From Eannatum, Sumerian king, to Ardashir, Persian King Curse in the Inscriptions of the Mesopotamian and Achaemenid kings

The influence of Mesopotamia on the political and cultural structure of Achaemenid Kingdom is not negligible. One aspect of this influence is the imperial ideology of the Achaemenids.King Inscriptions are one the most reliable resources to study the imperial ideology In this regard, the presence of curse as a cultural motifs and as an element of those inscriptions, is a evidence of a continuous cultural and literature tradition in the imperial inscription which lasted for two millennium, from the third period of the era of the early dynasties of ancient Sumer till the end of the political life of Mesopotamia. After conquering of Mesopotamia by the Achaemenids, curse along with other political and cultural motifs used by them to illustrate the concepts of power. The aim of this paper is to show the evolution of curse in the imperial inscription of Mesopotamia, continuity and change of those motifs in ancient Persian inscriptions, and its functions in the Mesopotamian and Achaemenid Imperial inscriptions by studying the concept, scope and types of curse in the ancient Near East.