How many versions of the Sumerian King List are currently known? Are there any differences or contradictions among them?

Okay, let's talk about this fascinating topic. The Sumerian King List – you absolutely shouldn't imagine it as a neatly printed, globally standardized History textbook. It's more like a collection of scattered "class notes" copied by different people at different times, hence the numerous versions and significant discrepancies in content.

The Sumerian King List: Not One Version, More Like a "Dynamically Updated" Historical Record

First, directly answering your first question: the currently known Sumerian King List isn't a complete "book." Instead, it's been pieced together by archaeologists from fragments of roughly 16 major clay tablets or prisms.

Think of it as a giant jigsaw puzzle. These "puzzle pieces" were discovered at different ancient city sites (like Nippur, Isin, Kish, etc.), dating from the 21st century BC to the 18th century BC. The most famous and complete piece is the Weld-Blundell Prism, now housed in the Ashmolean Museum in the UK. It's the most crucial source for understanding the King List's overall picture.

(An illustration of a clay prism covered with cuneiform writing on all sides)

Discrepancies and Contradictions: The Very "Soul" of the King List

Since they are "notes" from different places and times, it's perfectly normal for them to have differences and contradictions. These contradictions mainly manifest in the following ways:

1. Mismatched King Counts and Names

Different versions of the King List might disagree on the number of kings and their names when recording the same dynasty. For example, one version might list 8 kings for Dynasty A, while another lists only 7, or the spelling of a king's name might be completely different.

For instance: It's like you and I recalling the list of classmates from our elementary school. I might remember "Xiao Ming," you might remember "Xiao Ming" spelled differently, or I might even include a student from the next-door class. The ancient scribes copying the King List made similar errors, or recorded names based on their memory and the legends they heard.

2. Wildly Divergent Reign Lengths

This is the most "fantastical" and famous aspect of the Sumerian King List.

The Mythical Pre-Flood Era: All King Lists record 8 (or 10) kings before the Great Flood, whose reigns were absurdly long, often tens of thousands of years (e.g., one king reigning for 36,000 years). While all are long, there are subtle differences in the specific reign lengths for each king between versions.
The Heroic Post-Flood Era: After the flood, kings' lifespans drastically shortened, but early kings (like Gilgamesh) still reigned for centuries. The differences in recording these kings' reign lengths across versions are even greater.

3. Dynasty Sequence and the Contradiction of "Single Kingship" (The Core Contradiction)

The core idea of the Sumerian King List is "Kingship is divinely ordained and singular." What does this mean? It asserts that at any given time, only one city was the "capital," holding supreme kingship. When that city declined, kingship would "transfer" to the next city.

It paints this picture:
- Kingship was first in Kish, with Kish's kings ruling Sumer in succession.
- Then kingship transferred to Uruk, and Uruk's kings began to rule.
- Next, it transferred to Ur...

This is like a "kingship relay race" – one city runs its leg, then passes the baton to the next.

But here's the contradiction! Archaeology and other textual evidence tell us that real history was nothing like this. Many dynasties recorded in the King List as successive were actually contemporary and competing.

The real historical picture was more like:
- Several powerful city-states like Kish, Uruk, and Ur were all "runners" racing simultaneously, vying for dominance.

Therefore, to promote the political ideology of "singular and orderly transmission of kingship," the Sumerian King List artificially streamlined a chaotic, multi-polar history of rivalry into a seemingly neat, linear narrative.

Why These Contradictions?

Simply put, there are three main reasons:

Political Agenda ("Spin"): This is likely the most important reason. The King Lists were typically compiled by scribes of the ruling city-state. Naturally, they would glorify their own city and rulers – for instance, extending their dynasty's reign duration, simplifying, or even vilifying rival dynasties' histories – to prove they were the legitimate rulers "by divine mandate."
Scribe Errors ("Human Error"): Over centuries of transmission and repeated copying, mistakes like typos, omissions, or misremembered numbers were inevitable. After all, there was no copy-paste; everything was hand-copied (or rather, hand-incised).
Evolution of Oral History: The early content of the King List, especially the pre-flood section, likely originated from myths and oral traditions. Legends naturally accumulate embellishments and variations as they are passed down.

To Summarize

Therefore, we shouldn't judge the Sumerian King List by modern standards of "factual history." It's not an objective, precise chronicle, but rather a cultural artifact blending myth, legend, and political propaganda.

Its value lies not in providing 100% accurate dates and king lists, but in revealing the Sumerians' worldview, political ideology, and historical perspective – their desire for order, and their attempt to understand and explain their complex history by constructing a system of "orderly kingship transmission."

One could say that it's precisely these "contradictions" and "inaccuracies" that make the Sumerian King List even more fascinating, because they allow us to glimpse how the ancient Sumerians "crafted" and "wrote" their own history.