Lugal-zage-si
Sumerian King from c. 2370 - 2316 BC
Lugal-Zage-Si (LUGAL.ZAG.GE.SI 𒈗𒍠𒄀𒋛; frequently spelled Lugalzaggesi, sometimes Lugalzagesi or "Lugal-Zaggisi") of Umma (died c. 2334 BC) was the last Sumerian king before the conquest of Sumer by Sargon of Akkad and the rise of the Akkadian Empire, and was considered as the only king of the third dynasty of Uruk, according to the Sumerian King List. Initially, as king of Umma, he led the final victory of Umma in the generation-long conflict with the city-state Lagash for the fertile plain of Gu-Edin. Following up on this success, he then united Sumer briefly as a single kingdom.
Filiation
According to the Nippur vase of Lugalzagesi, Lugal-Zage-Si was the son of Ukush, governor of Umma:
"Lugal-zage-si, King of Uruk, King of the Land, priest of Ana, prophet of Nidaba; the son of Ukush, patesi of Umma, the prophet of Nidaba; he who was favourably regarded by Ana, the king of the lands; the great patesi of Enlil; endowed with understanding by Enki; whose name was spoken by Babbar (the Sun-god), the chief minister of Enzu (the Moon-god), the representative of Babbar, the patron of Ninni, the son of Nidaba, who was nourished with holy milk by Ninkharsag, the servant of the god Mes, who is the priest of Uruk, the pupil of Ninabukkhadu, the mistress of Uruk, the Great Minister of the gods".
Reign
Lugal-Zage-Si pursued an expansionist foreign policy. He began his career as énsi of Umma, from where he conquered several of the Sumerian city-states. In the seventh year of his reign, Uruk fell under the leadership of Lugal-Zage-Si, énsi of Umma, who ultimately annexed most of the territory of Lagash under king Urukagina, and established the first reliably documented kingdom to encompass all of Sumer. The destruction of Lagash was described in a lament (possibly the earliest recorded example of what would become a prolific Sumerian literary genre), which stressed that:
"The man of Umma ... committed a sin against Ningirsu.
“Lugal-zage-si” enters the record as sumerian King from c. 2370 - 2316 BC. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lugal-zage-si, Sumerian and King can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Lugal-zage-si” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lugal-zage-si, Sumerian and King provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q316241. VIAF identifies the subject as 5766176021905701500000. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lugal-zage-si” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.