Mesannepada and his contemporaries

W.W.Hallo

The Tummal Inscription goes on to credit Enmebaragesi's son Aka with the construction of the Tummal-building at Nippur. It is less clear about the rest of Nippur's benefactors. Some sources name next a king of Ur, Mesannepadda (or Nane), and his "son" Meskiagnunna, followed by Gilgamesh of Uruk and his son Ur-lugal (or Ur-nungal).
Others reverse this order. Their very uncertainty about, or indifference to, the precise order seems to indicate that both groups of rulers were contemporaneous. But Gilgamesh was also contemporaneous with Enmebaragesi, according to a late royal hymn, and with Aka of Kish, according to Gilgamesh and Aka, and epic that tells in detail of an unsuccessful siege of Uruk by an army of Kish. Thus we can synchronize the end of the first dynasty of Kish,the middle of the dynasty of Uruk, and the beginning of the first dynasty of Ur.