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
| Ruler | Epithet | Length of reign | Approximate dates | Comments |
| Erridupizir | 3 years | fl. c. 2141—2138 BC | Known from a royal inscription at Nippur. | |
| Imta or Nibia | 3 years | fl. c. 2138—2135 BC |
Gutian kings on the SKL
The listed reign lengths throughout much of the Gutian period are comparatively short and uniform:| Ruler | Epithet | Length of reign | Approximate dates | Comments |
| Inkishush or Inkicuc | 6 years | fl. c. 2135—2129 BC | First Gutian ruler named on the SKL. | |
| Sarlagab or Zarlagab | 6 years | fl. c. 2129—2123 BC | Possibly the same person as the Gutian king Sharlag. | |
| Shulme | 6 years | fl. c. 2123—2117 BC | ||
| Elulmesh or Elulumesh | 6 years | fl. c. 2117—2111 BC | Possibly the same person as Elulu. | |
| Inimabakesh | 5 years | fl. c. 2111—2106 BC | ||
| Igeshaush | 6 years | fl. c. 2106—2100 BC | ||
| Yarlagab | 5 years | fl. c. 2100—2095 BC | ||
| Ibate | 3 years | fl. c. 2095—2092 BC | ||
| Yarla or Yarlangab | 3 years | fl. c. 2092—2089 BC | ||
| Kurum | 3 years | fl. c. 2089—2086 BC | ||
| Apilkin | 3 years | fl. c. 2086—2083 BC | ||
| La-erabum or Lasirab | 2 years | fl. c. 2083—2081 BC | Known from a mace head inscription. | |
| Irarum | 2 years | fl. c. 2081—2079 BC | ||
| Ibranum | 1 year | fl. c. 2079—2078 BC | ||
| Hablum | 2 years | fl. c. 2078—2076 BC | ||
| Puzur-Suen | 7 years | fl. c. 2076—2069 BC | the son of Hablum | |
| Yarlaganda | 7 years | fl. c. 2069—2062 BC | Known from a foundation inscription at Umma. | |
| Si'um or Si'u | 7 years | fl. c. 2062—2055 BC | Known from a foundation inscription of Lugalannatum at Umma. | |
| Tirigan | 40 days | fl. c. 2055—2055 BC | Defeated 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.