Gutian dynasty of Sumer


The Gutian dynasty, also Kuti or Kutians was a dynasty that came to power in Mesopotamia c. 2199—2119 BC, or possibly c. 2135—2055 BC, after displacing the Akkadian Empire. It ruled for roughly one century; however, some copies of the Sumerian King List vary between 4 and 25 years. The end of the Gutian dynasty is marked by the accession of Ur-Nammu or 2055 BC ).
The Gutian people were native to Gutium, presumably in the central Zagros Mountains, though almost nothing is known about their origin.

History

The Gutians were described as part of the horde that toppled the kingdom of Akkad. It was a conglomeration of tribes that descended from the Zagros Mountains, possibly drawn to the plains for its prosperity. The ancient Mesopotamians treated them as subnormal beings for their unwillingness to conform to customs and laws of civilization. Chronicles written around the end of the third millennium BC, for instance, described the Gutians as barbarians, having the intelligence of dogs and the appearance of monkeys while speaking a language similar to a confused babble.
The Gutians practiced hit-and-run tactics, and would be long gone by the time regular troops could arrive to deal with the situation. Their raids crippled the economy of Sumer. Travel became unsafe, as did work in the fields, resulting in famine.
The Sumerian king list indicates that king Ur-Utu of Uruk was defeated by the barbarian Guti, perhaps around 2150 BC. The Guti swept down, defeated the demoralized Akkadian army, took Akkad, and destroyed it around 2115 BC. However, they did not supplant all of Akkad, as several independent city-states remained alongside them, including Lagash, where a local dynasty still thrived and left numerous textual and archaeological remains. The first Guti ruler was a nameless king.
Ultimately Akkad was so thoroughly destroyed that its site is still not known. The Guti proved to be poor rulers. Under their crude rule, prosperity declined. They were too unaccustomed to the complexities of civilization to organize matters properly, particularly in connection with the canal network. This was allowed to sink into disrepair, with famine and death resulting. Thus, a short "dark age" swept over Mesopotamia.
Akkad bore the brunt of this as the center of the Empire, so that it was in Akkad that the Guti established their own center in place of the destroyed Akkad. Some of the Sumerian cities in the south took advantage of the distance and purchased a certain amount of self-government by paying tribute to the new rulers.
Uruk was thus able to develop a fifth dynasty. Even in the city of Akkad itself, a local dynasty was said to have ruled. The best known Sumerian ruler of the Gutian period was the ensi of Lagash, Gudea. Under him, c. 2075 BC, Lagash had a golden age, and seemed to enjoy a high level of independence from the Gutians.
After a few kings, the Gutian rulers became more cultured. Guti rule lasted only about a century — around 2050 BC, they were expelled from Mesopotamia by a coalition of rulers of Uruk and Ur, when Utu-hengal of Uruk defeated Gutian king Tirigan:
Utu-hengal's victory revived the political and economic life of southern Sumer. The year 11 of king Ur-Nammu also mentions "Year Gutium was destroyed".

Weidner Chronicle

1,500 years later, the Weidner Chronicle accounts for the Gutian period as follows:
There are scholars who state that the description of the Gutian rule over parts of Mesopotamia was fiction or that it at least gave undue importance to the Guti horde. This is believed to be perpetuated by the chroniclers of Uruk to turn Utu-hegal's minor victory into an event of universal significance for the purpose of solidifying support for his emergent regime. This view is based on the varying accounts of the surviving manuscripts, with many of them in total disagreement as to the length of the king's reign and even the identities of the Guti kings.

List of Gutian kings

According to the SKL:

Gutian kings not on the SKL

RulerEpithetLength of reignApproximate dates Comments
Erridupizir3 yearsfl. c. 2141—2138 BCKnown from a royal inscription at Nippur.
Imta or Nibia3 yearsfl. c. 2138—2135 BC

Gutian kings on the SKL

The listed reign lengths throughout much of the Gutian period are comparatively short and uniform:
RulerEpithetLength of reignApproximate dates Comments
Inkishush or Inkicuc6 yearsfl. c. 2135—2129 BCFirst Gutian ruler named on the SKL.
Sarlagab or Zarlagab6 yearsfl. c. 2129—2123 BCPossibly the same person as the Gutian king Sharlag.
Shulme6 yearsfl. c. 2123—2117 BC
Elulmesh or Elulumesh6 yearsfl. c. 2117—2111 BCPossibly the same person as Elulu.
Inimabakesh5 yearsfl. c. 2111—2106 BC
Igeshaush6 yearsfl. c. 2106—2100 BC
Yarlagab5 yearsfl. c. 2100—2095 BC
Ibate3 yearsfl. c. 2095—2092 BC
Yarla or Yarlangab3 yearsfl. c. 2092—2089 BC
Kurum3 yearsfl. c. 2089—2086 BC
Apilkin3 yearsfl. c. 2086—2083 BC
La-erabum or Lasirab2 yearsfl. c. 2083—2081 BCKnown from a mace head inscription.
Irarum2 yearsfl. c. 2081—2079 BC
Ibranum1 yearfl. c. 2079—2078 BC
Hablum2 yearsfl. c. 2078—2076 BC
Puzur-Suen7 yearsfl. c. 2076—2069 BCthe son of Hablum
Yarlaganda7 yearsfl. c. 2069—2062 BCKnown from a foundation inscription at Umma.
Si'um or Si'u7 yearsfl. c. 2062—2055 BCKnown from a foundation inscription of Lugalannatum at Umma.
Tirigan40 daysfl. c. 2055—2055 BCDefeated by the Uruk king Utu-hengal.

Modern connection theories

The historical Guti have been regarded by many scholars as having contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Kurds. However, Kurds are an Iranian people, and the first known Indo-Iranians in the region were the Mitanni, who established a kingdom in northern Syria five centuries after the fall of Gutium. The Mitanni are believed to have spoken an Indo-Aryan language, or perhaps a pre-split Indo-Iranian language. The current view is that the separation of Iranian peoples from Indo-Aryans occurred between 1800 and 1600 BCE, which makes it nearly impossible for the Gutians to have been linguistically or culturally Kurdish, although it is possible that they still contributed to an extent, if at the very least genetically.
According to Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov, the Gutian language was close to the Tocharian languages of the Indo-European family.