Kedorlaomer king of Elam
by
Damien F. Mackey
“At the time when Amraphel was king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar,
Kedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of Goyim, these kings went to war
against Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah,
Shemeber king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar)”.
Genesis 14:1-2
Jewish tradition identifies Nimrod with the biblical “Amraphel” king of Shinar who accompanied “Chedorlaomer” (var. Kedorlaomer) on the somewhat ill-fated campaign as recorded in Genesis 14. According to this tradition, Nimrod had formerly been “routed” by Chedorlaomer before now joining him as his “vassal” in his war with the kings of Pentapolis: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11548-nimrod
… according to one opinion, that Nimrod was called "Amraphel" (![http://d3sva65x0i5hnc.cloudfront.net/V09p309003.jpg]()
= "he said, throw in"; Targ. pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. xiv. 1; Gen. R. xlii. 5; Cant. R. viii. 8). …. … later Nimrod came to wage war with Chedorlaomer, King of Elam, who had been one of Nimrod's generals, and who after the dispersion of the builders of the tower went to Elam and formed there an independent kingdom.
Nimrod at the head of an army set out with the intention of punishing his rebellious general, but the latter routed him. Nimrod then became a vassal of Chedorlaomer, who involved him in the war with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, with whom he was defeated by Abraham ("Sefer ha-Yashar," l.c.; comp. Gen. xiv. 1-17). ….
[End of quote]
Now if I am correct in my proposed historical multi-identification of Nimrod in e.g. my article:
Nimrod a "mighty man"
then, hopefully, it ought not be too difficult to identify Chedorlaomer also during this period - he being, one might expect, the most prominent Elamite ruler at the time.
The name given to the Elamite king in Genesis, “Chedorlaomer”, appears to be a typical Elamite name, Kudur-Lagamar (“the servant of the goddess Lagamar”).
And, according to my reconstruction, the time-frame for Chedorlaomer is both the Akkadian and so-called Ur III period, now combined into just the one historical entity.
I turn again to M. Van de Mieroop’s A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 – 323 BC (Blackwell, 2004) to find out what he has to say about Elam, hoping that our Elamite king might just pop up into prominence.
On p. 63 we read that Elam was one of the primary military targets of the Akkadian kings: “The Akkadian kings focused their military attention on the regions of western Iran and northern Syria … east … Elam … Simurrum. In the north … Tuttul … Mari and Ebla”.
Van de Mieroop then becomes a little more specific (“The autonomy of Elam should not be underestimated”):
Naram-Sin concluded a treaty with an unnamed ruler or high official of Susa, a document written in the Elamite language. The agreement specified no submission to Akkad, only a promise by the Elamite to regard Naram-Sin’s enemies as his own. The autonomy of Elam should not be underestimated.
On pp. 67-68, we are at last given a name, “Kutik-Inshushinak”:
In the very beginning of the succeeding [sic] Ur III period, king Kutik-Inshushinak of Awan was portrayed as a major opponent to Babylonia by the kings of Ur. At that time he was governor and general of Susa, as well as king of Awan, and controlled eighty-one cities and regions, including some in the central Tigris and Diyala areas.
A typical account of Kutik-Inshushinak reads:
Kutik-Inshushinak (also known as Puzur-Inshushinak) was king of Elam from about 2240 to 2220 BC (long chronology), and the last from the Awan dynasty.[1] His father was Shinpi-khish-khuk, the crown prince, and most likely a brother of king Khita. Kutik-Inshushinak's first position was as governor of Susa, which he may have held from a young age. About 2250 BC, his father died, and he became crown prince in his stead. Elam had been under the domination of Akkad since the time of Sargon, and Kutik-Inshushinak accordingly campaigned in the Zagros mountains on their behalf. He was greatly successful as his conquests seem to have gone beyond the initial mission. In 2240 BC, he asserted his independence from Akkad, which had been weakening ever since the death of Naram-Sin, thus making himself king of Elam. He conquered Anshan and managed to unite most of Elam into one kingdom. He built extensively on the citadel at Susa, and encouraged the use of the Linear Elamite script to write the Elamite language. This may be seen as a reaction against Sargon's attempt to force the use of Akkadian. Most inscriptions in Linear Elamite date from the reign of Kutik-Inshushinak. His achievements were not longlasting, for after his death the linear script fell into disuse, and Susa was overrun by the Third dynasty of Ur [sic], while Elam fell under control of Simashki dynasty (also Elamite origin)[2].
[End of quote]
Gian Pietro Basello tells, in “Elamite Kingdom” that Puzur-Inshushinak even “conquered some parts of … Akkad” (p. 3): http://www.elamit.net/depot/resources/basello2016encyclopedia-of-empire.pdf
The reign of Puzur-Inshushinak stands out between the Old Akkadian and the Neo-Sumerian (Ur III) dominations: he is a king of Awan according to the above-mentioned
royal list from Susa and the titulary of a couple (FAOS7 Puzurinšušinak 7–8) of his Akkadian inscriptions found at Susa; in another (FAOS7 Puzurinšušinak 1) of these inscriptions, he boasts of having conquered a great number of places probably located in the Iranian area rather than in Mesopotamia. Thanks to Mesopotamian sources, the socalled code of Ur-Namma and a later copy of a royal inscription of Ur-Namma himself, we know that Puzur-Inshushinak also conquered some parts of Diyala and Akkad, moving afterwards into Babylonia; Ur-Namma expelled Puzur-Inshushinak’s armies from Babylonia, calling him “king of Elam.” It is difficult to ascertain if the reign of Puzur-Inshushinak was a secondary state formation in response to the previous Akkadian hegemony. ….
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