Kudurru of King Meli-Shipak with Fortified Wall and Boat
Unknown · Kassite period, reign of Meli-Shipak, 1186-1172 BC
A block of pale alabaster, roughly half a metre on each side, is carved on two faces. On one, a gate flanked by crenellated towers rises between columns of cuneiform. On the other, three registers show a deity, a boat carrying divine emblems, and a city wall studded with towers. The architecture is unusually detailed for a Babylonian relief: you can count the battlements and see the doorway set into the wall. The emblems in the boat stand for gods invoked as witnesses to the document, in the way that other kudurrus scatter symbols across their surface.
The monument was made under Meli-Shipak, a Kassite king of Babylon in the early twelfth century before our era, to record a land grant, and its main inscription is in Middle Babylonian. Shortly afterwards the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte the First sacked Babylonia, carried the stone home to Susa, and had his own inscription carved on it in Elamite, claiming the trophy. The kudurru was found at Susa by the French mission and came to the Louvre through the partage of finds, a document of one king's generosity turned into a record of another's plunder.
Did You Know? Two kings speak on this stone: the Babylonian who commissioned it and the Elamite who stole it and added his own name.
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