NARRATOR: The apocalypse. When an entire people
are destroyed... ..or destroy themselves. The end of civilisation. For us today,
as we go about our daily lives, it's barely something we consider. We're so sure
it couldn't happen to us. But for some civilisations... ..it already has. Empire, as a form of government it has shaped our lives
for millennia. The Roman Empire. The Mongol empire. The British Empire. All have dominated lands
and people... ..but none were the first. In the 24th century BCE, Mesopotamia was made up of
many different city states. Each with their own king
and patron god. It was largely inhabited
by two distinct ethnic groups, the Sumerians in the south and the Semitic Akkadian people
in the north. In 2334 BCE the Akkadians
concur the Sumerian lands uniting the city state kingdoms here to create an entirely new form
of political organisation. Empire. This is the first time
that you had a multi cultural, multilingual group of city states all unified together
under one banner. This represents a tectonic shift
in government, this is a new state
of political organisation that we've never seen before. The Akkadian Empire
was the world's first empire and ruled from the Persian Gulf
in the east to the Mediterranean Sea
in the west. All the way north
into modern day Turkey. We see this empire
coming seemingly from nowhere and suddenly
the Akkadian language rises up to then become the language
across this entire region. Under the Akkadians,
life in Mesopotamia flourished. They used their power
and geographical reach to create a period of great
prosperity inside the empire. Their trade routes
spanned vast distances, outside of the empire, so they were actually trading
with people in India, with people in the Mediterranean who had beautiful artistry
pouring into the empire. Pearls, ivory, both elephant
and hippopotamus, even live animals like monkeys. Everything you could
possibly imagine was all coming in, making the empire wealthier
and more opulent. But after only 140 years, by 2193 BCE
the Akkadian empire fractured. Entire regions were abandoned
as the empire descended into chaos. The Akkadian empire's
very existence was forgotten through the passage of time. What could cause the world's first
empire to be erased from history? The Akkadian empire
wouldn't resurface until a British archaeologist
made an unrelated discovery. On the east bank
of the Tigress River, Sir Austin Henry Layard
uncovers something incredible. The king's palace
of the biblical city of Nineveh. The capital of the Assyrian empire, the people who rose to power over 1,000 years after
the disappearance of the Akkadians. Layard excavates for years but it's in the last days of the dig that he makes
his greatest discovery. Layard's workers
had uncovered a chamber containing 30,000 pieces
of clay tablets. All marked with Cuneiform script, the ancient writing system
of the Assyrians. What Layard had stumbled across were
the remains of the greatest library ever known in the ancient world. The library of Ashurbanipal,
the king of the Assyrians. What secrets
might these tablets hold? For the 19th century archaeologists, these Cuneiform formed texts could hold an untold
wealth of information about the history
of ancient Mesopotamia. The problem is,
no one can read them, they're written in an indecipherable
form of Cuneiform script. To have any hope
of unlocking the secrets of the ancient middle east, they need to crack
the Cuneiform code. For the past 15 years, British archaeologist
Sir Henry Rawlinson has been working on
translating Cuneiform. Cuneiform isn't actually a language
it's a writing system. A bit like in modern times
the Latin alphabet can be used to write English,
French, Spanish and German. Cuneiform systems
could be used to write all manner of ancient languages. Rawlinson was obsessed
with understanding how the ancient Cuneiform system
of writing worked. Henry Rawlinson
was a British Army officer and he was sent on a posting to an
area in what is now modern day Iran. And he saw this huge mountain,
Mount Behistun, which was along
the ancient Silk Road and he saw about
halfway up the cliff there was an ancient inscription. He can tell that it's written
in Cuneiform script and he also realises that the script
isn't all one language. It appears to be three different
languages all written in cuneiform. He identifies one of them,
old Persian, but what on earth are the other two? Rawlinson had already translated the old Persian
cuneiform inscription. But the other languages
still remained a mystery. When he was shown Layard's discovery he immediately saw that the
cuneiform script on these tablets... ..was the same as one of
the unknown languages, written in Cuneiform,
found on the Behistun carving. If they could work out
what this mystery language in the Behistun inscription said, they could use that as a Launchpad to start decoding
what the clay tablets from the library said. Understanding this language could be key to unlocking
the secrets of ancient Mesopotamia. He returned
to the Behistun inscription. It was assumed
that the three languages all inscribed using the cuneiform
writing system said the same thing. Was the answer hidden here? Rawlinson already understood
the old Persian inscription and if he could use that, by decoding the repetitive symbols and working out what
some of the words might mean, he might be able to decode
