Kudur-Enlil, rendered in

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...

as ''Ku-dur'' ^dEN.LÍL (c. 1254–1246 BC short chronology), “son of Enlil,” was the 26th king of the 3rd or

Kassite The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon ...

dynasty of Babylon. He reigned into his ninth year, as attested in contemporary economic tablets. His relationship with his predecessor and successor is uncertain and does not appear in contemporary inscriptions. The personal name “ Marduk is king of the gods” first appears during his reign marking the deity’s ascendancy to the head of the pantheon.

Biography

He succeeded Kadašman-Enlil II and was possibly the first Kassite king to have a wholly Babylonian name, or one containing an Elamite derived word, from ''kudurru'', which might be middle Assyrian. Although the Babylonian King List A records him as son of Kadašman-Enlil,''Babylonian King List A'', BM 33332, ii 5: a broken and badly worn tablet in the British Museum, also errs with respect to the length of his reign, 6 years rather than 9 proven by economic texts, after Brinkman MSKH I p. 430. it is a late source and no contemporary inscriptions exist which support this contention. It has been suggested that he may in fact have been the brother of Kadašman-Enlil, as his predecessor ascended the throne as a child and ruled perhaps nine years. A ''daughter of Babylon'' was married into the Hittite royal family, possibly to

Tudhaliya IV Tudhaliya is the name of several Hittite kings: *Tudhaliya (also Tudhaliya I) is a hypothetic pre-Empire king of the Hittites. He would have reigned in the late 17th century BC ( short chronology). Forlanini (1993) conjectures that this king corres ...

, a younger son of

Ḫattušili III Hattusili III ( Hittite: "from Hattusa") was king of the Hittite empire (New Kingdom) c. 1267–1237 BC ( short chronology timeline)., pp.xiii-xiv Early life and family Much of what is known about the childhood of Hattusili III is gathered fro ...

who went on to succeed him. This would have been a daughter or sister of Kudur-Enlil and the news elicited contempt from

Ramesses II Ramesses II ( egy, rꜥ-ms-sw ''Rīʿa-məsī-sū'', , meaning "Ra is the one who bore him"; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Along with Thutmose III he is often regarded as ...

, king of Egypt, who apparently no longer regarded Babylon significant. Pudu-Ḫepa, the Hittite queen, replied in a letter,KUB 21.38: letter from Pudu-Ḫepa. ‘If you say ‘‘the king of Babylon is not a Great King’’, then you do not know the status of Babylon’.

Nippur renaissance

Nippur experienced explosive growth under Kudur-Enlil and his successor, with the city expanding almost to its

Ur III The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC ( middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider t ...

extent. Kudur-Enlil extensively refurbished the Enlil Temple in Nippur, with its baked-brick bench or socle lining the base of all except the northeast outer walls. The later period of construction is witnessed by his stamped brick inscriptionsStamped bricks IM 56097 and IM 61767 in the

National Museum of Iraq The Iraq Museum ( ar, المتحف العراقي) is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq, a recent phenomenon influenced by other nations' naming of their national museum ...

and more than forty others. which describe him as a benefactor of the temple. A brick of Kudur-Enlil bearing a twelve-line Sumerian inscription which was found inside the temple states that he built the supporting wall with bitumen and baked bricks.5 NT 700, now in the Iraq Museum. It was customary for the king to travel to Nippur at the 'beginning of the year' for the Akitu spring festival and there is an example of a record of the 'return of the crown prince' in the third year of Kudur-Enlil. His name appears on various votive and civic monument inscriptions, as well as on numerous economic texts, such as a legal text about the escape and capture of a slave and a note of payment for mat-makers.Tablets BM 17626 and BM 17710. The extent to which the number of texts extant reflects the degree of economic activity is disputed, possibly more due to fortuitous discovery of archives, however, more than 270 have been recovered, 70 recently published from an archive from Dūr-Enlilē, dated for a reign of only nine years.

Other Babylonian centers

Excavations at `Aqar-Qūf, ancient Dūr-Kurigalzu revealed in level II inscriptions of the time of Kudur-Enlil and the later king Kaštiliašu IV, showing that this city continued to be occupied by Kassite kings long after its foundation by

Kurigalzu I Kurigalzu I (died c. 1375 BC), usually inscribed ''ku- ri- gal-zu'' but also sometimes with the m or d determinative, the 17th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty that ruled over Babylon, was responsible for one of the most extensive and widesprea ...

. There are one or two administrative records amongst a cache of 64 from the palace dated to him. A private archive from Babylon of seven clay tablets in a pot includes legal texts dated to his reign. A Kudurru stone,Kudurru L. 7076 land grant and tax exemptions. found at Larsa, recorded a land grant and tax exemptions, or ''zakûtu''.

Inscriptions

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kudur-Enlil 13th-century BC Babylonian kings Kassite kings 13th-century BC rulers