city state · Mesopotamia and Iran
Adab
Origins
Adab, modern Bismaya, was occupied from the early third millennium BCE and became an independent city-state in the Early Dynastic period. A late literary tradition credits a king of Adab, Lugal-Anne-mundu, with vast conquests, but these stories cannot be confirmed by contemporary records.
Rule and society
Its main temple, the E-sar, belonged to Ninhursag in her local form Digirmah. Excavations by Edgar Banks for the University of Chicago in 1903 to 1905 found temple remains, statues and tablets, and many more Adab texts later entered collections through looting. They show a temple-centred economy of barley, livestock and craft workshops typical of Sumerian cities. Meskigal governed the city first under Lugal-zage-si and then under Sargon.
Decline and legacy
Adab lost its independence to the Akkadian Empire around 2334 BCE and rebelled more than once against Akkadian kings. It remained a provincial city under the Neo-Sumerian Empire and faded in the early second millennium BCE.
Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.
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- Adab was conquered by Akkadian Empire2334 BCE
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Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Adab. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/adab
- MLA
- “Adab.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/adab. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Adab.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/adab.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Adab’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/adab (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