Early dynastic period (c. 2900–2350 BC)
Before the rise of the
Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC, Mesopotamia was fragmented into a number of city states. Whereas some surviving Mesopotamian documents, such as the
Sumerian King List, describe this period as one where there was only one legitimate king at any one given time, and kingship was transferred from city to city sequentially, the historical reality was that there were often many political leaders at any one given time. The
Sumerian King List is generally not regarded as historically reliable given the exaggerated reign lengths (some rulers are described as ruling for hundreds or even thousands of years) and the fact that out of the massive amount of pre-Akkadian rulers listed in the
SKL, very few are actually attested in surviving evidence from the Early Dynastic period. It is considered most appropriate by modern scholars to rely solely on actual Early Dynastic sources for reconstructing historical events during the Early Dynastic period. As such, the table below only lists rulers whose existence is attested by other more contemporary sources. == Akkadian and Neo-Sumerian periods (c. 2334–2004 BC) ==