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c. 2700 BCEReputable source · 2 sourcesDebated

Kish and the First Recorded War in History

According to the Sumerian King List, kingship itself began here after the flood

On the timeline · around c. 2700 BCE · Sumerian City-States and the Akkadian EmpireSettlement to the First CitiesSumerian City-States and the Akkadian EmpireKish and the First Recorded War in History3,750 BCE3,250 BCE2,750 BCE2,500 BCE

Quick facts

Modern site
Tell al-Uhaymir, Babel Governorate, Iraq
City founded
By c. 5000 BCE
Notable king
Enmebaragesi, c. 2700 BCE
Claim to fame
Led against Elam in what is often called the first recorded war

What happened

Kish, at the site now called Tell al-Uhaymir in Iraq's Babel Governorate, had grown into a city by around 5000 BCE and remained continuously inhabited into the 8th century CE. According to the Sumerian King List, Kish was the first city on which kingship descended after a great flood, and the title 'King of Kish' came to signify rulership over Sumer as a whole regardless of where a king actually reigned from. Around 2700 BCE, Kish's king Enmebaragesi led Sumer in a campaign against the neighboring land of Elam, an event generally cited as the first war in history for which a named leader and a named enemy both survive in the written record, rather than being inferred purely from destruction layers or weapons.

Why it matters

Kish shows how thoroughly Sumerian political legitimacy was wrapped up in claimed continuity with a mythic founding city, a pattern kings used for centuries afterward to claim authority beyond their own territory. Enmebaragesi's campaign against Elam is also one of the earliest points where Mesopotamian history stops being purely archaeological inference and starts being a war with a name attached to it.

How we know

Enmebaragesi is one of the few early kings on the Sumerian King List whose name is independently confirmed by an inscribed vase fragment bearing his name, giving historians rare corroboration between the semi-legendary king list and physical evidence from the period it describes.

Sources

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Part of a timelineAncient Mesopotamia30 events · The land between the rivers where farming villages became cities, cuneiform became writing, and kings first wrote their laws downView all →
Kish and the First Recorded War in History · Ancient Mesopotamia · SourcedStory