page_title: King of the Universe
section_title: Assyrian and Babylonian Kings of the Universe (1809–627 BC)
hierarchical_section_title: King of the Universe / History / Assyrian and Babylonian Kings of the Universe (1809–627 BC)
caption_attribution_description: Sculpted reliefs depicting Ashurbanipal, the last great Assyrian king, hunting lions, gypsum hall relief from the North Palace of Nineveh (Irak), c. 645-635 BC, British Museum
context_page_description: King of the Universe, also interpreted as King of Everything, King of the Totality, King of All or King of the World, was a title of great prestige claiming world domination used by powerful monarchs in ancient Mesopotamia. The etymology of the title derives from the ancient Sumerian city of Kish, the original meaning being King of Kish. Although the equation of šar kiššatim as literally meaning "King of the Universe" was made during the Akkadian period, the title of "King of Kish" is older and was already seen as particularly prestigious, as the city of Kish was seen as having primacy over all other Mesopotamian cities. In Sumerian legend, Kish was the location where the kingship was lowered to from heaven after the legendary Flood.
  The first ruler to use the title of King of the Universe was the Akkadian Sargon of Akkad and it was used in a succession of later empires claiming symbolical descent from Sargon's Akkadian Empire. The title saw its final usage under the Seleucids, Antiochus I being the last known ruler to be referred to as "King of the Universe".
context_section_description: The title šar kiššatim was perhaps most prominently used by the kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, more than a thousand years after the fall of the Akkadian Empire. The Assyrians took it, as the Akkadians had intended, to mean "King of the Universe" and adopted it to lay claim to continuity from the old empire of Sargon of Akkad. The title had been used sporadically by previous Assyrian kings, such as Shamshi-Adad I (r. 1809–1776 BC) of the Old Assyrian Empire and Ashur-uballit I (r. 1353–1318 BC) of the Middle Assyrian Empire. Shamshi-Adad I was the first Assyrian king to adopt the title of "King of the Universe" and other Akkadian titles, possibly to challenge the claims of sovereignty made by neighboring kingdoms. In particular, the kings of Eshnunna, a city-state in central Mesopotamia, had used similar titles since the fall of the Neo-Sumerian Empire. From the reign of Ipiq-Adad I (1800s BC), the Eshnunnans had referred to their kings with the title of "Mighty King" (šarum dannum). The Eshnunnan kings Ipiq-Adad II and Dadusha even adopted the title šar kiššatim for themselves, signifying a struggle over the title with the Assyrians. The title was also claimed by some kings of Babylon and Mari.
  The Neo-Assyrian Sargon II (r. 722–705 BC), namesake of Sargon of Akkad over a thousand years prior, had the full titulature of Great King, Mighty King, King of the Universe, King of Assyria, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad. Since the title is not attested for all Neo-Assyrian kings and for some only attested several years into their reigns, it is possible that the title of "King of the Universe" had to be earned by each king individually, but the process by which a king could acquire the title is unknown. British historian Stephanie Dalley, specializing in the Ancient Near East proposed in 1998 that the title may have had to be earned through the king successfully completing seven (which would have been connected to totality in the eyes of the Assyrians) successful military campaigns. This is similar to the title of King of the Four Corners of the World, which might have required the king to successfully campaign in all four points of the compass. It thus would not have been possible for a king to claim to be "King of the Universe" before completing the required military campaigns. The title seems to have had similar requirements among Babylonian kings, the king Ayadaragalama (c. 1500 BC) was only able to claim the title late in his reign, his earliest campaigns that established control over cities such as Kish, Ur, Lagash and Akkad not being enough to justify its use. Both Ayadaragalama and the later Babylonian king Kurigalzu II only appear to have been able to claim to be King of the Universe after their realm extended as far as Bahrain.
  Even in the Neo-Assyrian period when Assyria was the dominant kingdom in Mesopotamia, the Assyrian use of King of the Universe was challenged as the kings of Urartu from Sarduri I (r. 834–828 BC) onwards began using the title as well, claiming to be equal to the Assyrian kings and asserting wide territorial rights.
caption: The Assyrian usage of the title was contested by other kingdoms even during the reigns of the powerful Neo-Assyrian kings, such as Ashurbanipal (pictured strangling and stabbing a lion), for instance by Urartu and Babylon. Relief housed in the British Museum.
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