Recriminations on the Diyala: More on Ilūni

The texts studied in this essay are all “incoming mail” from the archive of king Ilūni of Ešnunna, two sent by the rival dynast Inzuršakšu, and one by the former’s daughter Šamuḫtum. They shed further light on a quarrel between the two rulers at the end of the eighteenth century BCE , when the Diyala Valley and adjacent Zagros foothills witnessed a struggle for domination among numerous smaller kingdoms following the collapse of Šamši-Adad’s “Kingdom of Northern Mesopotamia” and the waning of Babylonian influence early in the reign of Samsuiluna. The activity of Elam is also reflected in this correspondence.