Anubanini

{{main|Anubanini rock relief}}

In this rock relief, Anubanini, the king of the Lullubi, puts his foot on the chest of a captive. There are 8 other captives, two of them kneeled behind the Lullubian equivalent of the Akkadian goddess Ishtar (recognisable by the four pairs of horns on her headdress and the weapons over her shoulders) and six of them standing in a lower row at the bottom of the rock relief. He is faced by goddess Nini/Innana/Ishtar, and it is thought that he may have claimed divinity, like several rulers after the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur.{{cite book |last1=Steinkeller |first1=Piotr |title=History, Texts and Art in Early Babylonia: Three Essays |date=2017 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=9781501504778 |pages=153–154 Note 422 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eX4oDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA154 |language=en}}

This rock relief is very similar to the Behistun Inscription and may have influenced it.

In the inscription in Akkadian script and language, he declares himself as the mighty king of Lullubium, who had set up his image as well as that of Ishtar on mount Batir, and calls on various deities to preserve his monument:{{cite book |last1=Cameron |first1=George G. |title=History of Early Iran |date=1936 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |page=41 |url=https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/history_early_iran.pdf}}

{{blockquote|File:Anubanini relief constituents Akkadian inscription.jpgAnubanini, the mighty king, king of Lullubum, erected an image of himself and an image of Ishtar in the Mountains of Batir... (follows a lengthy curse formula invoking deities Anu, Antum, Enlil, Ninlil, Adad, Ishtar, Sin and Shamash to preserve his monument)|Akkadian language inscription of the Anubanini relief.{{cite book |last1=Cameron |first1=George G. |title=History of Early Iran |date=1936 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |page=35 |url=https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/history_early_iran.pdf}}}}

File:Anubanini relief constituents prisoner king.jpg." He wears a feather crown such as that found in a few hammered bronzes of Luristan belonging to the early first millennium B.C." in {{cite book |title=Ancient Iran |date=1965 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E0hWjCGOUHIC}} Anubanini rock relief.{{cite book |last1=Osborne |first1=James F. |title=Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology |date=2014 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=9781438453255 |page=123 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nvAQBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |language=en}}]]

File:Anubanini relief constituents prisoners.jpg (detail). They are naked, their hands bound, and held by a ring through the nose.{{cite book |last1=Barjamovic |first1=Gojko |title=Problems of Canonicity and Identity Formation in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia |date=2016 |publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press |isbn=9788763543729 |pages=220, Note 11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jae9DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA220}} Anubanini rock relief.]]

Some later legends, such as the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin, describe a king Anubanini during the reign of Naram-Sin (c. 2254–2218 BCE), who used to raid the fertile lands of the Babylonian plain from his mountain territory on the eastern frontier. The epic Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin claims Gutium and Elam among the lands raided by the hordes led by Anubanini.{{cite book |last1=Rainey |first1=Brian |title=Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible: A Theoretical, Exegetical and Theological Survey |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781351260428 |page=134 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iDZ7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT134 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Edwards |first1=Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen |title=The Cambridge Ancient History |date=1970 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521077910 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgeancient02edwa/page/443 443]-444 |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeancient02edwa |url-access=registration |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Ebeling |first1=Erich |last2=Meissner |first2=Bruno |last3=Weidner |first3=Ernst |last4=Edzard |first4=Dietz Otto |title=Reallexikon D Assyriologie Bd 3 Cplt Ae Geb ** |date=1928 |publisher=W. de Gruyter |isbn=9783110037050 |page=709 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5P86eKIOJjgC&pg=PA709 |language=de}} According to this account Anubanini was only stopped at the shores of the Persian Gulf.

{{blockquote|"Warriors with bodies of “cave birds”, a race with ravens’ faces (...) in the midst of the Mountain they grew up, came to manhood and acquired their stature. Seven kings, brothers, glorious and noble, their troops numbered 360,000. Their father was Anubanini the king, their mother the queen, Melili was her name. (...) They devastated Gutium and invaded the land of Elam"|The Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin (extracts), translation Oliver Gurney.{{cite book |last1=Gurney |first1=Oliver Robert |title=Anatolian studies, Vol 5 |date=1955 |pages=99–111 |url=http://www.archaeowiki.site/images/5/59/Vol_5_1955.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218111228/http://www.archaeowiki.site/images/5/59/Vol_5_1955.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 18, 2022 }}}}

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Anubanini Rock Relief 1.jpg|{{center|Original relief.}}

Anubanini_relief_components.jpg|{{center|Components of the relief (extracted).}}

File:Anubanini relief constituents King Anubanini portrait.jpg|Portrait of king Anubanini.

File:Annubanini.jpg|The name Annubanini as it appears at the beginning of the Anubanini rock relief inscription.

file:Lulu king 2.jpg| Drawing- Queen Lulubian from the relief of Sarpolzahab. The second half of the third millennium BC

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Category:Monarchs in the Middle East

Category:23rd-century BC monarchs