Larak[a] was an ancient Iraqi city in Sumer that appears in some versions of the Sumerian King List (SKL) said to have been the third among the five cities to hold the kingship over Sumer during the antediluvian era.[1] Its patron deity was Pabilsag, a Ninurta-like warrior god additionally associated with judgment, medicine and the underworld, usually portrayed as the husband of Ninisina.[2] Gasan-aste ("Lady (of) the Throne"), a version of the healing goddess Ninisina was worshiped at Larak.[3]
There is no archaeological or textual support for the actual existence of the Early Dynastic city of Larak unlike the other four cities from "before the flood", it being only known from much later literary compositions. The Iron Age city of Larak, in the same general area, is supported by Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian texts. It is unclear if this was the Early Dynastic city being re-established or a completely different and unrelated city.
Location
Larak is believed to be in the vicinity of the ancient city of Isin. It has been suggested that Tell al-Hayyad, a 40 hectare site, is Larak. The site is #1306 in the Adams survey. The site is 1100 meters X 450 meters and split by later canals into three parts. The central summit of the southwestern part, the largest and highest, showed as a significant Jemdat Nasr occupation and otherwise numerous Uruk period shards and limited Early Dynastic remains based on a surface survey. It has not been excavated.[4][5] The site was a large city in the Early, Middle, and Late Uruk period.[6][7] The 3rd millennium BC site of Tell al-Wilayah has also been proposed.[8]
Larak is listed as one of the five antideluvian (before the flood) cities in the Sumerian King List. In some rescensions it is the 3rd while in others it is 4th. Only one ruler, is En-sipad-zid-ana, is mentioned in the SKL (ruling for 288.800 years) before rulership moved on to the next city.[10]
The city is also mentioned in the Lament for Ur which states "Ninašte has abandoned the house in Larak, her sheepfold—to the wind".[11]
In the later literary composition Inanna Lament it reads "From my brickwork of Larak, he called out after me!", referring to the destruction of her temples by some enemy.[12]
In the Eridu Genesis, a literary composition written around 1600 BC, Larak is listed as the 3rd city i.e. "the third, Larak, she gave to Pabilsag,".[13]
In The Destroyed House, a lament for the destruction of Isin it states "[Ni]nashte, mistress of Larak, am I—". This lament is part of the basis for assuming Larak is near Isin. Ninashte means "mistress of Ashte" where Ashte is thought to be a location in Larak.[14]
Iron Age city
A Larak is mentioned in writings of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian times but it is not certain if this is the same city. The ruler Neo-Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (705–681 BC) listed a Larak (as a city of the Chaldean Bit-Amukkani tribe) among the cities he defeated in his first military campaign.[15]
"... In order to build the Etemenanki, I imposed upon them the tup-fikku-basket: Ur, Uruk, Larsa, Eridu, Kullab, Nemed-[Laguda], Ugar-[Sîn?], the entirety of [the lands of the Lower Sea], from the top to the bottom, Nippur, Isin, Larak, [Dilbat, Marad], Puqudu, Bit-[Dakkuri], Bit-Amukkani, Bit-[Åilani], Bira[tu], Der, Agade, [Dur-Åarruku], Arrapha, ..."[16]
There are a number of records of Larak stemming from the conflict between the Neo-Babyloan ruler Marduk-apla-iddina II and the Neo-Assyrian ruler Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 BC). Various Chaldean and Aramean tribes at various times allied with and opposed these rulers and warred with each other. One raid by another Chaldean tribe was reports as carrying away 20, 000 sheep from Larak and its ruler Nadinu.[17]
The Neo-Assyrian ruler Sargon II (722–705 BC) received a report which included
"... [ ]hayu sent a Chaldean, an informer, to Larak, (but) the Larakeans arrested him and brought him before me. I asked him, “Where are you (coming) from?” He said: “A citizen of Babylon sent me to Larak.” But they (= the Lara-keans) said, “He is a crook, he is lying! We know him the people of Nippur [told us about him(?)].”"[18]
List of rulers
The following list should not be considered complete:
^Richter, Thomas, "Untersuchung zuden lokalen Panthea Süd- und Mittelbaby-loniens", in altbabylonischer Zeit (2. ver-besserte und erweiterte Auflage), Münster,Germany: Ugarit-Verlag, 2004
^Algaze, Guillermo, "Epilogue. Early Sumerian Societies: A Research Agenda", Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 151-166, 2008
^[1]Adams, R. McC., "Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates", Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981 ISBN0-226-00544-5
^Algaze, Guillermo, "Surveyed Late Uruk Sites in the Mesopotamian Alluvium Organized by Size and Presumed Functional Category", Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 173-176, 2008
^Algaze, Guillermo, "Surveyed Early/Middle Uruk Sites in the Mesopotamian Alluvium Organized by Size and Presumed Functional Category", Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 167-172, 2008
^[2]J. N. Postgate, "Inscriptions from Tell al-Wilaya", Sumer, vol. 32, no. 1-2, pp. 77-100, 1976
^Stanley M. Burstein, "The Babyloniaca of Berossus", Malibu: Undena, 1978
^Samet, Nili, "Transliteration and Translation", The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2014, pp. 54-77, 2014
^Delnero, Paul, "Emotion and Sumerian Laments", How To Do Things With Tears: Ritual Lamenting in Ancient Mesopotamia, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 174-224, 2020
^Ansky, S., "The Eridu Genesis", The Harps that Once..., edited by David G. Roskies, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 145-150, 1992
^Ansky, S., "The Destroyed House", The Harps that Once..., edited by David G. Roskies, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 475-477, 1992
^Matty, Nazek Khalid, "Sennacherib's Conquest of Lachish in the Reliefs and the Archaeological Evidence", Sennacherib's Campaign Against Judah and Jerusalem in 701 B.C.: A Historical Reconstruction, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 67-89, 2016
^Da Riva, Rocio, "Nebuchadnezzar II’s Prism (EŞ 7834): A New Edition", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 103, no. 2, pp. 196-229, 2013
^Fales, Frederick M., "Moving around Babylon: On the Aramean and Chaldean Presence in Southern Mesopotamia", Babylon: Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident, edited by Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Margarete van Ess and Joachim Marzahn, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 91-112, 2011
^Fales, Frederick Mario, "Ethnicity in the Assyrian Empire: A View from the Nisbe, (I): Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities", Literature as Politics, Politics as Literature: Essays on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Peter Machinist, edited by David S. Vanderhooft and Abraham Winitzer, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 47-74, 2013
