who is the world king before his name great is come
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heritotus was i think according to my knowledge
princesssarkar:
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We will never know the answer to this question.
If we had a time machine that allowed us to observe the pre-literate societies of the Neolithic, we would find there rulers that we would certainly call ‘kings’. As these societies had not yet invented writing, they did not write down the names of their kings. So the first king was ____________.
Sometimes they did pass on the names of their kings in oral traditions. These oral traditions, however, had a tendency to turn quickly into legends—from king to culture hero, apical ancestor, or god… The traditions also did not include dates, were not preserved everywhere, and have not been preserved until now. They are therefore entirely unsuitable for determining a ‘first’.
We can reasonably ask ‘who was the first historical king, whose records remain’. Right? From a ‘simple Google search’ (and doubtless, from a future insulting answer here, from someone who’ll tell you to just look it up), you’ll see a name of ‘the first king we know of’: Enmebaragesi of Kish, a Sumerian king who ruled in ca. 2500 BCE. If you have the right font, you can even see that name in cuneiform.
Woohoo. Now you have the answer to a trivia question.
That answer does not help you understand how rulership has evolved through history—in different societies across the world. It does not help you understand debates about which terms in ancient and modern languages should be translated ‘king’ and which should not.
It makes you think that all rulers called ‘king’ have more in common than they don’t—and encourages you to read assumptions based on early modern Europe back into societies where they do not apply. Some ancient kings were absolute; others were limited by noble councils, traditional tribal constitutions, and republican assemblies. Some inherited power; others were elected. Some ruled alone; in other societies, kings were co-rulers. Some ruled a village of hundreds; some a realm of tens of millions. Some were women. Many words translated as ‘king’, like Sumerian lugal were not gendered words, and applied to ruling monarchs that we would call ‘queens’.
That may have included Enmebaragesi herself!
Although the Sumerian King List does not tell us whether other monarchs were women, a fragment of the Sumerian tale points to a second feminine lugal named Enmebaragesi, who is described on the SKL as the one who conquered Elam, who had an heir, and who built various temples. It came as no small surprise when an Old Babylonian Gilgamesh fragment (Gilgamesh and Huwawa, Shaffer 1983) came to light twenty years ago that referred to Enmebaragesi as Gilgamesh’s “older sister,” since, as Aaron Shaffer remarks, “There is nothing in these references which would lead one to suppose that Enmebaragesi of Kish was not a man” (1983: 312). Previously known texts had not actually specified Enmebaragesi’s sex. (McCaffrey, 202)
In short, beware of any answer that pretends to answer this question (or any question like it) definitively.
If we had a time machine that allowed us to observe the pre-literate societies of the Neolithic, we would find there rulers that we would certainly call ‘kings’. As these societies had not yet invented writing, they did not write down the names of their kings. So the first king was ____________.
Sometimes they did pass on the names of their kings in oral traditions. These oral traditions, however, had a tendency to turn quickly into legends—from king to culture hero, apical ancestor, or god… The traditions also did not include dates, were not preserved everywhere, and have not been preserved until now. They are therefore entirely unsuitable for determining a ‘first’.
We can reasonably ask ‘who was the first historical king, whose records remain’. Right? From a ‘simple Google search’ (and doubtless, from a future insulting answer here, from someone who’ll tell you to just look it up), you’ll see a name of ‘the first king we know of’: Enmebaragesi of Kish, a Sumerian king who ruled in ca. 2500 BCE. If you have the right font, you can even see that name in cuneiform.
Woohoo. Now you have the answer to a trivia question.
That answer does not help you understand how rulership has evolved through history—in different societies across the world. It does not help you understand debates about which terms in ancient and modern languages should be translated ‘king’ and which should not.
It makes you think that all rulers called ‘king’ have more in common than they don’t—and encourages you to read assumptions based on early modern Europe back into societies where they do not apply. Some ancient kings were absolute; others were limited by noble councils, traditional tribal constitutions, and republican assemblies. Some inherited power; others were elected. Some ruled alone; in other societies, kings were co-rulers. Some ruled a village of hundreds; some a realm of tens of millions. Some were women. Many words translated as ‘king’, like Sumerian lugal were not gendered words, and applied to ruling monarchs that we would call ‘queens’.
That may have included Enmebaragesi herself!
Although the Sumerian King List does not tell us whether other monarchs were women, a fragment of the Sumerian tale points to a second feminine lugal named Enmebaragesi, who is described on the SKL as the one who conquered Elam, who had an heir, and who built various temples. It came as no small surprise when an Old Babylonian Gilgamesh fragment (Gilgamesh and Huwawa, Shaffer 1983) came to light twenty years ago that referred to Enmebaragesi as Gilgamesh’s “older sister,” since, as Aaron Shaffer remarks, “There is nothing in these references which would lead one to suppose that Enmebaragesi of Kish was not a man” (1983: 312). Previously known texts had not actually specified Enmebaragesi’s sex. (McCaffrey, 202)
In short, beware of any answer that pretends to answer this question (or any question like it) definitively.
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