the other two mystery languages. If Rawlinson could find similarities
between old Persian cuneiform and the unknown cuneiform language, he could build an alphabet for
deciphering the library of Nineveh. Old Persian uses about
43 different symbols and he realised that each of them corresponded to a letter
or a number. However, the other two languages appear to have many,
many more symbols. But this gives Rawlinson a clue. There are too many cuneiform symbols for each one to represent
an individual letter. Instead,
the language must be syllabic. Where each symbol
represents a syllable. Rawlinson began trial and error, trying to relate symbols
in the unknown cuneiform language with the symbols that he did
understand in the old Persian. And you go, "Well, if this means
king or god in old Persian, "maybe that's what this means in the
mystery language, does that work?" And you try it out. It takes almost ten years
but Rawlinson cracks the code. He can finally read the tablets
from the library of Nineveh. And what riches it held. There were texts on medicine,
there were texts on astrology and there was a huge section
on history. It was extraordinary, the scribes had not just written
a history of their own people, the Assyrians, they'd written about the people
who'd come before them. There was an empire
that we never knew had existed, that had been declared
the greatest of all time. Here Rawlinson found references
to the world's first empire, an empire that ruled over
all of Mesopotamia. Rawlinson christens them
the Akkadians. The archaeologists were dumbfounded, who were these people? How come we'd never heard of them? How could a whole civilisation
be destroyed in such a way that they would be
entirely lost to the sands of time? When did the Akkadians exist? When were they wiped out? And what caused their destruction? Rawlinson spends years
translating cuneiform tablet, after cuneiform tablet,
looking for any clues. But in 1867, nearly ten years after Rawlinson
first deciphered Akkadian cuneiform, he came across a tablet. It was the legend
of Sargon of Akkad, the first king
of the Akkadian empire. Rawlinson had uncovered the first part
of the Akkadian's history. In 2334 BCE Sargon came to power
as the king of Kish. A city state in the Akkadian region
of Mesopotamia. From the very beginning, Akkadian history is steeped
in violence and conflict. Sargon fought war after war expanding his kingdom
across Mesopotamia, conquering and subjugating Sumerian
and Akkadian city states alike to form the Akkadian empire,
the world's first empire. To fund the administration
of this new empire, Sargon demanded each city state
pay their share in taxes. Taxes are the price you pay
for a civilised society. So, what Sargon did was he required every individual
to produce X amount of grain and bring it
to an administrative centre. These administrative centres were
basically grain storage facilities. And Sargon needed a lot of grain, particularly to fund
an innovation of his. The world's first standing army. Full time, well equipped,
professional soldiers, always ready to fight. In the past,
if they needed to go to war, if they needed to fight, they would bring in
a conscripted army. You've got soldiers who might be
farmers, they might be herders, they are not professional fighters, they're not necessarily
all that good at it. But by the time you move over
to this full time army, you've got people
who know how to kill. But it's under the rule of
the Akkadian king, Naram-Sin, in 2254 BCE that the empire
reached its true height. Naram-Sin poured
huge amounts of wealth into Akkadian construction projects. Glorifying their temples and cities. If you'd gone
to one of these cities, your mind would've been blown,
gold statues, you'd have seen copper statues,
all shining brightly. Through conquest
Naram-Sin controlled lands from the Persian Gulf
in the east, bordering the Elamite Kingdom
in modern day Iran, to the Mediterranean sea
in the west and northwards
into modern day Turkey. Lands that border the territory
of nomadic mountain tribes known as the Gutians. Naram-Sin crowned himself
the king of the four quarters. He ruled all the land
known to the Akkadians, but even this wasn't enough. Naram-Sin makes himself a god. I mean, talk about the ego
of the man. There are engravings of him where he's wearing
this horned helmet that only the gods wear and he's about twice the size of
his soldiers. He's so important
he is a living god. The Akkadian empire achieved
something truly astonishing... so why had archaeologists
never heard about them until now? What could have caused the
world's first empire to disappear? There must be some clue behind why the Akkadian's
were erased from history. As they dig deeper
into the cuneiform tablets, they uncover a disturbing legend. The curse of Akkad. The story goes that Naram-Sin
attacks the city of Nippur and he destroys their temple, he commits this act
of great sacrilege and as a result of that action
he becomes cursed. The gods were so appalled
by Naram-Sin's actions that they prayed
for his empire's destruction. A snippet from
the curse of Akkad reads, "May the grass grow long
in your canal banked tow paths. "Built up with canal sediment. "In your planes,
where fine grass grows, "may the reed of lamentation grow. Akkad, my brackish water flow "where fresh water
once flowed for you." Because of Naram-Sin's hubris, the gods destroyed
