Talk:Sumerian King List

message: It would be really nice to see some information about the list other than contents of the list. Like, where was it found, who found it, what did it look like, etc... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.172.50.122 (talk) 21:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, current article merely discusses what is written on the artefact and does not discuss its origins and or what it is. This section needs to expanded, or the tile of the article should be changed to reflect this. Moughera (talk) 06:40, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information about the list? 

message: The statement "Their rules are measured in sars - periods of 3600 years - the next unit up after 60 in Sumerian counting (3600 = 60x60), and in ners - units of 600." does not fit with Sumerian numerology. A vertical wedge could mean either 1, 60 or 3600 depending on place value. From my own study it is apparent that each unit should be listed as 60 not 3600. Each of the Early Bronze Age I, II and III length of rule down to Gilgamesh should be divided by 60. If you do the math everything else fits into place. SeanT June 7th 2008 12:47AM MST -7.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krkr8m (talk • contribs) 07:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early Dynastic I, II and III periods 

message: This article is about the king list and what it states.
Discussion about the historicity of any of the kings belongs in the introduction, not in the midst of the list itself. In any case, there is no reason to assume there isn't a grain of truth to any of the unattested kings or to dismiss them as fictional. It would be more likely that figures with legends surrounding them, such as Gilgamesh, would be fictional additions to a king list, rather than figures with no other background that we know of. Either way, we have no way of knowing whether or not these early kings have any historical basis; the king list gives these names and it should be left at that. The introduction mentions their possibly mythical nature, but doesn't make statements beyond the information we have.
IansAwesomePizza (talk) 14:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur completely. SamEV (talk) 22:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early kings 

message: While there is a brief mention of the similar chronologies of the Sumerian King List and biblical narrative in Chronology of the ancient Near East, I think that it would be significant to note within this article that the pre-flood lifespans mentioned in this list parallel (despite their length) the pre-flood lifespans listed in Genesis 5. Whether or not the biblical narrative borrowed from this much earlier source is irrelevant to the topic; however, I think that some note regarding these similarities would help round out the article in matters of historical significance. Eloise872 (talk) 22:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but if you make that edit, please source it, even though the parallel has been remarked on since antiquity. SamEV (talk) 23:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What parallel? Someone the Person (talk) 21:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

text: It looks like someone added a mention of the parallel, but they put that "It has been suggested that this manuscript could serve to support certain details that are set forth in the Book of Genesis, where, similarly, individuals live for an extraordinary length of time prior to a great flood, and then for a lesser amount of time after said flood." While the parallel is certainly worth noting, because the cultures may have influenced each other, saying that the Sumerian King List supports the factuality of Genesis is not in any way supported by the evidence or mainstream scholars. Also, "It has been suggested" is weasel words. Basically, until a better source about the parallel is found, the sentence should be removed.Punkrockrunner (talk) 22:23, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parallels to lifespans in Genesis 

message: I have long had a theory that the early chronology of the kings lists are flawed because they somehow mistook months for years as if you break this down by months, 900 years would equal 75 years if those 900 years were actually 900 months. It would not be unreasonable to think they measured time differently (as they obviously did) and maybe instead of counting years, they counted months in relation to a kings rule so that while mere commoners counted their lives in annual cycles, kings and royals counted their years by monthly cycles to make them appear more godlike? That would make sense and then at some point, they too shift to annual cycles. There would be no break in how they recorded their age as possibly they just kept records but didn't revise them.
If you count their years in monthly cycles, suddenly this makes sense. This is a discussion about the Sumerian kings and chronology is important in this regard. Examine what I said and suddenly, the age of the kings makes some sort of sense. King Zamug, for instance, ruled for 120 years it says. Break it down by months and he ruled 11 years and 8 months. While King Etana would be listed as ruling for 1500 months or 125 years, maybe this was two kings with the son bearing his fathers name and in their time, they didn't separate kings who bore their fathers names and ruled after them because the people only knew that King Etana ruled and not that the son replaced the father?
Some food for thought maybe. (Armorbeast (talk) 06:56, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't do much with it here, what with the WP:NOR policy and all.  We have to stick to whatever analysis published sources give.  Even so, nobody can assume too much about how the figures got that way, so many theories are possible.  Mine is that some of them were originally counting from Enmerkar, while others were exaggerated in favor of Kish, and others were simply corrupted in the different copies.  But that's also irrelevant, unless a published source held a similar view. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 07:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: *days, not years. see the latest section "greetings from germany,..." -Andreas Wittner  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8070:A1B6:7A00:E03E:ACFA:C757:7D9 (talk) 05:55, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could Early Kings Chronology Represent Months Not Years? 

