Šulgi
Historical second king of the Ur III dynasty (reigned c. 2029-1982 BCE per the short chronology, or 2094-2047 BCE per the middle chronology); 48-year reign; greatest king of the Ur III period. Biological son of Ur-Nammu (founder of Ur III); the royal-hymn tradition substitutes Lugalbanda + Ninsun as divine parents — explicitly making Šulgi the brother of Gilgamesh — as ideological elevation. Mid-reign self-deified (around year 21, c. 2074 BCE), adding the dingir determinative before his name and receiving cult-offerings as a living god. The Šulgi hymns (A-X, 25 surviving) are major Sumerian literary works in their own right; his reign saw the redaction of much of the Sumerian literary corpus including the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems. The structural-classification case parallels Mongán in Irish tradition: historical king, sincere mythological divine-paternity claim from contemporaneous court literature (the Šulgi hymns are direct Ur III royal commissions, not later overlay), passes strict criterion under the registry's established precedent. The dual reading is recorded in `variants[]`.
Parentage
Children
Domains
- kingship of Sumer and Akkad
- patron of Sumerian literature and scribal academies
Powers
- Radiate awesome divine splendor
- Radiate divine splendor
- Run superhuman distances
Epithets
- 𒈗𒆠𒂗𒄀
- 𒀭𒈗𒆬𒂠
Relations
- sibling claimed: Gilgamesh
- father: Ur-Nammu
- spouse: Geme-Ninlilla
- father of: Amar-Sin
- father of: Šu-Sin
- father of: Enmaḫgalanna
Sources
- Sumerian King List; Šulgi hymns A-X (25 surviving royal hymns); Ur III administrative archive (Drehem/Puzrish-Dagan, Umma, Lagash, Nippur, Ur — c. 100,000 administrative tablets); year-name lists (the formal Ur III chronology)
- Šulgi royal hymns (the divine-parentage claim); Sumerian King List (the historical Ur-Nammu paternity)