In the past, the name of the king was often thought to mean "legitimate king" or "the king is legitimate" — šarru-kēn(u) or šarru-kīn(u) — and to have been taken by him following the death/murder of his brother in order to stress the new king's right to the throne and to remind people of the earlier great ruler Sargon of Akkad. These assumptions are open to question. The king's name is almost invariably written with logograms — (m)(d)LUGAL/MAN-GI.NA/GIN — which allows various different interpretations of the meaning of the name. On no occasion is the first element of his name written syllabically in cuneiform texts and on only a few occasions is the second element done so, some written in Assyria (A) and some in Babylonia (B); these are listed below:
While the spelling Šarru-kīn is attested for Sargon I of Assyria, it is thus not clearly attested for Sargon II. As noted by Fuchs, the writers of the letters to Sargon listed above "would certainly have addressed their master in the most correct way."[60] In addition, a few of the texts using the writing -ú-kin were written by the well-known royal scribe Nabû-zuqup-kēnu, who would surely not have written the name of the king incorrectly.[61] Therefore, the name of Sargon II should most probably be understood to be Šarru-ukīn and to mean "He (the god) made the king firm," with only one (partially preserved) example indicating the reading Šarru-kēnu, "the legitimate/righteous/just/true king.[62] Since the name was not reserved only for rulers as has sometimes been thought,[63] it may well have been Sargon's birth name and not one that he took upon ascending the throne, although the latter possibility cannot be ruled out. The "king" originally referred to in the name would have been the ruler at the time of Sargon's birth (possibly Aššur-dān III).[64] However, once Sargon had ascended the throne, the "king" might well have been re-interpreted to refer to him and encouraged the byform Šarru-kēnu, with its respective meaning(s). This new understanding of the name may be reflected in the following statement in the Khorsabad Cylinder: "In accordance with the saying of my name (kīma zikir šumiya) that the great gods had given to me — to protect truth and justice, to guide the powerless, (and) to prevent the wrongful harming of the weak" (text no. 43 line 50). In this connection, it must be noted that in his inscriptions, Sargon II was sometimes given the epithets rē'û kēnu, "the legitimate/righteous/just/true shepherd" (text no. 9 line 3, text no. 43 line 3, text no. 44 line 4 [partially restored], text no. 73 line 2, text no. 89 line 13, and probably text no. 117 i 22, as well as a few cases where it is likely to be restored), šarru kīnu, "the legitimate/righteous/just/true king" (text no. 65 line 114; Kataja and Whiting, SAA 12 no. 19 line 5´; see also the note to text no. 89 line 34), and rubû kēnu, "the legitimate/righteous/just/true prince" (text no. 82 vii 33´´), stressing his legitimacy/righteousness/justness/trueness to be king and reminding one of his name.[65] A. Fuchs has argued that "Only a king who had won his throne by usurpation was in need of such epithets,"[66] although this may simply indicate that his accession was in some way irregular or unexpected, and not that he had violently overthrown Shalmaneser V.
The king's name is written once in Aramaic as srgn on an impression of a seal belonging to one of Sargon's eunuchs that was found at Khorsabad (text no. 2004 line 3) and once as shrkn on the Assur Ostracon.[67] In the Hebrew scriptures, the name appears as sargōn (var. sarggōn) in Isaiah 20:1.[68] The name is rendered in the Septuagint by editorial conjecture as Σαρ𝜈α𝜈, with the various manuscripts having σαρ𝜈α, αρ𝜈ας, αρ𝜈αβα, αρ𝜈αι, or αρ𝜈α; later Greek translations give it variously as σαραγω𝜈, σαργω𝜈, and σαργου𝜈.[69]
Although it has at times been stated that Sargon II's name was a throne name taken by him in order to connect himself with Sargon of Akkad, a famous earlier ruler who did not come from a royal line and yet came to rule a major kingdom and found a new dynasty, it should be noted, as pointed out by Frahm (NABU 2005 p. 50 n. 30), that none of Sargon II's inscriptions ever mentions Sargon of Akkad. While he is called "the later (arkû) Sargon" in the date formulae of a few colophons and while the Ptolemaic canon does refer to him as Arkeanos (Ἀρκεανοῦ genitive), which may be derived from arkû, in theory this could simply be an indication of the existence of the (admittedly not-well-known and less significant) Old Assyrian king Sargon I instead of Sargon of Akkad.[70] There have been attempts to date the Sargon Legend and Sargon Geography to the reign of Sargon II and to consider them to reflect that ruler's political ideology.[71] While these texts may very well come from the time of Sargon II, this has not yet been proven conclusively.
