succeeded one another is still uncertain, but their short reigns totalled around nine years. Yamada, for example, argues that Tukulti-Ninurta only ascended the Babylonian throne after their reigns. Others place his rule before them, or propose the first two ruled in the two-year period between Tukulti-Ninurta's two campaigns. Walker suggest that after them, it seems likely that Tukulti-Ninurta's successors appointed governors over Babylon until they fled in the face of Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur's triumph over the Assyrian king Enlil-kudurri-usur fifteen years or so after Tukulti-Ninurta died at the hand of assassins in his eponymous city.
Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur had been âÂÂput on his fatherâÂÂs throneâ by a rebellion against Tukulti-Ninurta among the Akkadian officers. Most of the contemporary economic texts dated to his reign come from Ur, suggesting the location of his investiture. The identity of his father is never explicitly stated in the chronicle but it was assumed in antiquity to have been Kaà ¡tiliaà ¡u IV. A Luristan bronze dagger in the Foroughi Collection is inscribed with his filiation to this king, and this claim may have helped reinforce his legitimacy. It reads: à ¡a <sup>d</sup>Ià  KUR-MU-URÃÂ, LUGAL KIà  , DUMU Kaà ¡-til-ia-à ¡u, LUGAL KÃÂ.DINGIR.RA<sup>ki</sup>, âÂÂ(property) of Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur, king of the world, son of Kaà ¡tiliaà ¡u, king of Babylon.âÂÂ
Tukulti-Ninurta wrote a letter to the Hittite king, thought to be Suppiluliuma II, four fragments of which were discovered at the site of excavations of Ḫattuà ¡a in the 1930s. It was dated to the limmu year of Ilë-padâ, in the latter part of Tukulti-Ninurta's reign. In it, he recaps the genealogy of the recent Kassite dynasty, mentioning Kurigalzu II, Kadaà ¡man-Enlil II and Kudur-Enlil then apparently castigating à  agarakti-à  uriaà ¡, the âÂÂnon-son of Kudur-EnlilâÂÂ, and his sons, one of whom, Kaà ¡tiliaà ¡u, had provoked the war by his dastardly pre-emptive strike against Assyria. In one place, the sons of à  agarakti-à  uriaà ¡ have been killed, almost certainly by none other than Tukulti-Ninurta himself. He then makes reference to a âÂÂservant of SuhiâÂÂ, where Suhu is a region of northeast Syria, and Itamar Singer proposes this individual to be Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur, the implication being he was a foreigner, not of the royal stock and consequently unqualified for office.
A letter from an Elamite king, thought to be Shutruk-Nahhunte, to the Kassite elders demanding the right to the Babylonian throne through blood, describes Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur as âÂÂson of Dunna-Sah, from the region by the bank of the EuphratesâÂÂ, in his criticism of their choice of regent. Unfortunately the Tukulti-Ninurta tablet is fragmentary and the text barely readable so a variety of restorations are possible. The letter ends with a plea for military aid and a moving, âÂÂIf I am alive, [I will send(?)] a message of/about my life, but if I am dead, the message of/about my death [will be sent to you(?)]âÂÂ, âÂÂone hundred years, my brother[...â and âÂÂyou have loved me with all your heart.âÂÂ
Tukulti-Ninurta, who âÂÂcarried criminal designs against Babylon,â was succeeded by his son and possible assassin Aà ¡à ¡ur-nadin-apli, but whose brief reign was succeeded in turn by his son, Aà ¡à ¡ur-nirari III. He was the recipient of an extremely offensive letter from Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur, which he addressed to âÂÂthe Assyrian kings,â putting Aà ¡à ¡ur-nirari on an equal footing with his subordinate for added insult, a fragment of which has fortuitously survived:
The Ilë-ḫaddâ mentioned is Ilë-padÃÂ, the viceroy of Hanigalbat, Ashur-nirari's distant relative (sharing a common ancestor in Eriba-Adad I), and father of the later Assyrian king, Ninurta-apal-Ekur. He had been the eponymous official (limmu) for the year in which Tukulti-Ninurta's letter was sent to the Hittite king. The letter was carefully copied and preserved in the library at Nineveh. Grayson speculates it was kept to âÂÂgoadâ the Assyrians to vengeance.
Ashur-nirari's rule proved to be fairly transitory and he was probably swept aside by his uncle, Enlil-kudurri-usur, another son of Tukulti-Ninurta. Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur âÂÂmuster]ed [his army] and attacked and defeated himâ and then
Following this famous victory, a âÂÂson of a nobody, whose name is not mentionedâ exploited the chance to enthrone himself in Babylon, so a revolt was propagated and Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur took the city and his place in the Kassite dynastic list. The events were captured for posterity in the Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur Epic, a late Babylonian historical literary work where a rebellion of officers and nobles is caused by the neglect of Marduk and Babylon. The penitent king confesses his sins to the god and restores his temple, Esagila.
The end of Enlil-kudurri-usur's reign is dated 1193 or 1183 depending on uncertainty about the duration of his successor's, Ninurta-apal-EkurâÂÂs, rule, three or thirteen years. As a son of Ilë-padÃÂ, Ninurta-apal-Ekur had exploited Enlil-kudurri-usurâÂÂs demise to seize power in Aà ¡à ¡ur. He had âÂÂ(come) up from Karduniaà ¡", where he may conceivably have been the last Assyrian governor of Babylon, as his brother, Mardukëia, was governor of Katmuḫi. The length of his reign does rather crucially determine the likely date range for the beginning of Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur's thirty-year reign, because there is no datable event that takes place at the beginning, such as the passing of a preceding monarch. The interregnum between Babylon's fall to Tukulti-Ninurta and its conquering by Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur had been at least twenty two years and perhaps even more than thirty years.
He was succeeded by his son, Meli-à  ipak, who was curiously reluctant to mention his filiation to Adad-à ¡uma-uá¹£ur in his own inscriptions.