Ea-mukin-zēri, inscribed^mdÉ-a-mu-kin-NUMUN, son of Hašmar^{[i 1]} (DUMU, “son of,”ḫaš-mar, aKassite word for “(the)falcon”^[1]), was the 2nd king of the 2nd Sealand or 5th Dynasty ofBabylon,c. 1004 BC, but only for 3 months, according to theDynastic Chronicle,^{[i 1]} 5 months according to theKinglist A.^{[i 2]}

His predecessor wasSimbar-šipak, who ruledc. 1021–1004 BC, and theDynastic Chronicle records that he “was slain with the sword,”[i 1] before describing Ea-mukin-zēri as “the usurper (LUGAL IM.GI).”^[2] Another person named Ea-mukin-zēri appears as a witness to a land deed^{[i 3]} dated to Simbar-šipak’s twelfth year,^[3] but is probably someone else as it records that he was the son of Belani and was the priest ofEridu.^[4] TheSynchronistic King List^{[i 4]} makes him a contemporary ofŠamši-Adad IV ofAssyria but possibly for stylistic purposes as he was likely to have been one of the many Babylonian Kings who were contemporary with the later Assyrian KingAššur-rabi II’s lengthy reign.

TheDynastic Chronicle notes that “he was buried in the swamp of Bit-Hašmar,” presumably an ancestral homeland and possibly Darband-i-Ḫān, where theDiyala breaks through the Bazian range, at the northeast boundary of Namri according to Levine^[1] or southern Babylonia according to Brinkman, perhaps even Bīt-Ḫaššamur, a town in the vicinity ofNippur according to Beaulieu. The practice of interring Mesopotamian kings in wetlands, “close to the abode ofEnki,” was a common practice and commented upon by ancient historians such asStrabo^[5] andArrian in hisAnabasis Alexandri, quotingAristobulus of Cassandreia’sHistory of Alexander the Great. This describes his inspection of the royal tombs, which were at least partially submerged and surrounded by reeds.^[6] Burial in swamps "in the reeds of Enki" (gi-^den-ki-ka-ka) were also recorded byUrukinimgina,énsi ofLagash (c. 2380 BC–2360 BCshort chronology), in his reforms.^[7]

• 11th-century BC kings of Babylon

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