Malgium

Malgium (also Malkum) (Ĝalgi’a or Ĝalgu’a in Sumerian, and Malgû(m) in Akkadian) is an ancient Mesopotamian city tentatively identified as Tell Yassir (one of a group of tells called collectively Tulūl al-Fāj) which thrived especially in the Middle Bronze Age, ca.

[1] Malgium formed a small city-state in an area where the edges of the territories controlled by Larsa, Babylon and Elam converged.

[1] The site of Tell Yassir (in Wasit Governorate, Iraq) is a single mound covering around 15 hectares.

After the 2003 invasion Iraqi archaeologists with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage conducted a surface survey at Tell Yassir and found that the site was heavily looted, to the extent that administrative and palatial structures visible from earlier satellite images could no longer be found.

The tablets also included year names showing that kings Nur-Eštar (previously unknown), Šu-Kakka, Nabi-Enlil, Šu-Amurrum, Imgur-Sin, and Ištaran-asu ruled over Irisaĝrig.

[15] Ḫammu-rāpi, in a coalition with Shamshi-Adad I (of Ekallatum)and Ibal-pi-El II (of Eshnunna), campaigned against the city-state until its ruler bought them off with 15 talents of silver.

Malgium’s king, Ipiq-Ištar, concluded a treaty and subsequently provided aid and soldiers in Ḫammu-rāpi’s campaign against Larsa.

Inscribed clay nail of Ipik-Ishtar, king of Malgium, 1770 BCE. From Malgium, Iraq. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin