Birkbeck Cerficate in Ancient Near Eastern Studies Ancient Near East at the Dawn of Civilisaon Chris Allen. February 2013. Discuss the value of the Sumerian King List for the reconstrucon of Mesopotamian history and its relevance to the period in which it is wrien. From me immemorial since the Land was founded unl the people mulplied, who has ever seen a reign of kingship that would take precedence for ever? Lament of Sumer and Ur (Oxford etcsl 1998 368-70). The Weld-Blundell Prism The term ‘Sumerian King List’ refers to the lisngs of Sumerian and neighbouring ruling dynases derived from a number of sources mainly discovered early in the last century. The principal, most comprehensive, of these is the ‘Weld-Blundell Prism’. There are some twenty copies of the list or parts of it, some of which had been discovered before the Prism (Bienkowski & Millard 2000 169); (Wikipedia). Later king lists preserved and ulised this format at least up to the ‘Babylonica’, the History of Babylon, wrien by Berossus during the Hellenisc period in about 280 BC. (Burstein 1989 1) The precise provenance of the Prism is unclear: it is now in the collecon of the Ashmolean Museum Oxford. Their website says that it was “probably discovered at Larsa in about 1923”. The Expedion that year was one of a number funded by a wealthy aristocrac benefactor, Herbert Weld-Blundell, who had travelled extensively in Africa and the Near East. Larsa was a key city-state in the early second millennium in southern Mesopotamia; and it has been excavated a number of mes. (Bienkowski & Millard 2000 173). There is however lile detailed informaon available about the 1923 expedion. Weld-Blundell was a sponsor of excavaons rather than an archaeologist and so it seems likely he acquired it from a dealer. The translaon of the Prism was published that year by Stephen Langdon (1876-1937) who was Professor of Assyriology at Oxford University. It may not be unconnected that the subsequent Weld- Blundell Expedion and excavaons at Kish from 1923 to 1933 which S. Langdon led have been strongly cricised for their lack of archaeological rigour. (Moorey 1978 13/14). As its name suggests, the Prism (figures 1 & 2) is an inscribed four sided artefact some 20cm high with a vercal hole through its central axis, presumably for a stand, and perhaps for it to be turned to be read. On each face, the text is in two columns. In this format it is more portable than, say, four separate tablets. It could be carried as a single object and posioned on a surface for display (as it is now in the museum) in some significant place, such as a temple for example. 1