Kish
The city of Kish was a Sumerian kingdom close to Babylon on a former branch of the Euphrates. Particularly prosperous in the 3rd millennium BCE, it was reputed to be the seat of the first dynasty after the Flood.
A Sumerian kingdom
Kish was a rich kingdom in the country of Sumer, in the south of Iraq during the Early Dynastic period (circa 2900-2340 BCE). According to Sumerian tradition, the city of Kish was the first kingdom after the Flood, which strengthened its political importance. Extremely powerful in the mid-3rd millennium, the king of Kish arbitrated in conflicts between other Sumerian kingdoms. This included the war between Lagash and Umma, as attested to by a sculpted mace dedicated by King Mesilim in the temple of Tello. In the 3rd millennium, the city had a palace complex (Palace A and Palace P) with columns ‒ a rare feature in Sumerian architecture. Cemetery Y in Kish featured chariot tombs reserved for elite burials.
Birthplace of Akkadian kings
Kish was also the native city of the great King Sargon of Akkad, who seized power in circa 2340 BCE, before unifying Mesopotamian territory for the first time. The title king of Kish, which had the connotative meaning “king of the totality", had a universal value and was borne by Sargon and his successors; his son Rimush had it inscribed on alabaster vases and a shell conserved in the Musée du Louvre. The city of Kish, close to the ancient capital of Sargon, Akkad, stood at the heart of the Akkadian empire. Prosperous until the early 2nd millennium BCE, Kish continued to be occupied around our era, in the Parthian and Sasanian periods, when a fortress and a palace decorated with stucco were built.
International research
The site was identified in 1873 by George Smith but the main excavations were only begun in 1912 by French archaeologist Henri de Genouillac. They were resumed by a team from Oxford University and the Field Museum of Chicago from 1923 to 1933. In 1988, a Japanese team led by Ken Matsumoto focused on the tell Inghara.
Combating the theft and illicit trafficking of cultural property is one of the priorities of the French Ministry of Culture, which pays close attention to these issues, in line with its regulatory responsibility to control the movement of cultural property.
