Simat-Ištaran Explained

Simat-Ištaran (also Šāt-Eštar) was a daughter of a king of the Ur-III Dynasty at the end of the third millennium BC. It is uncertain exactly which Ur III ruler was her father though Shulgi, Shu-Sin and even Amar-Sin have been suggested.^[1] Simat-Ištaran is mainly known from cuneiform texts coming from Garšana. According to those texts she was married to the general and physician Ŝu-Kabta. This connection is never explicitly mentioned within the texts, but can be inferred. This marriage documents how the Ur-III Dynasty kings married family members to various important people in the empire.^[2] After the death of her husband, Simat-Ištaran inherited his estate and continued to manage it alone.^[3]

References

1. Saadoon, Abather Rahi. "Sumerian texts from the archive of the princess Šāt-Eštar in the collections of the Iraq Museum." Iraq 80 (2018): 213-231
2. Steven J. Garfinkle: The Kingdom of Ur, in: Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, D. T. Potts (Herausgeber): The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume II: Volume II: From the End of the Third Millennium BC to the Fall of Babylon, Oxford 2022, ISBN 978-0-19-068757-1, pp. 154–155.
3. Alexandra Kleinerman: Doctor Šu-Kabta’s Family Practice, in: A. Kleinerman and J. M Sasson (Hrsg.): Why should someone who knows something conceal it ? Cuneiform studies in honor of David I. Owen. Bethesda, ISBN 978-1-934309-30-8, p. 180.