The topic of divine kingship in Mesopotamia, and in the Ur III period (ca. 2112-2004 B.C. E.) in ... more The topic of divine kingship in Mesopotamia, and in the Ur III period (ca. 2112-2004 B.C. E.) in particular, has been the subject of studies focused on aspects such as its ideology, rhetoric, political motivation, and place in the history of religion. This dissertation is concerned with more pragmatic aspects of the phenomenon, and investigates what, if any, effect the institution of divine kingship had on day-to-day life. The Ur III period was selected both because four of its five kings were deified during their lifetime, and over 95,000 administrative, i.e. non-ideologically oriented, records dating to this period are available for analysis. The main focus of this thesis is on cult, the essential signifier of divinity in that society, and, specifically, on the manner in which the cult of the deified king was established, extended, and popularized. The primary source utilized was the Base de Datos de Textos Neo-Sumerios (BDTNS). The first chapter demonstrates that at the center of...
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Papers by Audrey Pitts