ensiship

plural ensiships

1. historicalrareThe office or tenure of an ensi.

   Shuruppak was one of eighteen ensiships under the control of Ur in the Ur III period (2112-2004 BCE.)

   1997, American Schools of Oriental Research, Eric M. Meyers (editor), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, Volume 2, page 302

   3 more examples

   Edmond Sollberger considers some evidence in Sumer of the 3rd Millennium BC notably the reality of the sovereignty of the god Enlil who elects and deposes rulers; a case of a royal judgement overruled; the strange relationship of Urukagina to his predecessor in the ensiship and later colleague, and his wife.

   1977, University of London, Institute of Archaeology, Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, numbers 14-15, page 226

   To Eannatum, the ensi of Lagash, whom Ningirsu (a god) had conceived of (in his mind), Inanna (a goddess) , because she loved him , gave the kingship of Kish in addition to the ensiship of Lagash.

   1986, Petrus Franciscus Maria Fontaine, The Light and the Dark: Dualism in the Ancient Middle East, page 238

   Since the defeat of Lagash represented for Lugalzagesi the starting point for his ascension to the throne of Uruk, in lack of other documentary evidences, we tentatively assume the length of his ensiship to be 8 years, according to the highest available date in the texts.

   2015, Alfonso Archi (editor), Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East, Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique International at Rome, 4-8 July 2011, page 164