message: Now I'm hearing the Middle Chronology is once agian favored yet this page still only lists the Short dates.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.92.234.80 (talk) 04:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle Chronology Vs Short 

message: LOL irt is impossible, that one ruled between the 35th und 30th century BC for 28.000 years.--217.13.79.226 (talk) 10:02, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Impopssibillity 

message: Is it proper to call cuneiform tablets manuscripts?  BTW Jacobson is here: https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/as11.pdf
108.18.136.147 (talk) 13:59, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, why wouldn't an inscription made manually be a manuscript? 71.246.147.22 (talk) 14:03, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  manuscript? 

message: Could the list of antediluvian rulers actually be a list of dynasties, with the length of the reign being the number of kings in each dynasty?  There are a few reasons why this might be the case:
* The conversion factors used are sar=3,600 and ner=600.  But also "sar" means "king", as in Sargon.  (BTW, the sar count adds up to 66.) Specifically, "šarru" means "king" in Akkadian, per Sargon_of_Akkad.  Could the scribe have chosen to write the number 3600 because it was a homophone of "king" that was easier to write (with fewer stylus markings)?
* The chronology shows the capital falling after 5 of the 8 reigns.  Such a disruptive event seems more likely occur at the end of a dynasty than at the end of so many individual reigns within a dynasty.
* It seems an extremely unusual that 6 of the 8 reigns would happen to last a multiple of 3600 years.  Small whole numbers suggest something discrete being counted.
However, this re-interpretation gives rise to at least two questions:
* What would the number of "ners" for the last two antediluvian kings (En-men-dur-ana and Ubara-Tutu) suggest, if not groups of 600 years?  From an online search I found the book Sumerian Hymns from Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum, which seems to indicate that "ner" has something to do with "light".  Could this represent a number of days (sun-lights), months (moon-lights), or years between dynasties?
* I don't want to violate WP:NOR (besides, I'm not a Sumerian scholar), so does someone know if this idea has already been published somewhere?  Or considered and rejected for a good reason?
Dotyoyo (talk) 09:01, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could Early Kings Chronology List Numbers of Kings per Dynasty? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The link in the name of the city of Larag is wrong (it takes to the page of Larsa instead of Larak), but I don't know how to fix it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.101.190.155 (talk) 03:33, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong Link 

message: For years that's what I came to this page for.  And no one else on the internet the various Dynasties out in an as easy to read fashion.--JaredMithrandir (talk) 15:11, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: See the discussion above. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:43, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The "discussion" is you repeatedly saying you want this to be your way, ie removing the actual list, with everyone elseo disagreeing with you. Ummunmutamnag (talk) 07:42, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks to me as if there is one person disagreeing and two people agreeing. There is no good reason to include the actual list here (the full content of ancient documents is rarely included in such a way) as an unsourced mess and it's still here in the form of the template, not to mention the external links to full versions. If we should have a list similar to the old one it should be in a separate article, not clogging up the article about the document. Ichthyovenator (talk) 07:59, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Ichthyovenator. The actual list was removed from the article in July. Given that only 1 or 2 people have indicated that they think the list should be there, I would say that the majority of readers and the 263 editors who have this article on their watchlist actually think that the current article is an improvement or at least not worse than it was when the list was still included. Zoeperkoe (talk) 08:27, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: If we're taking opinions, I would also like the list to be on here. I was confused why it was absent the first time I came to this page. I think it should be included for clarity purposes, and anything about the list itself that's inherently unclear or misleading can be emphasized in accompanying text. Tisnec (talk) 23:32, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Why should Wikipedia contain the entire content of this ancient document when it does not do this for any other document? The mainstream scholarly opinion is that the vast majority of the list is at least unreliable, if not outright fictional. Including the list here as it was before does a very poor job at illustrating that. The full list can be accessed through the external links, and the rulers featured within it can be accessed through the template at the bottom. I've today also spent time improving the List of Mesopotamian dynasties (which is advertised at the top of this page as the place to go to get an actual lists of rulers and not a discussion on the document) - it now includes all Mesopotamian kings, including a collapsible option to display the rulers in the Sumerian King List - including any list here would IMO be inappropriate and now redundant. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:04, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia has a full breakdown for the Magna Carta and facsimile copies of the entire Voynich manuscript, which were the first comparable documents I thought of. Is there a formal guideline for Wikipedia style that would favor including or excluding the source information on this page? Tisnec (talk) 00:15, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, there is no reason to have a list of rulers here since that is already covered by the List of Mesopotamian dynasties, linked at the very top (not to mention the template at the bottom and the external links). Second of all, including the rulers here, especially in the form they were before, very easily becomes misleading because 1) much of it is probably fictional and 2) there are different versions of the SKL (in particular there is variation when it comes to the lengths of the reigns). Third of all, the Magna Carta article has a full breakdown, but it's a discussion of the document based on scholarly sources, not a full inclusion of the document itself, and the Voynich manuscript article is similarly an encyclopedic discussion of the manuscript, rather than a full inclusion (so these examples favor having this article as it is now rather than including a table of the entire list). Even if you don't care about any of that I would argue that including the list here would at the very least go against WP:EXCESSDETAIL and WP:NOTREPOSITORY (see point 3, on "public domain or other source material"). If this were a popular culture (and not history) subject it would also go against WP:FANCRUFT. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:34, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, I agree that's fair. Tisnec (talk) 01:14, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

