page_title: Akkadian royal titulary
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Akkadian royal titulary / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Naram-Sin portrait
context_page_description: Akkadian or Mesopotamian royal titulary refers to the royal titles and epithets assumed by monarchs in Ancient Mesopotamia from the Akkadian period to the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, with some scant usage in the later Achaemenid and Seleucid periods. The titles and the order they were presented in varied from king to king, with similarities between kings usually being because of a king's explicit choice to align himself with a predecessor. Some titles, like the Akkadian šar kibrāt erbetti and šar kiššatim and the Neo-Sumerian šar māt Šumeri u Akkadi would remain in use for more than a thousand years through several different empires and others, like the šar ilāni of the Neo-Babylonian Nabonidus, would only be used by a single king.
  In the Akkadian-speaking kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia, distinct styles of Akkadian titulature would develop, retaining titles and elements of earlier kings but applying new royal traditions. In Assyrian royal titulary, emphasis would typically be placed on the strength and power of the king whilst Babylonian royal titulary would usually focus on the protective role and the piety of the king.
context_section_description: Though there had been kings (and thus obviously royal titles) in Mesopotamia since prehistoric times, the first great "innovator" of royal titles was Naram-Sin of Akkad (r. 2254–2218 BC), the grandson of Sargon of Akkad and the fourth ruler of the Akkadian Empire. Naram-Sin introduced the idea of kingship in the four corners (e.g. the four inhabited regions of the Earth) with the title "King of the Four Corners of the World", probably in geographical terms expressing his dominion over the regions Elam, Subartu, Amurru and Akkad (representing east, north, west and south respectively). It is possible that Naram-Sin might have been inspired to claim the title following his conquest of the city Ebla, in which quadripartite divisions of the world and the universe were prominent parts of the city's ideology and beliefs. Naram-Sin was also the first king to claim divinity for himself during his lifetime. Though both his father Manishtushu and his grandfather Sargon were recognized as divine, they had only been deified posthumously. The adoption of the title "God of Akkad" may have been due to Naram-Sin winning a great victory over a large-scale revolt against his rule. Naram-Sin was also the first Mesopotamian ruler to adopt the epithet dannum ("mighty").
  Another title heavily associated with the Akkadian rulers was šar kiššatim. The literal translation of this title is "King of Kish", Kish being one of the more prestigious Sumerian cities, often having been seen in the times preceding the Akkadian Empire as having some sort of primacy over the other cities in the region. Use of the title, which was not limited to kings actually in possession of the city itself, implied that the ruler was a builder of cities, victorious in war and a righteous judge. By the time of Sargon of Akkad, "King of Kish" meant a divinely authorized ruler with the right to rule over all of Sumer, it might have begun to refer to some sort of a universal rule already in the centuries before Sargon's rise to power. Through its use by Sargon of Akkad and his successors, the title would be altered in meaning from "King of Kish" to the more boastful "King of the Universe", which is how later rulers would interpret it for more than a thousand years.
  After the fall of Akkad, further titles would be introduced by the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The founder of this dynasty, Ur-Nammu (r. 2112–2095 BC), combined the title of "king of Akkad" with the traditional "king of Sumer" in an effort to unify the north and south of Mesopotamia under his rule, creating the title of "king of Sumer and Akkad". Though the Akkadian kings had used both the titles of "king of Akkad" and "king of Sumer",  the combined title was new. Sargon of Akkad had even during his reign explicitly been against linking Sumer and Akkad. There was some native Mesopotamian precedence for double titles of this kind, in the Early Dynastic III (c. 2900–2350) period, double titles were used by some kings with examples like "lord of Sumer and king of the nation" and "king of Uruk and king of Ur". These titles were unique to their respective rulers however, never appearing again, and repeated "king" at the mention of the second kingship. Ur-Nammu was acknowledged by the priesthood at Nippur and crowned as sovereign of the two lands surrounding Nippur "to right and left". The fourth king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Amar-Sin (r. 2046–2038 BC), was the first ruler to introduce the title šarru dannu ("mighty king"), replacing the earlier epithet dannum.
  When the Third Dynasty of Ur collapsed and its vassals once again became independent polities, the former vassal cities often only implicitly renounced their allegiance to Ur. Since the ruler of Ur was deified and thus technically a god, ruling titles like šar ("king") were applied to the principal deities of the cities. As a result, formerly subordinate titles such as šakkanakki and Išši’ak (both translating to "governor") became sovereign ruling titles.
caption: Relief with Naram-Sin of Akkad's portrait. Naram-Sin, who reigned between 2254 and 2218 BC, has been described as the first great "innovator" when it comes to Mesopotamian royal titles. Relief today housed at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
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