Worsen of Akkad

Beginnings

---- The empire of Akkad is before all the work of a man, passed to the posterity in the history of Mésopotamie: Sargon d' Akkad. This character remained very present in the posterior tradition mésopotamienne, and of many things were written in this connection, so much so that it is very often difficult to distinguish historical reality from the legend. A fact remains certain: Sargon is not royal blood. Its name of reign (the only one which is known for him), Sharrum-kîn , means “the king is stable”, as if he had sought to make forget that he is not king of birth. The legend telling its birth and its childhood does not hide it: Sargon would be the son of a priestess, who would have given up it, before it is recovered then raised by a gardener. It is thanks to the assistance of the goddess Ishtar that Sargon, minister of Ur-Zababa of Kish, would have become king.

Thus a simple commoner becomes sovereign the of one of largest cities of Mésopotamie. But at this period, the most powerful king is Lugal-zagezi of Umma, which reigns from the city of Uruk. Sargon succeeds in overcoming it, and subjects all the Lowone. But it founds a change: whereas the former victorious sovereigns were satisfied with a suzerainty on the other kings of the area, it decides to annex each old city-State of Sumer and Akkad in a vast kingdom which has as a center a city that it raises with the row of capital, Akkad. It is a true revolution in the history of Mésopotamie.

Great conquests

After having subjected the South of Mésopotamie, Sargon will direct forwardings in direction of the North-West. It subjects the Highone, by beating in particular the country of the Subartu and by taking the town of Tuttub. Other campaigns are launched against the kings élamites of Awan.

When Sargon dies in 2279 av. J. - C., his/her son Rimush succeeds to him. It seems that the end of reign of the large king was the occasion of a great rebellion of the country of Sumer, which was subdued with difficulty. It is in any case clear that Rimush faced this problem as of its establishment. It holds good, subjects the rebels, and thus ensures the posterity of the work of his father. For the first time there too, the conquests of a large king are not lost with its death. Rimush dies assassinated in 2270 av. J. - C., and his/her brother Manishtusu succeeds to him. He conducts campaign in direction of the Iranian Plate, and also of the Persian Gulf, to the country of Magan (Oman)

His/her son Naram-Sin goes up on the throne in 2254 av. J. - C. It is him also a great figure of the history mésopotamienne, but which left an image more negative than his/her grandfather. It is a large conqueror: in Syria, it subjects the kingdoms of Mari, Ebla and Alep. Then it gains other victories against Subartu, Awan and Magan. A revolt occurs however again in Sumer: repression is terrible. Naram-Sin according to the tradition would not have suitably returned the worship to Enlil, the largest god of Low-Mésopotamie. The posterior generations condemned this event, which would have thrown a curse on king d' Akkad and his successors, because it caused the anger of the gods and lost their support. In the facts, the last years of the reign of Naram-Sin mark indeed the beginning of the end of the empire of Akkad.

First empire

Installation of an imperial State

With Akkad, for the first time in the history of the Middle East a great official construction appears including a whole of old microphone-States in its center. That involves a great change in the design of the function of the sovereign. Previously related to the framework of the city-State, this one had a limited role. With the constitution of a vast empire under the dynasty of Akkad, the sovereign takes a new dimension. That is especially latent under Naram-Sin, which develops a true imperial ideology. He says “King of the Four Areas” (i.e. of everyone known), which translates an ambition of universal domination, hitherto absent from the royal ideology mésopotamienne. Moreover, innovation there too, it makes precede its name by determinative by the divinity, and in the representations it wears the tiara to horns, attribute of the gods: the king is thus of a divine gasoline.

The appearance of an ideology of imperial nature at the time of Akkad is however not a true revolution. One a long time wanted to see in Sargon a pioneer, but it is located in fact in the continuity of basic sovereigns Mésopotamie whose power had already exceeded that of the ordinary kings of city-States. A great place must be granted to Lugal-zagesi, king originating in Umma but established to Uruk, and direct predecessor of Sargon, of which it probably inspired political work. Remainder, the ideological tradition is really hustled only under the successors of Sargon, before any Naram-Sîn. Gradually a new royal art appears, according to the evolution of the design of the royalty, and one sets up an administration centralized on the old territorial executives. One carries out a standardization of the administrative texts, which are written in all the administrative centers of the Empire with the same C-W communication, and in the same type of Akkadien, to be more easily included/understood and controlled by a homogeneous administrative staff in all the territory, whereas at side remain the local practices.

The sovereign continues to direct the State in a traditional way, surrounded by his faithful, which it grants many present as well as grounds. The highest characters placed and the governors of the area-keys come often from the royal family, where dependant of close with it. The princes are sometimes named governors, like wire of Naram-Sîn, Lipit-ili (in Marad) and Nabi-Ulmash (in Tutu). The princesses were often devoted priestesses of the large temples of the south mésopotamien: Enheduanna girl of Sargon (known by the poems which are allotted to him) in the temple of Nanna to Ur, Enmenanna girl of Naram-Sîn in same temple, and his/her sister Shumshani, large priestess of Shamash to Sippar. The elite of the powerful army akkadienne is framed by the close relations of the sovereign, and constitutes a kind of royal guard, perhaps permanent (undoubtedly maintained by the ground concession service).

