While the pyramids were rising at Giza, to the east and
Across the Sinai and over the Arabian desert, in the
Valley of the two great rivers, a different kind of power
Was consolidating. Not a pyramid-power. Not a tomb-architecture
Of divine kingship. A military power. An imperial power. The
First empire in human history. The empire of Sargon of Akkad.
Before Sargon, Mesopotamia was a landscape of competing
City-states. Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Kish, Umma, Nippur, Eridu—
Each a walled city with its own ruler, its own patron deity,
Its own patch of irrigated farmland. These cities had been
In existence for a thousand years already. Sumerian civilization
Had invented writing (cuneiform on clay tablets), the wheel
(For pottery and for carts), bronze metallurgy, the mathematical
Base-sixty system that still defines how we measure time and angles,
And the political form of the city-state ruled by a lugal (king)
Or ensi (governor-priest). The cities warred with each other,
Traded with each other, and occasionally formed short-lived
Hegemonies when one king managed to subdue the others. The
Legendary Gilgamesh of Uruk—the historical king on whom the
Epic poem would eventually be based—ruled during this period.
Lugalzagesi of Umma briefly united much of Sumer in the
Twenty-fourth century BCE. But no unification lasted long, and
No empire—in the sense of a multi-regional political entity
Ruled from a single center—had yet been built.
Sargon changed that.
Sargon's origin story is already
Legendary: a foundling, abandoned in a reed basket on the river
By his mother, rescued by a gardener, rising to become cupbearer
To the king of Kish, and then—by a coup or by a succession
Crisis, depending on the account—becoming king himself. (The
Reed-basket-on-the-river motif will appear again, later, in the
Biblical Moses story. The parallel is not coincidental. The
Motif is a Near Eastern commonplace that signals foundling-to-
King destiny.) Sargon's name means "the true king" or "the
Legitimate king"—a throne-name, taken at his accession, designed
To declare that he was the rightful ruler despite his non-royal
Origins. He then began to conquer. First the other Sumerian
Cities. Then the regions to the north—Akkad, which would become
His imperial base. Then further afield: Elam to the east,
Syria and Anatolia to the north, and as far as the Mediterranean
Coast of what is now Lebanon. Sargon claimed to have washed
His weapons in the Upper Sea (the Mediterranean) and the Lower
Sea (the Persian Gulf). The claim, if not literally true, was
Culturally decisive. Sargon had conquered more territory than
Any previous ruler in history. The Akkadian Empire was born.
And its capital city, Akkad, was founded somewhere along the
Tigris or Euphrates—the exact location has never been rediscovered.
Akkad is the lost imperial capital. One of the most important
Cities in the ancient world, ruled by one of the most consequential
Dynasties, and we do not know where it stood. The site has been
Buried or eroded or overbuilt so thoroughly that Akkad is, as
Far as modern archaeology is concerned, a name without a location.
Sargon ruled for fifty-six years. His reign was marked by
Military campaigns, administrative consolidation, and the
Imposition of Akkadian (a Semitic language, carried by
J-haplogroup populations) as the language of empire, gradually
Displacing Sumerian (a language isolate) in common use. Sargon's
Daughter Enheduanna was installed as high priestess of the
Moon-god Nanna at Ur—and Enheduanna is, incredibly, the
First author whose name has survived in human history. Her
Hymns to Inanna—the goddess of love and war, Sumerian counterpart
Of the later Semitic Ishtar—are the oldest signed literary
Works that exist. Enheduanna is the first named author. The first
Woman in the historical record whose intellectual labor was
Acknowledged, named, and preserved. The daughter of the first
Emperor is also the first author. And her hymns—particularly "Nin-me-
Šara" ("The Exaltation of Inanna")—are still read and studied
Four thousand three hundred years later.
Sargon was succeeded
By his sons Rimush and Manishtushu, both of whom faced rebellions
And assassinations, and then by his grandson Naram-Sin, who took
The empire to its apex. Naram-Sin ruled for approximately thirty-six
Years. He expanded the empire further, campaigned widely, and
Famously declared himself a god—the first Mesopotamian king to
Claim divinity during his own lifetime, a precedent that would
Echo through later Near Eastern kingship and ultimately into the
Roman imperial cult. The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, carved
Around twenty-two hundred and fifty BCE, depicts him crossing a
Mountain as a divine warrior, trampling enemies beneath his feet,
With the solar and astral symbols of the gods above him. It is
One of the masterpieces of ancient Near Eastern art. And it
Marks the peak of the Akkadian Empire.
