King of the Lands

The title of King of the Lands was introduced by the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (center) in the variant Glorious King of the Lands.

King of the Lands (Akkadian: šar mātāti[1]), also interpreted as just King of Lands[2] or the more boastful King of All Lands[3] was a title of great prestige claimed by powerful monarchs in ancient Mesopotamia. Introduced during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC–609 BC), the term mātāti explicitly refers to foreign (e.g. non-Assyrian) lands, often beyond the confines of Mesopotamia itself (in contrast to the word mātu which refers to the Assyrian land itself), suggesting that the Assyrian king had the right to govern foreign lands as well as his own.[4]

  1. ^ Shayegan 2011, p. 43.
  2. ^ Kosmin 2014, p. 113.
  3. ^ Karlsson 2016, p. 153.
  4. ^ Karlsson 2016, p. 19.