The Divine Appointment of the First Antediluvian King: Newly Recovered Content from the Ur Version of the Sumerian Flood Story

Abstract

A newly reconstructed manuscript of the Sumerian Flood Story from Old Babylonian Ur furnishes us with further content of the composition, most notably the divine appointment of the first king, Alulim of Eridu. It appears that this text contained an etiology for the pervasive royal image of the king as shepherd of the people.