Meli-Shipak II

Meli-Šipak II, or alternatively Melišiḫu in contemporary inscriptions, was the 33rd king of the Kassite or 3rd Dynasty of Babylon c. 1186–1172 BC and ruled for 15 years. Tablets with two of his year names, 4 and 10, were found at Ur. His reign marks the critical synchronization point in the chronology of the Ancient Near East.

His provenance

He is recorded as the son of Adad-šuma-uṣur, his predecessor, on a kudurru. Elsewhere he seemed reluctant to name him in his royal inscriptions, despite Adad-šuma-uṣur’s apparent renown as restorer of Kassite independence, which has been the subject of much speculation amongst historians.

The “II” designation is possibly an error caused by over reliance on a single inscription naming one Meli-Šipak, son (=descendant) of Kurigalzu II. He was the last king to bear a wholly Kassite name. Meli means servant or slave, Šipak was a moon god, but Šiḫu was possibly one of the Kassite names for Marduk.

Significance to Near Eastern chronology

At various points in the sequence of Assyrian and Babylonian kings, references are made by one king to their contemporary. Not until the reign of Meli-Šipak, however, do these connections allow a firm placement in time, which has led Malcolm Wiener to declare:

The length of Ninurta-apil-Ekur’s reign is uncertain, as extant copies of the Assyrian King List differ, between three or thirteen years. From the reign of his son and successor, Aššur-dan I, they are consistent, and supported by extant limmu lists from 892 BC on.

Bronze Age collapse

Meli-Shipak's rule is understood to have been peaceful. Not so for the edges of his kingdom, where the catastrophic collapse at the end of the Bronze Age was starting to dramatically unfold with many of the cities of the Levant experiencing destruction. The city of Emar, situated in northern Syria, was sacked and a legal document was found on the floor in a private house there, dated to his second year. The tablet (Emar 26, found in House 5 of Chantier A)) was made of local clay and is a short-term contract involving a teacher, Kidin-Gula. Historian Daniel Arnaud has concluded that only a very short time (“weeks”) elapsed between its preparation and the cataclysmic destruction of the city by “hordes of enemies”. lists 25 omens determined by the flight path of a falcon, or surdû, and raven, or āribu, and was written by Bēl-nadin-šumi, son of Ila-ušaršanni, and dated the month of Araḫsamnu, the 8th day, the 3rd year, the 2nd year, using the curious double-dating formula adopted during his predecessor’s reign. It begins, “If a man goes off on his errand and a falcon crosses from the right of the man to the left of the man - he will attain his desire.” Meli-Šipak was responsible for building work on the Ekur at Nippur, the Egalmaḫ at Isin, and a later text, a Neo-Babylonian temple inventory, records his benefactions at Ur.

Relations with Elam

One of his daughters, allegedly the eldest, was married to the Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nahhunte. It was the latest in a series of diplomatic marriages between the Kassite rulers of Babylon and the Elamite Kings but was to have unforeseen consequences as it would lead Shutruk-Nahhunte to believe that he had a claim on the Babylonian throne. When he was to later invade and carry away plunder back to Susa, he would have additional inscriptions added to the objects he took in commemoration, for example:

The kudurru tradition

A boundary stone (kudurru) reports of his passing some land with tax exemptions to his son and successor Marduk-apal-iddina I (Land grant to Marduk-apal-iddina).

A kudurru records the lawsuits concerning the estate of Takil-ana-ilīšu over three reigns, spanning Adad-šuma-iddina, Adad-šuma-uṣur and Meli-Šipak. and the grant to [Me]li-Ḫala may be another. A tablet records a rikiltu (grant, decree) issued by king Meli-Šipak in his second year of reign to the Sangü and the Satammu (temple administrator) of Ezida, a temple in Borsippa.

List of Meli-Šipak-dated kudurrus Land grant to Ḫunnubat-Nanaya kudurru Stele of Meli-Šipak with Šutruk-Naḫḫunte colophon

Inscriptions