After Naram-Sin, the
Empire declined. His son Shar-Kali-Sharri faced ongoing revolts
And a weakening economic base. And then—around twenty-one fifty
BCE—the empire collapsed. Two forces contributed. The first was
Internal: the economic and political infrastructure of the empire
Had overextended. The second was external: invaders from the
Zagros Mountains, a people called the Gutians, descended into
Mesopotamia and overran the weakened imperial structure. The
Gutians were, according to the Sumerian records, "barbarians"—
A disparaging word that Mesopotamian civilization would apply
Repeatedly to mountain peoples who invaded from the east. They
Ruled Mesopotamia for approximately a century, badly and
Chaotically, until they were expelled by a resurgent Sumerian
Dynasty centered on the city of Uruk (the Fourth Dynasty of
Uruk) and then by the Third Dynasty of Ur, which would
Re-establish Sumerian-language rule and usher in the Neo-Sumerian
Period. That dynasty—Ur III—is the one in which Abraham, in
The Gaiad's reading, will be born. But that is a later chapter.
For this chapter, the focus is the Akkadian Empire itself—the
First multi-regional empire in human history, the first state to
Claim suzerainty over multiple cultures and languages, the first
To institutionalize the mechanisms of imperial administration
That would be refined by every subsequent empire of the ancient
World. The Akkadian Empire's innovations: a standing army
Recruited from across the empire; provincial governors appointed
By the imperial center; a common imperial language (Akkadian);
Standardized weights and measures; an imperial road system; a
Unified taxation regime; and the title of "King of the Four
Quarters" that claimed universal sovereignty over the four
Corners of the earth. These innovations would be inherited by
The Babylonian Empire, the Assyrian Empire, the Persian Empire,
The Macedonian Empire of Alexander, the Roman Empire, and
Every subsequent imperial structure in the Old World. Sargon
Is the prototype of the emperor. The word "Sargon" is itself,
Via various linguistic routes, probably the root of the word
"Caesar" and the broader Indo-European vocabulary for kingship.
Every emperor is, in some sense, a descendant of Sargon of Akkad.
The fall of the Akkadian Empire around twenty-one fifty BCE is,
As mentioned in the Old Kingdom chapter, part of the broader
4.2-kiloyear climate event. A severe multi-century drought that
Weakened both the Nile flood and the Tigris-Euphrates system
Simultaneously. The Egyptian First Intermediate Period and the
Gutian collapse of the Akkadian Empire are the two faces of
The same climate crisis. Both civilizations survived the crisis—
Egypt reassembled in the Middle Kingdom, Mesopotamia
Reassembled in Ur III—but both were chastened. The climate
Had taught them that no empire, however well-organized, was safe
From the weather.
And the Akkadian Empire left its mark
On the mythology of the later Near East. The Curse of Akkad,
A Sumerian literary text, narrates the fall of the empire as a
Punishment for Naram-Sin's sacrilege—his destruction of the
Temple of Enlil at Nippur. The gods, enraged, summoned the
Gutian barbarians to destroy the empire. The fall is made sense
Of as a moral failure. Hubris leads to divine retribution. The
Gutian invasion is not a climate event; it is the judgment of
The gods on an emperor who overstepped. This is a theological
Reading that will recur throughout Near Eastern historiography:
Empires fall because their kings sinned. It is the same reading
The Hebrew Bible will apply to the kings of Israel and Judah.
It is the same reading the Greeks will apply to Xerxes at
Salamis. The cosmological pattern is already present in the
Akkadian material: the divine order of the world punishes the
Proud emperor, and the empire falls.
And Sargon himself
Becomes, over the following millennia, a legendary figure. The
Sargon Legend circulates in cuneiform manuscripts for the next
Two thousand years. Sargon is remembered as the archetypal
Conqueror, the self-made king, the foundling who became an emperor.
Later kings, including the Neo-Assyrian Sargon II in the eighth
Century BCE, would take his name in order to claim his legacy.
The cultural memory of the first emperor outlasted the archaeological
Record of his capital city. We lost Akkad. We did not lose
Sargon.
Akkadian Empire. Sargon. Naram-Sin. Enheduanna.
The first empire. The first author. The first divine-king claim.
The first prototype of the imperial form that every subsequent
Empire would elaborate. And the first great collapse—by climate,
By barbarian invasion, by internal exhaustion—of the imperial project.
The Gutians came down from the mountains. The cities burned.
The empire ended. And Mesopotamia, having invented the empire,
Spent the next three thousand years failing to make any single
Empire last. Akkad. Ur III. Old Babylon. Assyria. Neo-Babylon.
Persia. Seleucid. Parthian. Sassanid. Caliphate. Empire after
Empire. Each inheriting the template Sargon had established.
Each, eventually, falling. The cycle begins here.
Sargon. Akkad. The first empire. Stand.