The book Pre-Sargonic Period (2700-2350 BC) provides editions of all known royal inscriptions of kings who ruled in ancient Mesopotamia down to the advent of King Sargon of Akkad. Most of the inscriptions come from the city states of Lagsh and Umma; inscriptions from other sites are rather poorly attested. The volume includes a handful of new inscriptions recently uncovered in Iraq.

Information on museum numbers, excavation numbers, provenances, dimensions, and lines preserved in the various exemplars are displayed for multi-exemplar texts in an easy-to-read tabular form. Also...

This volume covers the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods, a period marked initially by the struggle of two city-states, Isin and Larsa, for control over the land of Sumer in southern Babylonia. In the end the city-state of Babylon, under its energetic ruler Hammurabi, intervened. At an opportune moment, Hammurabi struck swiftly, defeated Larsa, and incorporated the southern domains into his own realms, thereby creating an empire that for a short time united the lands of Sumer and Akkad.

The inscriptions in this volume are grouped by dynasties and arranged in order by ruler within...