the Akkadian empire. Did the empire experience
a large scale collapse? Archaeologists need to know when the Akkadian empire
actually existed and when they were killed off. Archaeologist and philanthropist
Herbert Weld Blundell donates his collection
of Middle Eastern artefacts and antiquities to Oxford University's
Ashmolean Museum. For the curators, one of the items
is of particular interest. A small prism covered
in cuneiform inscriptions. It's a copy
of the Sumerian king list. The Sumerian king list
was written around 1800 BC, in the Sumerian language. It lists the kings
and the cities they ruled over. It also tells us the length
of each king's reign. The Akkadian's,
they're mentioned on the king list. If you can work out
when one king ruled, you can work out
when all the other kings ruled too. So, if using the Sumerian king list
we can get a date, then we can date the Akkadians, we will know for the first time
in modern history when the Akkadians existed. But without a point of reference,
a year to match it to, this information was useless. They look again
to the library of Nineveh. Here were the ancient recordings
of solar eclipses. Scholars realised that
if they could find a solar eclipse recorded by astronomers using a
calendar that we already understood, they could use that
to sync up the calendars used in the Sumerian king list. And they found one. A eclipse recorded
by the ancient Greeks on the 15 June 763 BCE. The rise of the Akkadian empire
could finally be dated. We know that Sargon the Great
began ruling in 2334 BC. But after the year 2193
the Sumerian king lists start to record what appears to be
a chaotic breakdown of the Akkadian empire. They have this phrase that repeats,
"Who was king, who was not king?" Kings reigned for merely a year
or two years at most. It suggests that there was unrest, that there was chaos,
that there was confusion and perhaps an empire
that was in the midst of fracturing. The Sumerian King List hints that
this great empire was imploding. But it doesn't tell us why. Archaeologist have a year
for the collapse, a time of death
for the Akkadian empire, but they're still no closer to
knowing why the Akkadians died out. What could have triggered
the sudden collapse of the world's first empire. They turned their attention to how the Akkadians managed
to survive and thrive in the harsh climate
of the Middle East. Maybe this would offer a clue. The Akkadians weren't the first
civilisation to emerge in Mesopotamia. Over 5,000 years ago, in 3100 BCE, the first great Sumerian cities
sprung from the desert. It's these separate city states that the Akkadians conquered
and unified to create the world's first empire. These Sumerians were among the
first people to use the wheel, the plough, brew beer and develop the world's first
writing system. Early forms of cuneiform script. The Sumerians achieved all of this
because they mastered farming. The surplus in food
that farming gave, allowed them to go from nomadic
hunger gatherers, to living in settlements,
to then vast cities. And two natural features
of Mesopotamia were essential for allowing
the world's first civilisations to flourish. Mesopotamia
is a beautiful Greek word and it means between the rivers. So, it can be broken down into
meso which is between and potami which is rivers. And the two rivers
that this word refers to are the Tigris
and the Euphrates. Rivers, particularly
in ancient times, were the givers of life. At the time
of the Akkadian empire, the climate of Mesopotamia
was similar to today's. Vast desert plains
with pockets of fertile land straddling the banks
of these two rivers. In a land where rainfall was scarce, the Sumerians found a way
to use these rivers to turn a desert
into an agricultural power house. By building vast irrigation canals. When the Akkadians captured and took control
of the Sumerian lands, they knew just how important
this irrigation network was for their survival. But also, for their plans
of expansion. They installed a complex
bureaucratic system to manage the flow of water. The entire system
of ancient Mesopotamia, of Akkadia rested on the health
of these irrigation canals. To be able to produce
as much wheat as they did using irrigation they had to constantly maintain this really complex network
of irrigation canals. One of the greatest contributions
that the Akkadians have given us, is bureaucracy. Is administration, to maintain
these irrigation canals, you had to have a strong
centralised government and looking over
the administration of this. The problem with the Akkadians
is that as they get bigger, they all seem to become victims
of their own success. As the empire is expanding, there's constantly need
for more food. There's constantly more
mouths to feed. With more and more pressure
placed on Akkadian farming, how do they manage to feed
an entire empire? Archaeologists
turn to their records. Here they find evidence of Akkadian
expansion into the Khabur Plains, in what is now north eastern Syria. As you move into
northern Mesopotamia, the landscape actually changes
fairly radically from arid desert to plains. What we see is, unlike the south,
where there was irrigation, we find that here farming
is actually primarily rain fed. Rain fed agriculture relies solely
on rainfall to water crops. It isn't as efficient
as irrigation farming, but on the Khabur Plains the Akkadians found a way
