The Home of the First Sealand Dynasty

Abstract

It is remarkable that so little is known of a dynasty that lasted for 368 years according to King List A 1 Not even its home town has been identified. Modern scholars refer to it as the Sealand Dynasty, but this name is first attested for it in the Cassite period,2 while the king lists call it bala BES.tIA (A) or bala BES.ku.ki (B rev. 1 and 11 ) .3 The uncertainty as to reading and location has caused modern scholars to avoid the latter name. A third variant attestation of this name has recently come to light in a small K fragment identified by the writer and joined to K 8532+.4 This document, of which there were at least two copies in Ashurbanipal's libraries, began with the antediluvian kings (unless some account of creation preceded them), next interposed a bilingual literary version of the flood story, and then continued with post-diluvian dynasties down to the first half of the First Millennium. It is rarely cited as a king list because so little remains. The new fragment offers the end of the First Dynasty of Babylon and the beginning of the Sealand Dynasty: