The Great Fatted Bull
Introduction
Tablet #36
Translation
Annotations
Transliteration
Sumerian Images
Sumerian History
The Royal Tombs of Ur
The "Standard" of Ur?
Standard of Ur:  Narrative
Eannatum
Vulture Stele Translation
Sumerian War Chariots
War Chariot Deconstructed
Sumerian Chariot  Model
Gudea Translation
The Face of Gudea
Unknown Portrait of Gudea
The Face of Ur-Ningirsu
The Face of Lugal-agrig-zi
Ur-Namma Translation
The Face of Ur-Namma
Face of Ur-Namma, part II
I am Ur-Namma
Shulgi
The Face of Shulgi
Who Were the Sumerians?
Other Sumerian Kings
The Princess Wife
Princess Wife sequel
Princess Wife whole story
The Great Fatted Jackass
Mesopotamian Prostitutes
Sumerian Queens
Unknown Sumerian Queen
Another Sumerian Queen
Pu-abi, the Queen?
A Sumerian Princess
Sumerian Lukurs
The Divine Right to Rule
Sargon's Victory Stele
Helmet: the King of Kish
The Standard of Mari?
The Battles of Ishqi-Mari
Miscellaneous
The Invention of Writing
Adventures in Cuneiform
The Sumerian Scribe
A Masterpiece
Links
FAQs, Copyrights, etc
Contact
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This is a foundation statue of Shulgi (2094 BC – 2046 BC). He is shown carrying the first basket of clay to make bricks for a new temple. The statue still has some of the original cloth that was wrapped around it.

Shulgi had a round face and a bulbous nose (partially eroded on this statue). He also had asymmetrical eyes, just like his father, Ur-Namma. See The Face of Shulgi.



Ur-Namma.



Disaster.

Ur-Namma, the Mighty Man, the king of Ur, the king of Sumer and Akkad, had been
wounded in a battle against the barbarians. He was carried from the battlefield, bleeding
from his mortal wounds.

The barbarians surged across the countryside. The entire land was struck. The palace
was devastated. Panic spread rapidly among the dwellings of the Sumerians. People abandoned their homes. In Sumer, cities were destroyed in their entirety. The people were seized with panic.

Ur-Namma was taken to the city of Ur. “The king of the Land was brought into the house.
The proud one lay in his palace.”

Ur-Namma died of his wounds. “Evil came upon Ur and made the trustworthy shepherd
pass away. Sweet sleep did not come to the people of Sumer. They passed their time in lamentation over the trustworthy shepherd who had been snatched away.”

The cities were destroyed. The people were in a panic. This was Shulgi's first day on the job.

Shulgi was beginning his kingship under a dark cloud. His father had been killed in battle, which meant he was no longer favored by the gods. The supreme god Enlil “deceitfully changed the fate he had decreed for Ur-Namma.” The gods had turned their backs on
Ur-Namma. He lost the Mandate of Heaven. Did this also apply to his successor?

Not if Shulgi had anything to say about it. He quickly began consolidating his power and rebuilding his cities.

Then he turned his attention to the barbarians. “The hero avenged his city. Whatever had been ravaged in Sumer, he ravaged in the foreign land.”

Shulgi would reign for the next 47 years.

According to the “year names” of Shulgi’s reign (each calendar year wasn’t known by a number, but instead was named for an important event, e.g. "the year Shulgi became king") the first half of Shulgi’s rulership was relatively peaceful, with the mention of only a few
military campaigns. During the second part of his reign, military conquests are mentioned
in half of the year names. One year was called, “Year the cities of Simurrum and Lullubum were destroyed for the ninth time." Shulgi fought wars for hegemony in Sumer and wars of conquest abroad.

“I sow fear and confusion in the foreign land. In those battles, where weapon clashes on weapon, Utu [the sun god] shines on me. Thus I broke the weapons of the highlands over my knees, and in the south placed a yoke on the neck of Elam. I make the populations of the rebel lands -- how could they still resist my weapons? -- scatter like seed-grain over Sumer and Akkad.”  (excerpt from a praise poem for Shulgi.)


Shulgi commemorative tablet.  Enlarge.

Reading by column from right to left: "(For the goddess) Nimintaba/ His queen/ Shulgi/ The mighty man/ King of Ur/ King of Sumer and Akkad/ Her temple/ He built."

Shulgi also built a long defensive wall, known as the ‘‘Wall of the Land,’’ or the ‘‘Wall Facing the Highland.” The highlands were the home of the foreign barbarians. Like the Great Wall of China, Shulgi’s wall was designed to prevent frequent border raids or unobstructed large-scale invasions. The wall was heavily garrisoned by a large army. To help paid for the soldiers, Shulgi began taxing the temples. This made him unpopular with the priests, but more popular with the people because they weren’t being  taxed so much.

The Wall of the Land worked reasonably well, for a while, but 40 years after Shulgi’s death
it proved ineffective in stemming the barbarian invasions that completely destroyed Sumer.

Shulgi’s character:  

Shulgi was a strong, vigorous, and energetic man. He was also an intellectual and he was artistically inclined.

Most of what we know of Shulgi’s character comes from “praise poems” that were written
by scribes. The compositions are written as “first person” narratives. Obviously there is
some exaggeration in them, but they provide invaluable insight into the character of a very
dynamic man.

Shulgi himself was a scribe, in the world’s most difficult language. Very few people could
read and write, even among the nobility. “When I was small, I was at the academy, where
I learned the scribal art from the tablets of Sumer and Akkad. None of the nobles could write
on clay as I could… I qualified fully in subtraction, addition, reckoning and accounting. The
fair Nisaba [the goddess of writing], provided me amply with knowledge and comprehension.
I am an experienced scribe…”

Shulgi was also an accomplished musician, able to play a variety of musical instruments.
“I, Šulgi, king of Ur, have also devoted myself to the art of music. Nothing is too complicated for me; I know the full extent of the tigi and the adab, the perfection of the art of music.
When I fix the frets on the lute, which enraptures my heart, I never damage its neck;
I have devised rules for raising and lowering its intervals. On the gu-uš lyre I know the melodious tuning...” Shulgi then goes on to list all the instruments he can pay.

Shulgi was multilingual. He could read Akkadian tablets in their original language. In addition, “I can understand what an [Elamite] spokesman answers... I can do service as a translator with a man of Martu, a man of the mountains…  I myself can correct his confused words in his own language. When a man of Subir yells, I can even distinguish the words in his language, although I am not a fellow-citizen of his. When I provide justice in the legal cases of Sumer, I give answers in all five languages. In my palace no one in conversation switches to another language as quickly as I do.”

Shulgi was an athlete. It is said that he ran all the way from Ur to Nippur and back in a
single day so he could preside over ceremonies in both cities. Obviously, this is not true.
That’s a round trip of 200 miles, the equivalent of 8 marathons. However, he apparently
accomplished some great feat of long-distance running for which he was famous.

Shulgi was an avid hunter. “I stride forward in majesty, trampling endlessly through the
esparto grass and thickets, capturing elephant after elephant, creatures of the plain; and I
put an end to the heroic roaring in the plains of the different lions… I do not go after them
with a net, nor do I lie in wait for them in a hide; it comes to a confrontation of strength
and weapons. I do not hurl a weapon; when I plunge a bitter-pointed lance in their throats,
I do not flinch at their roar. I am not one to retreat to my hiding-place but, as when one
warrior kills another warrior, I do everything swiftly on the open plain…In the sheepfold and
the cattle-pen, I put the shepherd tribesmen at ease. [Sumerian kings thought it a duty to
protect herdsmen from the wild animals preying on their livestock] … The number of lions
that I have dispatched with my weapons is limitless; their total is unknown.”

Shulgi was well known for his sexual virility. He had many wives (partly to establish political alliances with their powerful families, both foreign and domestic). Shulgi even pleasured Inanna, the goddess of lust and war.

Shulgi was a builder of temples. He completed the great ziggurat at Ur that was started
by his father.


The ziggurat at Ur. It was dedicated to Nanna, the moon god.

Shulgi excelled at government administration. He unified the administration of northern and southern Mesopotamia. He overhauled the finances of the kingdom. He built numerous scribal schools, providing future clerks with standard education. He also standardized the system of weights and measures. He introduced a new calendar.

After the first half of his reign, Shulgi was deified as a living god. All Mesopotamian kings considered themselves to be descendants of the gods, with a divine right to rule, but Shulgi became an actual god himself. Temples were built for him. Priests were appointed to conduct religious services dedicated to the worship of this God King.

During Shulgi’s reign, the Sumerians didn’t always have peace, but they had security. They prospered, and they enjoyed an artistic renaissance.

Forty years after the death of Shulgi, Sumerian civilization was utterly destroyed by the hordes of barbarians pouring into the countryside from every direction.

In its long history, Sumer never lacked for great kings, but Shulgi was the last and the
greatest king of them all.




The {d} is dingir, representing divinity. It means
Shulgi was worshiped as a god during his lifetime.