Malgum, A Synthesis

Abstract

This article collects the new information recently made available concerning the town of Malgum and provides a synthesis of its political history, with a focus on the Old Babylonian period when it was the seat of a small kingdom between ca. 2025 and 1761 BCE. It was eventually conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon in 1761 BCE and large parts of its population were deported. We can trace the whereabouts of these deportees for another ca. forty years in the military province of Lower Yaḫrūrum. In the subsequent Middle Babylonian period, Malgu was the name of a province, but after this time the site appears to have been abandoned, only used much later as a cemetery in Parthian and Sassanian times.