Riflessioni storiche su un sigillo di epoca akkadica

The presence of an Urkeški ugula, testified on the cylinder seal AOD 42, could be very important to understand what Sumerian endan means. This seal is probably dated to the reign of Naram-Sin and we know that the king of Akkad sent one of his daughters, Tar’am-Agade, to the city of Urkeš. Recently some impressions of a seal belonged to an endan of Urkeš have been found not far from the context where some fragmentary impressions of Tar’am-Agade were discovered. We have no evidences that Tar’am-Agade was the endan’s wife, but the very presence of a contemporary ugula indicates that she couldn’t be a queen. Even if the ugula in texts is always the chief of a number of workers or soldiers and is never related to a city, we can deduce that he was anyway a person who coordinated and directed; so D.O. Edzard’s interpretation as “governor” is quite acceptable. Obviously the interpretation of endan as “king” makes no sense if at the same time and in the same place a governor is attested.