How do mainstream scholars explain the unrealistic reigns of tens of thousands of years in king lists?

Hey, you've hit the nail on the head! Those tens of thousands of years of reign listed in the Sumerian King List are indeed a stumbling block for anyone interested in ancient history – they seem utterly unrealistic. Mainstream scholars have long studied this issue, and their explanations are actually quite convincing; it's not simply dismissed as "ancient people making things up."

Simply put, the scholarly consensus is: These extraordinarily long reigns are not factual historical records, but rather a combination of mythology, numerical symbolism, and political propaganda.

Let me break it down for you, keeping it as straightforward as possible.

## Core Idea: It's Not a "History Book," It's a "Propaganda Document"

First, it's crucial to understand that the Sumerians created this list with a purpose entirely different from our modern history textbooks. It functioned more like a political document, designed to demonstrate the "divine mandate" or "legitimacy" of the ruler in power at the time.

The very first line of the King List states: "Kingship descended from heaven." This sentence is the key to understanding the entire list. It sets the tone: Who becomes king is decided by the gods and follows an unbroken line of succession.

## Breaking Down the Mainstream View

Scholars primarily explain those outrageous numbers from the following angles:

1. The "Great Flood" as the Dividing Line: Mythological Era vs. Heroic Era

This is the most crucial clue. You'll notice the kings in the list are clearly divided into two major parts:

Kings Before the Flood: These kings have terrifyingly long reigns, often tens of thousands of years. For example, the first king, Alulim, reigned for 28,800 years; another, En-men-lu-ana, reigned for 43,200 years.
Kings After the Flood: After the flood, the length of reigns drastically shortened. Although initially still lasting centuries (e.g., Gilgamesh's father, Lugalbanda, is said to have reigned for 1,200 years), they gradually approached normal human lifespans as the list progresses. The reigns of the kings at the very end of the list become very realistic.

This structure itself suggests: The time before the flood belongs to mythological time; only after the flood does it gradually enter human historical time. The pre-flood kings resemble gods or demigods, living in a "Golden Age" distinct from mortals. Their extreme longevity is a manifestation of their divinity.

2. The Symbolic Meaning of Numbers: It's Not Arithmetic, It's Theology

The Sumerians (and later Babylonians) had highly developed mathematics, using a sexagesimal system (the origin of our time units "60 seconds = 1 minute, 60 minutes = 1 hour"). In their culture, the number "60" and its multiples held special, sacred significance.

Scholars have found that the reign lengths of the pre-flood kings are often specific multiples of 60. They used two important time units:

sar = 3600 years (60 x 60)
ner = 600 years (60 x 10)

Looking back at those numbers:

Alulim's 28,800 years = 8 sar (8 x 3600)
En-men-lu-ana's 43,200 years = 12 sar (12 x 3600)
The total reign length of all pre-flood kings adds up to 241,200 years, exactly 67 sar (67 x 3600).

This is clearly not a coincidence. These numbers were deliberately designed to express an astronomical or theological concept of harmony and perfection, not to record actual years. It's like us saying in mythology "Sun Wukong was imprisoned under the mountain for five hundred years" or "one day in heaven equals one year on earth" – we focus on the symbolic meaning, not literally verifying if it was exactly five hundred years.

3. Constructing Political Legitimacy: We Are the Chosen Ones

The final version of this list was likely compiled under the direction of a king from a specific city-state (like Isin). What was his purpose? To prove that he was the sole, legitimate ruler over all of Sumer.

How to prove it? Through this list, he constructed a perfect chain of succession:

"Kingship" descended from heaven, first given to Eridu → then passed to Bad-tibira → ... → survived the Great Flood → after the flood, descended upon Kish → ... → Uruk (Gilgamesh's city) → ... → finally, after a series of successions, it came to our city-state of Isin, and into my hands!

See? By stringing together all the once-powerful city-states into a "single line of succession," he portrayed himself as the ultimate heir to divine kingship. To make this chain appear ancient, sacred, and unassailable, writing the reigns of the initial "divine kings" as long as possible only enhanced the list's authority.

4. Possibly Listing Concurrent Dynasties as Sequential

Another view suggests that in ancient Mesopotamia, many city-states existed concurrently, each with its own king. But the compiler of the King List, to create the impression that "kingship was singular," presented these concurrent dynasties in the list as sequential.

This is like forcibly presenting the coexisting Chinese dynasties of Song, Liao, Jin, and Western Xia as "Song ended, then came Liao, Liao ended, then came Jin..." – doing this artificially stretches the entire historical timeline significantly.

## To Summarize

So, when a mainstream historian sees those tens-of-thousands-of-years reigns in the Sumerian King List, they don't think "Wow, ancient people lived so long" or "Aliens?", but rather:

It's Mythological Narrative: The pre-flood section recounts a sacred era distinct from the mortal world.
It's Numerical Symbolism: These numbers are carefully designed based on the sexagesimal system, carrying religious and cultural meaning.
It's Political Propaganda: Its core purpose is to "endorse" the ruler of the time, proving their legitimacy.
It's Artistic License with History: It simplifies complex, multi-threaded concurrent history into a single linear succession story.

The King List isn't entirely devoid of historical value. Many kings mentioned in its latter part have been confirmed by archaeology, like the famous Gilgamesh. While his deeds are mythologized, he is widely accepted as a real historical ruler of Uruk.

Therefore, the Sumerian King List is a fascinating text interwoven with myth, history, and political propaganda. Those unrealistic reign lengths are the most direct manifestation of its "mythological" and "propaganda" attributes.