The length of the wall of Sargon's new capital Dūr-Šarrukīn[72] is stated to be 16,280 cubits in four texts: ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR GÉŠ.U GÉŠ.U GÉŠ.U 1 UŠ 1½ NINDA 2 KÙŠ in text no. 9 lines 79–80 and text no. 8 line 40 (partially restored) and ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR GÉŠ.U GÉŠ.U GÉŠ.U 1 UŠ 3 qa-ni 2 KÙŠ in text no. 43 line 65 and text no. 44 line 47 (mostly restored).[73] In texts 43 and 44, the number is said to be ni-bit MU-ia "(corresponding to) the rendering of my name," or more literally "(corresponding to) the saying/pronunciation of my name."[74] Although various proposals have been made by scholars over the years to explain how this would work,[75] none has been convincing, although, as noted by Fuchs and other scholars, a connection between the sign ŠÁR and the first part of Sargon's name (šarru) would seem likely.[76]
60 PNA 3/2 p. 1239.
61 3 R pl. 2 nos. 1 and 5; AAT pl. 47a; and CT 30 pl. 28 K. 8014 (mostly restored). See also May, Studies Diakonoff pp. 110–164, especially pp. 124–125 and 127–129 nos. 1–2, 6, and 9; and Fuchs, Studies Volk pp. 75–77.
62 Some other translations that have also been proposed are "the truthful king" (Hurowitz, Studies Ephʿal pp. 114–115 and n. 28) and "the king is just" (see Frahm, Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem p. 205).
63 See PNA 3/2 p. 1247 sub Šarru-kēnu 3 for an official by this name — mLUGAL-ki-nu — in the time of Ashurbanipal.
64 Fuchs, PNA 3/2 p. 1239.
65 In the present volume kīnu/kēnu is arbitrarily translated as "just" in these cases. With regard to Sargon's name, see in particular Fuchs, PNA 3/2 pp. 1239–1240 sub Šarru-kēnu 2.I; Fuchs, RLA 12/1–2 (2009) pp. 51–53; Frahm, NABU 2005 pp. 46–50 no. 44; and Fuchs, Studies Volk pp. 71–75.
66 Fuchs, PNA 3/2 p. 1239.
67 Gibson, TSSI 2 p. 104 no. 20 line 15.
68 R. Kittel and P. Kahle, Biblia Hebraica, 3rd ed. (Stuttgart, 1945) p. 635.
69 J. Ziegler, Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum, volume 14: Isaias, 3d ed. (Göttingen, 1983) p. 192.
70 See Hunger, Kolophone nos. 294, 297, and 313; May, Studies Diakonoff pp. 110–164, especially pp. 116–117 and Appendix 2 nos. 1–2, 5, 6, 20, 32, 35–37, 40, 42, 45–46, and 50–51; and Fuchs, Studies Volk pp. 69–86, especially pp. 75–77. The colophons are primarily on texts written by the royal scribe Nabû-zuqup-kēnu, For the writing Ἀρκεανοῦ in the Ptolemaic Canon, see below.
71 E.g., Lewis, Sargon Legend pp. 97–107; Horowitz, Cosmic Geography pp. 92–93; Van De Mieroop, Studies Renger pp. 327–339; Galter, Studies Haider pp. 279–302.
72 The name of the city is always written with logograms in Sargon's royal inscriptions and thus we should perhaps give its name as Dūr-Šarru-ukīn rather than Dūr-Šarrukīn. A number of economic texts and letters write the last element of the place name syllabically or partially syllabically; however, it is often uncertain if these texts are referring to Sargon's city or to the city Dūr-Šarrukku in northern Babylonia. Note in particular Kwasman and Parpola, SAA 6 no. 106 rev. 8 [URU.BÀD-LUGA]L-ú-k[in], in connection with the eponym for 693. Two instances, for example, which might refer to Khorsabad are URU.BÀD-sa-ru-uk-ka and BÀD-MAN-ka (Fales and Postgate, SAA 11 no. 94 rev. 4 and no. 133 ii 18´ respectively); suggestion courtesy M. Worthington. See also Fuchs, Studies Volk p. 71 n. 15.
73 Text no. 8 line 40 has ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR GÉŠ.U GÉŠ.U GÉŠ.U [1 UŠ 1 1/2 NINDA 2 KÙŠ] and text no. 44 line 47 has [ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR ŠÁR GÉŠ.U GÉŠ.U] GÉ[Š.U 1 UŠ] ⸢3⸣ qa-ni 2 KÙŠ.
74 CAD N/2 p. 202 translates nibīt šumiya as "(corresponding to) the spelling of my name."
75 For example, W. von Soden (Aus Sprache pp. 334–335 n. 33) suggested that the number might reflect the number of days Sargon had been alive (ca. 44.6 years) at the time.
76 Fuchs, Khorsabad pp. 294–295 n. 88. For other recent discussions of this riddle, see Pearce, JAOS 116 (1996) 462; De Odorico, Numbers pp. 140–141; Morenz in Morenz and Bosshard-Nepustil, Herrscherpräsentation pp. 200–201; and Radner, Macht des Namens pp. 130–131. M. Roaf and M. Worthington are both preparing detailed studies of the problem with possible solutions.
Grant Frame
Grant Frame, 'Name', RINAP 2: Sargon II, Sargon II, The RINAP 2 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2021 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap2/rinap2introduction/name/]