Product Code Database
Meli-Šipak II, or alternatively Melišiḫu Me-li-dŠI-ḪU or m Me-li-ŠI-ḪU, where the reading of ḪU is uncertain, -ḫu or -pak. in contemporary inscriptions, was the 33rd king of the Kassites or 3rd Dynasty of Babylon 1186–1172 BC and ruled for 15 years. Kinglist A, BM 33332, ii 12. Tablets with two of his year names, 4 and 10, were found at Ur.Clayden, Tim. “KASSITE HOUSING AT UR: THE DATES OF THE EM, YC, XNCF, AH AND KPS HOUSES.” Iraq, vol. 76, 2014, pp. 19–64 His reign marks the critical synchronization point in the chronology of the Ancient Near East.
The “II” designation is possibly an error caused by over reliance on a single inscription”Knob” of red stone with votive inscription, BE 6378. naming one Meli-Šipak, son (=descendant) of Kurigalzu II. He was the last king to bear a wholly Kassite name. Meli means servant or slave, Šipak was a moon god, but Šiḫu was possibly one of the Kassite names for Marduk.
The length of Ninurta-apil-Ekur’s reign is uncertain, as extant copies of the Assyrian King List differ, between three or thirteen years. From the reign of his son and successor, Ashur-dan I, they are consistent, and supported by extant limmu lists from 892 BC on.
Despite the carnage wrought by the times on mighty empires such as that of the Hittites, whose capital Hattusa was sacked around the middle of his reign, there continued to be scribal and construction activity in Babylonia. A divination textOmen text BM 108874. lists 25 omens determined by the flight path of a falcon, or surdû, and raven, or āribu, and was written by Bēl-nadin-šumi, son of Ila-ušaršanni, and dated the month of Araḫsamnu, the 8th day, the 3rd year, the 2nd year,MU.3.KÁM.2.KÁM. using the curious double-dating formula adopted during his predecessor’s reign. It begins, “If a man goes off on his errand and a falcon crosses from the right of the man to the left of the man - he will attain his desire.” Meli-Šipak was responsible for building work on the Ekur at Nippur,Stamped bricks from altar of the Enlil temple, Nippur, from the Oriental Institute’s 1950 excavation. the Egalmaḫ at Isin, and a later text,Temple inventory IM 57150. a Neo-Babylonian temple inventory, records his benefactions at Ur.
A kudurru records the lawsuits concerning the estate of Takil-ana-ilīšu over three reigns, spanning Adad-šuma-iddina, Adad-šuma-uṣur and Meli-Šipak. This is notable because Meli-Šipak upholds the decisions of both his predecessors, one of whom, Adad-šuma-iddina, may have been merely a vassal king of Assyrian patronage.
The proliferation of the kudurru tradition around this time suggests increased patronage from a monarch trying to bolster loyalty to his reign, perhaps to counter the problems of legitimacy or instability. A kudurru granting fifty gur of corn-land in the province of Bit-Pir'-Amurri by the king to Ḫa-SAR-du, an official or sukkal mu’irri, may be one such example, Land grant to Ḫasardu kudurru, BM 90829, published as BBSt 4, in the British Museum. and the grant to Meli-Ḫala may be another. Land grant to Me li-Ḫala kudurru, Louvre 6373, published as MDP II 112. A tablet records a rikiltu (grant, decree) issued by king Meli-Šipak in his second year of reign to the Sangü and the Satammu (temple administrator) of Ezida, a temple in Borsippa.Meli-Šipak's decree BM 38124 tablet in the British Museum.
List of Meli-Šipak-dated kudurrus
Inscriptions
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