to feed their empire. Grain production here became crucial
for feeding their standing army. And Akkadian history
is steeped in conflict. The north will be an ideal target
for an enemy of theirs... ..and they had many. Archaeologists looked to the north for any evidence of
the Akkadian empire's collapse. Renowned British archaeologist,
Max Mallowan, excavates at the ruins
of Tell, Brak. It's a huge
7,000 year old settlement on the dry farming Khabur Plains. Surely such a large site
must hold Akkadian remains. The problem is,
where to begin digging. Sir Mallowan turns to a cutting edge
piece of technology. Aerial photography. In the 1920s this area
was extensively photographed from the air. This gives Mallowan a birds eye view
of Tell Brak and allows him to identify
much more clearly any human made features. When Mallowan broke ground,
the aerial surveys paid dividends. What he finds is walls,
and not just walls to anything. He realises very soon
that this is a palace with a grain store attached
and it's also a fortress. But this isn't all Mallowan finds. On the bricks is the stamp
of the king Naram-Sin. So, this means that this was built
at the height of the empire, but this palace,
this great grain store, this fortress, is unfinished. They've stopped building it
halfway through. What could make the Akkadians
abandon the construction of a fort at such a strategically
important site? Archaeologists need to know if this area is linked
to the collapse. In the decades since, more and more Akkadian sites
are uncovered across the Khabur Plains. Archaeologists are shocked
by what they find. Site after site is abandoned
by the Akkadians. At Tell Leilan,
archaeologists have uncovered unused clay balls
for pressing cuneiform tablets, left in situ on the floor of the Akkadian
administrative building. Why would people
leave useful artefacts? In addition,
what's visible at this site is the foundations
of a new building, but it hasn't been completed. Archaeologists even find
unused bricks sat next to the unfinished building. It's evidence the site
was rapidly abandoned. Why would the Akkadians abandon
such an important region? Was this evidence
they were under attack? If you're going to conquer
an ancient empire, you have to first take out
their ability to feed themselves. In a vast empire,
one of the things that you can do, is start taking out
their grain production cities. Could this explain how the Akkadians
disappeared from history? Were they wiped out? Archaeologists need to work out
if there is any evidence of war. Marie Agnes Courty is a geologist
and a specialist in soil analysis. In 1990 she was brought in
to examine sites across the Khabur Plains. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Courty had found evidence
of large scale burning. Was Tell Brak destroyed
by conflict? It would explain
the discarded clay balls and unfinished construction project. If the fortress was under attack, the inhabitants may have
been forced to flea and the site abandoned. Luckily the cuneiform records
provide a lot of evidence for the Akkadians at war. Not everybody wants
to be a part of the Akkadian empire. There are constant rebellions, there's constant unrest
that has to be dealt with. And in the east,
were the Gutians, nomadic mountain warriors
continuously attacking the edges of the empire. But the Akkadians
were very good at fighting. The Akkadians were able
to be so powerful because they had a standing army. The other thing that
the Akkadians were able to do, was to make incredible use
of the bow and arrow. You didn't have to touch
your opponent and by the time you actually engaged
them hand to hand in combat, you've already won the war. The Akkadians could hold their own and closer analysis
of the burned soil layer reveals something unusual. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) The burn layer couldn't
have been caused by invaders. And a closer analysis
of the soil, reveals something else
unusual to Courty. Tel Brak was hit from above. Pummelled with debris,
coming straight down. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Courty needed to know
what could cause this kind of destruction
during the third millennium BCE. Was it linked to the collapse
of the Akkadian empire? She expanded her analysis
to other Akkadian sites on the Khabur plains. Was the same pattern of destruction
found across the region? It might help explain the
collapse with the Akkadian empire. In 1991 Courty looked 50km northeast of Tell Brak
to Tell Leilan. Here she made
a startling discovery. The same flash thermal phenomenon
burn layer and above this
something else unusual, dust, lots of it. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Analysis showed a thin layer
of coarse debris and then a large layer
of fine dust. For Courty,
it indicates the surface was hit with coarse debris, the impact through the local soil
into the air to then settle as a layer of dust. Something pushed this coarse debris
down onto Tell Leilan with an incredible force. But these aren't the only
unexplained clues Courty found. Buried amongst the debris
at each site was small pieces of plastic. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Courty began to look outside
the Khabur Plains to see if there were
any other archaeological sites that showed similar signatures. 300km from Tell Leilan
