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When first discovered and published in the beginning of the last century, the Sumerian King List was valued highly as a historical document for its potential to check the validity of the biblical chronology in the Book of Genesis and to reconstruct early world and Mesopotamian (political) history. But scholarly research has gradually turned to focus on the historiographical value of the King List at the times when it was composed or redacted. Especially, it is noted that the King List was composed to promulgate a political vision or doctrine that the pattern of kingship or hegemony in Mesopotamia could only be exercised by one city at a given time and for a limited period. Such political doctrine is said to have been used by the early rulers of the Isin dynasty (ca. 1953–1730 B.C.) to legitimise themselves as the rightful rulers of the Ur III dynasty (ca. 2119–2004 B.C.). Both conceptually and stylistically, the Sumerian King List had exerted a wide-spread and enduring impact on a number of Mesopotamian literary compositions and chronographic sources from the Ur III period to the Hellenistic period (ca. 290 B.C.).

Among all the extant exemplars of the Sumerian King List, the Weld-Blundell prism in the Ashmolean Museum cuneiform collection represents the most extensive version as well as the most complete copy of the King List. It lists rulers from the antediluvian dynasties to Suen-magir, the fourteenth ruler of the Isin dynasty (ca. 1763–1753 B.C.). The prism contains four sides with two columns on each side. Perforated, the prism must originally have a wooden spindle going through its centre so that it might be rotated and read on all four sides. (SYC)