2. How was it practiced in Sumer? Who authorized the ruler?

Return to History 8 Computer exercise

Legitimation of authority was practiced in Sumer by priest-kings. "The priest-king ruled through a series of bureaucrats, many of them priests, that carefully surveyed land, assigned fields, and distributed crops after harvest. This new institution of monarchy required the invention of a new legitimation of authority beyond the tribal justification of chieftainship based on concepts of kinship and responsibility. So the Sumerians seemed to have at first justified the monarch's authority based on some sort of divine selection, but later began to assert that the monarch himself was divine and worthy of worship." The priests were selected by the gods to rule, and so the citizens believed that if they were chosen by the gods that the priest-king should stay in power.

Sources:

http://richard-hooker.com/sites/worldcultures/MESO/SUMER.HTM

Computer exercise

Nicolas Baumann