Late Middle Babylonian Period, 1000-984 BC. A bronze tanged leaf-shaped arrowhead, either side of the rib inscribed with 'Eulmaš-š?kin-šumi', inscribed in cuneiform as 'É-ul-maš-GAR-MU', reading (property) 'Of Eulmash-shakin-shumi, king of the world'. See Brinkman, J.A., Political history of Post-Kassite Babylonia (1158-722 b. C.), Rome, 1968, p.161, for discussion of identical inscriptions on fourteen arrowheads known at the time of the book's publication. 8.2 grams, 65mm (2 1/2"). From a private family collection formed in London from the mid 1980s to early 1990s. King Eulmash-shakin-shumi was the founder of the 6th Dynasty of Babylon, named the B?t-Bazi Dynasty after the Kassite tribal group from which its leaders were drawn. There are discrepancies in the information surviving about his reign; whilst the Dynastic Chronicle states that he ruled for fourteen years, the King List A suggests a rule of seventeen years. The events leading to the king's rise to power unfolded in the context of the chaotic close of the Second Sealand Dynasty, and in the midst of the turmoil inflicted by the famine-induced Aramean migrations occurring at that time, during which Eulmaš-š?kin-šumi appears to have seized the throne and possibly moved his capital to Kar-Marduk, a hitherto unknown location presumed to be less vulnerable to invasions by semi-nomadic peoples than Babylon. Upon his death, king Eulmash-shakin-shumi was buried in the Palace of Kar-Marduk, the dynastic capital. A 9th century stele relating to temple endowments at Sippar relates that the king restored food offerings to Shamash, and entrusted a garden plot in a part of Babylon known as the 'New City' to the then high priest there. The weapons unearthed with inscriptions such as the one offered here were likely votive, as opposed to military, pieces. Condition Report Fine condition, cleaned.