The Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient Near East, pp. 649-659, 2023/04/12
Proceedings of the 64th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale and the 12th Melammu Symposium, University of Innsbruck, July 16‒20, 2018
The main goal of this contribution is first to describe the main characteristic features of the Mesopotamian royal ideology in general and then to define the two basic attitudes towards the legitimacy of royal power that are visible in the relevant sources throughout the whole history of ancient Mesopotamia. The first concept can be designated as “collective legitimacy” as the king is viewed as a representative of the whole royal kin which was collectively given the right to perform the royal office. The second attitude (“individual legitimacy”) highlights the respective ruler as a single person without any reference to his predecessors.