Tradition and the Poetics of Innovation: Sumerian Court Literature of the Larsa Dynasty (C. 2003-1763 Bce)

N. Brisch examines the literary legacy of the dynasty of Larsa,
terminated by Hammurabi of Babylon in 1763 B.C.E. "The dynasties of Isin
and Larsa -- fierce rivals in contending for hegemony over Babylonia --
rarely or never acknowledged their Amorite origins openly, but instead
affiliated themselves with Sumerian traditions of royal legitimization.
This becomes apparent in the literary texts of the Isin and Larsa
rulers, which in all but a few cases were composed in Sumerian, a
language that to the best of our knowledge was no longer spoken by this
time. Thus, the choice of Sumerian for these compositions is in itself
significant. It is only with the rulers of the first dynasty of Babylon
(...) that we see the beginnings of a movement away from the Sumerian
tradition and the replacement by Akkadian as the language of choice in
literary texts. The Larsa dynasty, or more precisely its literary
heritage, is positioned at the brink of this change from a certain
tradition, for example, visible in the heroic literature on Sumerian
kings, to certain new developments (...). Because of these innovations
the Larsa royal literatur occupies a unique position within the corpus
of Sumerian royal literature, which is often perceived as particularly
traditional. -- The study of the literary, historical and linguistic
contexts of the Larsa Court Poetry is supplemented by the editions of 14
royal hymns and royal letters mainly of Sin-iddinam and Rim-Sin.