text: Why do you think that the list is useful and necessary for readers? Which aspect of the SKL will they not understand if the list is not there? Zoeperkoe (talk) 14:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

text: Absolutely disagree: I maintain everything I said in the past. It is misleading to include a table in the way it was done previously, as the consensus is that a lot of the kings are made up (or at the very least have no basis in historical evidence). It is still poorly sourced, there's some WP:OR and I question most of the approx. dates. This article should be about the document itself, not needlessly fully repeat its content (something we don't do for any other historical document). Furthermore, the List of Mesopotamian dynasties includes the names of all the rulers, all of the rulers are included in a template at the bottom (why would we need to have all of the rulers again for a third time) and there are links to two full translations at the bottom. Ichthyovenator (talk) 14:28, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, this is called the "Sumerian King List"... so the first thing I would expect is indeed a factual, close description of this famous list... of Sumerian Kings. This is the single most important, most basic information I would expect: not just a list of name, but a documented description of the rulers and dynasties mentioned in the inscription. Once this is done, we can of course go to the commentaries. I guess this is why the rulers mentioned in the SKL have been listed all along from the very beginning of this article  nearly 20 years ago. The rest is important, but secondary (historicity, sources, discussion...), and, honestly, I am not sure many people even read it. This was a bold reversal of a 20 year-long status quo, so please self-revert, and do a proper RfC so that consensus can be established. पाटलिपुत्र Pat  (talk) 14:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with almost nothing of what you say here but I am in the process of putting together a proper RfC. I won't keep arguing if the consensus of that goes in favor of including the list. Ichthyovenator (talk) 14:44, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why was the Actual Kings List removed? 

message: I believe the list (as in this version) is rather useful and even necessary for readers interested in the Sumerian King List. It is appropriately much more detailed than the List of Mesopotamian dynasties and has explanations and illustrations for many of the rulers. It is quite impossible to understand what the SKL is about without this information. If anything, it should be improved on, rather than just deleted. पाटलिपुत्र Pat  (talk) 13:22, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Why do you think that the list is useful and necessary for readers? Which aspect of the SKL will they not understand if the list is not there? Zoeperkoe (talk) 14:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

text: Absolutely disagree: I maintain everything I said in the past. It is misleading to include a table in the way it was done previously, as the consensus is that a lot of the kings are made up (or at the very least have no basis in historical evidence). It is still poorly sourced, there's some WP:OR and I question most of the approx. dates. This article should be about the document itself, not needlessly fully repeat its content (something we don't do for any other historical document). Furthermore, the List of Mesopotamian dynasties includes the names of all the rulers, all of the rulers are included in a template at the bottom (why would we need to have all of the rulers again for a third time) and there are links to two full translations at the bottom. Ichthyovenator (talk) 14:28, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, this is called the "Sumerian King List"... so the first thing I would expect is indeed a factual, close description of this famous list... of Sumerian Kings. This is the single most important, most basic information I would expect: not just a list of name, but a documented description of the rulers and dynasties mentioned in the inscription. Once this is done, we can of course go to the commentaries. I guess this is why the rulers mentioned in the SKL have been listed all along from the very beginning of this article  nearly 20 years ago. The rest is important, but secondary (historicity, sources, discussion...), and, honestly, I am not sure many people even read it. This was a bold reversal of a 20 year-long status quo, so please self-revert, and do a proper RfC so that consensus can be established. पाटलिपुत्र Pat  (talk) 14:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with almost nothing of what you say here but I am in the process of putting together a proper RfC. I won't keep arguing if the consensus of that goes in favor of including the list. Ichthyovenator (talk) 14:44, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: We should keep the list

message: It hinges around calling the list describes their "supposed reign or "recorded reign". Doug Weller talk 17:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevant discussion at [[Talk:History of Sumer#Sumerian King List]]