is the palace ruin of Tell Amar. Here archaeologists have uncovered
something incredible. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Decades of analysis
indicate to Courty that the destruction
was caused by a shockwave. The evidence points
to a great explosive force that devastated sites
across northern Mesopotamia. But Courty has no idea what it is. Could it explain why these
Akkadian sites were abandoned? (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) In Perpignan, France, at the French National Centre
for Scientific Research, Courty and a team of physicists
analyse the destruction pattern. Because the debris impacted
the sites from above, they look to the sky
for natural phenomena. But what could deliver
such a rapid blast of high-intensity heat? Courty gets a clue, an accident report
from emergency services who have been investigating the death of someone
struck by lightning. Incredibly, at the accident scene, the emergency workers
uncovered a familiar material. The same plastic polymers
Courty found across the Khabur Plains. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Industrial plastic is formed by combining and processing
the by-products of crude oil. It has a unique molecular structure, but the plastic polymers recorded
at the accident scene are different. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) The plastic polymers found on the body of the person
struck by lightning were the same as the ones
Courty found in the Akkadian archaeological
excavations. Her analysis has shown
that the plastic she uncovered wasn't pollution after all. But a naturally occurring
plastic polymer created by lightning. Courty has a hunch
that lightning was responsible for the destruction
of the Akkadian sites across the Khabur Plains. But how could such a large lightning
storm actually form? After decades of analysis,
Courty has developed a theory that she believes explains it. A dust bomb. It requires a massive injection
of dust, high into the atmosphere,
likely from a volcanic eruption. As this large amount of dust moves between the troposphere
and the stratosphere it creates friction and the air becomes charged
with static electricity. The electric field
becomes so great that it rips atoms apart
and creates plasma channels. When these channels connect,
they allow the electricity to flow and lightning is formed. As this huge amount of dust
falls to earth it generates an incredibly powerful
but localised lightning storm. When it touches down
the energy release is massive. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) The heightened dust needed
for the phenomenon to occur, could explain the thick dust layer
found at Tell Leilan. Courty's analysis
shows it was deposited over only a number of days. It would also explain the soot layer
found across the region. Intense heat caused by lightning. But it has proved impossible for Courty to date
the destruction layers across each site for certain
to the Akkadian period. And without a date range
connecting the sites, there's no way of linking
Courty's theory to the collapse
of the Akkadian empire. But it was clear
that a large amount of dust accumulated at Tell Leilan. What else could cause
this level of dust and could it be possible
to date it to the collapse
of the Akkadian empire? Doctor Frank Sirocko is
an ocean floor sediment specialist. He's approached by archaeologists investigating the sudden end
of the Akkadian Empire. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) The dust particles sink down
through the water and build up in layers
in the ocean floor. Sirocko suggested they look
at samples taken from the Gulf of Oman. If there was a dust event
in Mesopotamia, it would show up here. Crucially, they might be able
to date it to the Akkadian period. Doctor Sirocko analysed
the sample, looking specifically for dolomite. A mineral signature for dust
found in Mesopotamia. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Incredibly the increase in dust
lasted for 300 years. Courty believes her dust bomb event
occurred in the space of a few days. But Sirocko's dusty period
is much longer. What could cause
such a lengthy spike in the sediment core history? (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) A 300-year long drought
could certainly account for the collapse
of the Akkadian empire. As soon as drought takes away
that agricultural base, as soon as you have too many
hungry mouths to feed, your empire crumbles. But it seems they weren't
the only civilisation to experience upheaval
at this point in history. From the Egyptian old kingdom, across the region
to the Indus Valley Civilisation in modern day Pakistan,
civilisations collapsed and entire cities were abandoned. A severe region-wide drought
was beginning to make sense. But did the Akkadian's leave
any evidence to back up the theory? Archaeologists turn again
to the Sumerian King List. After the year 2193, the Sumerian King List
holds this very ominous phrase, "Who was king, who was not king?" Which suggests a huge depth
of confusion perhaps chaos, rulers were on the throne
for just a short period of time. The dust spike
in the sediment samples taken from the Gulf of Oman
show a spike around 2200 BC, which tallies perfectly
with this chaotic breakdown described by the Sumerian
Kings List. Drought is looking
more and more likely the cause for the collapse
of the Akkadian empire. But there's an issue