Administration and control of the territory

The internal organization of the empire of Akkad remains badly known, the sources being not very abundant. They are also dispersed on nearly a score of sites in Mésopotamie, those of the south (Girsu, Umma, Adab) having delivered the most documents. The main issue for our knowledge of this State is obviously the fact that its capital was not discovered, which deprives to us of a knowledge by the archeology and the texts of the capital of the empire, which was in the middle of the operation of this last.

The State d' Akkad is organized in provinces, directed in the south by governors called ENSI, title Sumérien before used to appoint the kings of certain cities. they correspond in this area to the old limits of the city-States annexed at the time of the conquest by Sargon, whose sovereigns were replaced by the faithful ones of the king, originating in Akkad. They are in charge of the management of often immense royal fields, which correspond to the fields of the deposed sovereigns, and are managed according to the local tradition in three ways: directly by the dependant ones on the palate, or indirectly by sharecroppers, or conceded with civils servant or soldiers like remuneration for the accomplished service. The sovereign exempted many grounds with his faithful, as the obelisk of Manishtusu shows it, in which king proclaims the distribution of grounds (3 500 hectares in all) to “wire of Akkad”, that it is necessary to include/understand like his close relations.

The temples always had important fields, as attest it the files of Ekur with Nippur and a temple of Eshnunna, but their administrators are chosen by the king. This last took part in their servicing, and one knows the rebuilding of Ekur well undertaken by Naram-Sîn thanks to shelves found in this temple, which as a sanctuary of the large god Enlil had an crucial importance.

When there was no administrative center already places from there, one created the new ones, and sometimes one established fortresses to control the conquered territories, or one built new palates and habitats in conquered cities, as with Such Brak or Such Leilan. The provinces out basic Mésopotamie are controlled by governors who have an important military function, especially in the peripheries of the empire. The temples have there a place more reduced than in the south mésopotamien and the Diyala. One finds there great fields royal, known in the texts of Suse and Gasur.

The fall of Akkad

The reign of Naram-Sin sees the arrival of a new threat: the Gutis. These people, considered as barbarian by Mésopotamiens and originating in the Western areas of the Zagros, lance several fatal raids in Mésopotamie. Under the reign of Shar-kali-sharri, wire of Naram-Sin, they are done more and more threatening, while the revolt thunders again in the empire. Several defeats make lose with the king most of the territory conquered by its aïeux, and it returns from there to more modest ambitions, simply proclaiming “king d' Akkad”. If the fall of Akkad is allotted by the tradition to Gutis, nothing attests it clearly. It seems that the progressive weakening of the empire left the place to new ambitions, of which those of the kings gutis, but also of people originating in the various areas of the empire, which take their independence then, as he is attested with Suse, Uruk or Lagash.

Posterity

The experiment which the empire of Akkad constituted deeply marked the history of Mésopotamie. The old system of the city-States left room to a new official form dedicated to the universal domination. The empire of the Third dynasty of Ur, which is formed a few decades after the fall of Akkad, is in the continuity of this first empire.

As of the beginnings of Ur III, one feels the need to justify the fall of Akkad by a theological explanation, and one carries out the drafting of a text, called by the current historians the Malédiction of Akkad . This account tells how Naram-Sîn lost the support of the gods, one does not know why, and Enlil does not give him the right to rebuild are temple with Nippur. Of rage, Naram-Sîn makes it destroy, and attracts itself the curse of the Gods, who condemn his kingdom to the destruction, Gutis playing the part of divine punishment. It is this image of proud king and fisherman whom the tradition mésopotamienne in connection with Naram-Sin forged. One finds it in Legend of Kutha , in which the king refuses to hear ill omen in connection with a battle which it will carry out, and loses. But it ends up carrying it as a combatant when predict them are favorable for him.

Sargon was églament at the origin of an abundant literature, which on-is sometimes interpreted insofar as one has few inscriptions and texts going back to his reign. One up to what point does not know these accounts, attested until the end of the time néo- Assyrie (8th-7th centuries), follow historical reality. It is the case of most famous, the Autobiographie of Sargon , account telling how Sargon is abandoned with its birth by his/her mother (a priestess who should not have children), who places it in a wicker basket on the Euphrate, surlequel it derives until Kish where he is collected by a shaft sinker, before being later constant by the goddess Ishtar, who helps it to seize the power. One even found a text in connection with a campaign (undoubtedly legendary) which it would have carried out in Anatolia, against the town of Purushkhanda, in the capital Hittite, Hattusha, which shows that its prestige extended beyond Mésopotamie.

The tradition mésopotamienne thus distinguished two kings d' Akkad, Sargon and Naram-Sîn, symbolizing all the importance which they had in his history, and the construction of the royal function and the imperialism in the area. It especially retained them them military power, aspect which they precisely proposed. With the length of the history mésopotamienne the scribes recopied the inscriptions of kings d' Akkad, in addition to the legends with regard to them. The two sovereigns also were the subject of a worship, undoubtedly as of the period of Ur III.

Kings d' Akkad

2334/2279: Sargon
2279/2270: Rimush
2270/2255: Manishtusu
2255/2218: Naram-Sin
2218/2193: Shar-kali-sharri
2193/2169: interregnum
2169/2154: Shu-Turul