NAMING UR III YEARS Jacob L. Dahl University of Oxford 85 THE THIRD KING of the Ur III dynasty, Amar-Suen, died presumably in the beginning of his ninth regnal year. This can be deduced from sources indicating when offerings to the throne of the (deceased) king were first made ( 5eÍ gu-za RN). 1 Of course, these records give, at best, the terminus ante quem for the death of Amar-Suen. With the succession of Amar-Suen’s brother fiu-Suen we might hope that the earliest mention of him as king would indicate the time of Amar-Suen’s death. However, the succession of fiu-Suen was not straightforward, as he is mentioned as king in seal inscriptions from Umma dating to Amar- Suen’s last four years. Thus the earliest mention of fiu-Suen is evidently not an indicator of the time of Amar-Suen’s death. 2 The last year of Amar- Suen’s reign was called “En-Nanna-Amar-Suen- kia5ra was installed for the third time as en- priestess of Nanna of Ga’eÍ / of Karzida” 3 and the first year of fiu-Suen was named “fiu-Suen is/was king.” 4 Texts that document administrative activ- ities lasting several years, such as MVN 13, 739 and ITT 2, 3699 treated below, can be used to show that these were distinct years and that the year was not renamed after fiu-Suen’s accession to the throne, presumably early in AS 9. However, the question of how and when years in general were named remains enigmatic. This brief study, which will try to answer these questions, is dedi- cated to David Owen, a scholar among whose many interests is the study of the Ur III period in general and its royal family in particular. Coronation Years MVN 13, 739 and ITT 2, 3699 are pisan dub-ba texts, documents that in antiquity were tied to containers holding other documents from a par- ticular administrative office for a particular administrative period, in the case of these two documents covering a number of consecutive years. Both pisan dub-ba texts record the starting and end date of the documents kept within the container to which they were originally attached. In addition, they both give the total of months and days covered by the documents in the container. This article has benefitted from discussions with Dr. M Widell (Liverpool University), and draws heavily on an unpublished talk by M. Widell at the University of Oxford (26 January 2010). 1 See W. Nesbit, Sumerian Records from Drehem (= Co- lumbia University Oriental Studies 8, New York 1914), no. 20 (now in Cornell’s Nesbit collection), dat- ed to AS 9, month 2, day 9. See also SET 66, dated to AS 9, month 2, day 26 (a document now in the Schøy- en Collection, MS 1714). For the time and circum- stances surrounding the death of fiulgi, see Horowitz and Watson (1991) and Wilcke (1988). 2 Waetzoldt 1970–71, 22–323; Dahl 2007, 25–27, but note that Mayr (1997, 158) suggests that the same data was manipulated in antiquity. 3 mu en- d nanna- d amar- d suen-ki-á5a-ra en- d nanna ga- eÍ ki / kar-zi-da ki -ka a-rá 3(diÍ)-kam ba-Óu5, often ab- breviated mu en kar-zi-da ki ba-Óu5. 4 mu d Íu- d suen lugal-àm; the enclitic copula is usually omitted in the ordinary texts.