with Doctor Sirocko's Oman results. These ocean core samples
can't be analysed at a high enough resolution
for dating to be done exactly. There's an inbuilt error range
of 300 years. The drought could miss
the rise and fall of the Akkadian Empire entirely,
without an accurate date, it's impossible to prove the drought
coincided with the collapse of the world's first empire. But then, a stroke of fortune. In 2018, Oxford Universities
paleoclimate research laboratory, collected samples of stalagmites
from caves just outside Tiran in Iran. The lab studies geology
around the world and what it can tell us
about ancient climate. Stalagmites are really good
climate proxies, that means they tell us something about the climate
of which they're growing. As the researchers analysed
the sediment deposit history of the stalagmite samples, they came across
something unexpected. There's a spike in dust
around 2200 years BC. That lasts for about 300 years. Where is that dust coming from? Well if you look at
the paleoenvironmental analysis, the main area that dust
is travelling from is from Mesopotamia. And because the tests were done
at a high resolution, it's possible to date
the dusty period accurately. It matches the Oman samples
perfectly. What this is showing
is likely drought in that region. But what caused this drought
in the first place? A phenomenon being studied
as a strong cause for drought across the world is El Nino. Could it be responsible
for a drought occurring at 2200 BCE? El Nino occurs when tropical water
in the eastern Pacific Ocean becomes unusually warm. The effects of El Nino
are unpredictable, but often cause drought
around the globe. Doctor Frank Sirocko
has a hunch El Nino is responsible for the drought at 2200 BCE, but how can you work out when El Nino occurred
throughout history? Sirocko turns to what we know now. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) When they dated the sample, incredibly they see a spike
in sediment from 2500 to 2000 BCE. For Sirocko it indicates an intensification
of El Nino activity around the period
that drought hit Mesopotamia. (SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) For Sirocko,
El Nino is the most likely cause for drought striking
the Akkadian empire, but was there any on the ground
archaeological evidence linking the drought
to their collapse? Archaeologists look again
to the soil layers at Tell Leilan. If there was drought,
then surely there would be evidence. Here they make
a startling discovery. Usually what you find in the soil
at archaeological sites are the patterns of marks
of activity of earthworms. What we find at Tell Leilan
is that the soil is dead, there's no evidence
of earthworm activity. The soil at Tell Leilan
has become dust. Unlike further south, where the land was watered
by irrigation, the Khabur Plains
were watered by rainfall. If the rain stopped,
then it would cause the soil to die. Drought would make sense why there was such a large
dust layer. It would also make sense why the archaeologists found
discarded clay balls for pressing cuneiform tablets
and unfinished buildings. Evidence that the inhabitants
of Tell Leilan had left their home. At it's most basic, drought is a really
devastating event because really you need it to do
incredibly fundamental things. You need water
to water your animals, you need water to water your crops. So, if you don't have any water,
how do you survive? If the people of Tell Leilan
were unable to feed themselves and there was no longer water
to drink, it would explain
why the site was abandoned. When the archaeologists radio
carbon dated the abandonment layer of the settlement
they got the date back 2200 BC. People only start coming back
to the site around 1900 BC. So there's a 300-year gap
where people don't live there. The hiatus dates
seem to fit perfectly with the Oman and Iran samples. The evidence points towards
a 300-year drought, striking the Akkadian empire
right at the point they collapse. And it's believed
the north of the empire, which relied on rainfall to survive, was hit particularly hard. The taxes on grain grown
on the Khabur Plains were crucial for supporting
the Akkadian empire. Particularly funding
their standing army. The city-states that resented
being under Akkadian control took their chances
and rose up against them. When you can't feed your people, people start to think that
perhaps you're not the right king. The Akkadian Empire maintained power through having a standing
professional army. As soon as the taxes
aren't coming in to pay your soldiers, what hope do you have
of maintaining their loyalty and therefore what hope do you have
of keeping control over this vast and varied empire
that you reign over. And it's thought the Akkadians
weren't the only people hit by the drought. As the rain dries up, the Gutian tribes move in, chasing water down
into Mesopotamia. Over time,
as the Akkadian Empire becomes more and more difficult
to maintain, the Gutians become more and more
of a threat, until eventually the whole thing
is weakened from the inside and the Gutians come swarming
out of the mountains and take over the Akkadian Empire. But they rule in Empire
in name only. With the Akkadian Empire
severely weakened, it soon broke up into city-states. Like Mesopotamia had been
just 140 years before. The world's first empire,
the Akkadian Empire, was gone.
