Tracing the Kingly Pattern: How a King Becomes a Legend

Seminary Room S340

In search of understanding the behavior of the Mesopotamian kings, a natural starting point would be to identify their ideology. However, ideology is founded on the cornerstone of history, and in the case of the ideology of a king, the history of city-states, religion, and kingship is the keystone in getting closer to understanding the conduct of a Mesopotamian king. This research will venture to present the parallels between the Mesopotamian creation epic, Enuma Elish, and the self-glorification behavior of three Mesopotamian monarchs of different periods. This paper will review the narrative of the lives of Sargon of Akkad, Hammurabi, and Sargon II while focusing on the legitimacy of kingship, the building and expanding of an empire, erecting a royal city, and establishing governing laws which seems to reveal a similarity to the god Marduk and his kingship. This research will seek to highlight the similarities between the epic, Enuma Elish, and the lives of the monarchs.