Shutruk-Nakhunte

Most of what we know of Shutruk-Nakhunte comes from his own inscriptions. He wrote them in Elamite on the stelae and statues he brought from Mesopotamia to Susa. König (1965) collected these texts. The rest comes from Babylonian sources and the “Berlin letter”, a much later copy.

His chronology is disputed. Most books put his reign at c. 1184–1155 BCE. Vallat dates the whole Shutrukid dynasty c. 1210–1100 BCE. The only fairly firm date is the raid on Babylon in 1158 BCE.

When a king writes his own story, we must ask what he left out: no text survives from the people who hauled the trophies or suffered the raids.

1. Son of Hallutush-Inshushinak. There is no evidence that his father was king, so Shutruk-Nakhunte may have seized power and founded a new line.

2. He is said to have married a daughter of Meli-Shipak, the Kassite king of Babylon.

3. He moved inscriptions from abandoned Chogha Zanbil to Susa and made Susa the centre again.

4. In 1158 BCE he raided Mesopotamia: Akkad, Sippar, Eshnunna and Babylon. He killed the king of Babylon and put his son Kutir-Nakhunte in his place.

5. He offered the trophies to Inshushinak at Susa and wrote his name on them.

6. He died c. 1155 BCE. Three sons, Kutir-Nakhunte, Shilhak-Inshushinak and Hutelutush-Inshushinak, reigned after him.

Vallat sees the Shutrukid age as Susa’s second flowering: wealth from these campaigns let the kings rebuild Susa’s temples in splendour.

A capital’s splendour is often built on wealth taken from somewhere else.

In the inscription on the Naram-Sin stele he calls himself “beloved servant of Inshushinak”, “king of Anshan and Susa”, “who has enlarged the kingdom”, “who takes care of the lands of Elam” and “lord of the land of Elam”. No source gives him any later byname such as “the Great” or “the Conqueror”.

“King of Anshan and Susa” was an old title revived by the Middle Elamite kings: a claim to unite highland and lowland. “Who has enlarged the kingdom” shows he defined himself by his conquests.

Titles tell us how a ruler wished to be seen, not how he was.

The kings of Elam and the Kassites of Babylon had intermarried for generations. The “Berlin letter” is an Akkadian letter preserved in a later Babylonian copy. In it an Elamite king lists all these marriages and says the throne of Babylon is his by right. His name is lost.

Vallat suggests the writer may have been Shutruk-Nakhunte, and that the 1158 raid may have followed Babylon’s rejection of the claim. The link is a conjecture.

A claim of “hereditary right” to other people’s land is one of the oldest excuses for war.

In 1158 BCE Shutruk-Nakhunte raided Mesopotamia. He says himself that he defeated Sippar at Inshushinak’s command. Vallat says he also raided Akkad, Babylon and Eshnunna. He killed the Kassite king Zababa-shuma-iddina and set his son Kutir-Nakhunte on the throne of Babylon.

The raid was more about trophies and prestige than lasting conquest. The trophies stood for the victory of Elam’s god and king over Mesopotamia.

Plundering a people’s monuments steals their memory; yet these very trophies are what preserved the monuments for us.

The Naram-Sin stele: the victory stele of Naram-Sin, king of Akkad, c. 2250 BCE. Shutruk-Nakhunte did not erase the old text. He added an Elamite inscription on the mountain of the stele, saying he had brought it from Sippar and offered it to Inshushinak.

The Code of Hammurabi: a basalt stele 225 cm high, found at Susa in 1901–1902. Near the bottom, seven columns of the laws were smoothed away in antiquity. Scheil (1902) guessed that Shutruk-Nakhunte had the space cleared for his own text, which was never carved.

The Manishtushu statues: king of Akkad, c. 2270 BCE. One of them (Sb 47) bears an Elamite text saying it came from Akkad; Vallat has the Manishtushu statues come from Eshnunna.

Points in dispute: that Shutruk-Nakhunte had the Code’s columns erased is only a guess. That the Code came from Sippar is Roth’s suggestion. Whether the Manishtushu statues came from Akkad or Eshnunna is unclear.

Today these works are in the Louvre. French archaeologists found them at Susa and took them to Paris under the agreement for “division of finds”. The question of who owns heritage has stayed alive from 1158 BCE to today.

Kutir-Nakhunte, the eldest son, took the throne of Babylon in 1158. After his father died he became king of Elam and ended the Kassite dynasty by deposing Enlil-nadin-ahi. His reign was short.

Shilhak-Inshushinak, his brother, succeeded him. He left many inscriptions and built or restored many temples.

Hutelutush-Inshushinak, the last king of the dynasty, sometimes called himself “son of Shutruk-Nakhunte, Kutir-Nakhunte and Shilhak-Inshushinak”.

Vallat (1985) proposes that Hutelutush-Inshushinak was a son of Shutruk-Nakhunte by his own daughter, Nahhunte-utu. This reading is disputed. The numbering of Kutir-Nakhunte (II or III) also differs between books.

When power passes within one family, the law of succession is family law, not the people’s law.