Ancient Mesopotamian Warfare in Sumer and Akkad

around 2300 bc the great king sargon of akkad rose to power and conquered the city-states of mesopotamia from the city of nipur an inscription on the pedestal of a statue erected by sargon says the following sargon king of akkad overseer of inanna king of kish anointed of anu king of the land governor of enlil he defeated the city of uruk and tore down its walls in the battle of uruk he won took lugal zaghezy king of uruk in the course of the battle and led him in a collar to the gate of enlil end quote warfare was an essential part of the acadian empire especially under its conquering founder sargon and his grandson the god king naram sin their armies were the source of their power but they were not the first kings of mesopotamia to wage war on their enemies the city-states of ancient sumer clashed with one another for centuries before the rise of a cad but what did this early warfare look like how were the forces raised and how were they armed and armoured who led them when and how often did they fight this is the story of mesopotamian warfare an ancient sumer and a cat this video is sponsored by curiositystream a subscription-based streaming service that offers captivating documentaries covering every topic about our world and beyond including award-winning exclusives and originals you can't find anywhere else curiositystream has thousands of entertaining movies and tv shows on topics like history nature science food technology travel and more you can watch these on all your devices wherever you are and whenever you like and you can get access to all of it right now for 25 off an annual subscription that's just 14.99 for the whole year if you sign up using my link i've just enjoyed the three-part series called knights all about the famous medieval warriors which features superb big budget reconstructions of battles and social life and i've been watching loads of great science and nature documentaries with my kids like the two-part documentary on the vulgar and its incredible wildlife follow the link in the video description below or go to curiositystream.com forward slash dan davis and use the promo code dan davis for 25 off your annual subscription the story of this land and its peoples is linked to the special geography of what is southern iraq today mesopotamia is the name the ancient greeks gave to the land of the two rivers the tigris and the euphrates rising in the mountains of eastern anatolia these great rivers flow through syria onto the great alluvial plains of central iraq and on into what was once a vast marshland before discharging into the persian gulf in the southern part of this land is suma where the people spoke sumerian a language isolate unrelated to any other that we know of to their north is akkad where the akkadian spoke a semitic language like many other groups in the region past and present these ancient peoples began settling down in villages here after about 6500 bc where they grew crops and raised animals this era is known to us as the ubaid period to irrigate their fields sumerians became experts at water management digging and maintaining canals from the rivers through the rich silty soils they lived in rectangular houses perhaps one family in each although most people were farmers over time there was increasing specialization in specific occupations like weaving and pottery and some of these houses grew larger than others as some families became more successful than their neighbours over the generations eventually special kinds of houses were built raised slightly higher than the others on low platforms these were the first temples the homes of the gods these early settlements did not however have walls protecting them finding direct evidence of conflict in prehistory is often difficult archaeology is good at finding sustained occupation at a site with the remains of walls hearthfires pottery animal bones and other artifacts there in the ground but act of violence between people occurs incredibly briefly by comparison what we need to look for in the archaeological record are things like weapons and injuries on human remains there might also be artwork depicting violence weapons or warfare on pottery clay tablets seals steely or on wall decorations at the settlement level we might find a sudden layer of destruction or burning indicating a conquering army tried to obliterate their enemy but even if evidence like this is found it must still be interpreted weapons like spears and bows and arrows might be used for hunting animals and not for fighting other people damage to bones on bodies from cemeteries might come from accidents or executions rather than battle and a settlement may have burned down because a house fire got out of control not because of a vengeful enemy king later in mesopotamian history the best evidence often comes from inscriptions where victorious kings relate their military victories and from decorations showing soldiers and battles the sumerians developed writing from the late 4th to the early 3rd millennium bc and for a long time they used it only to record the volume and distribution of commodities eventually though they began recording narrative inscriptions and we will discuss this evidence later when walls started being built around the urban settlements of mesopotamia however we can surely conclude that this was in response to the threat of attack even here however archaeologists will sometimes disagree walls might be constructed to keep out wild or domestic animals or they might be part of flood defenses it is sometimes argued that the building of impressive walls was a way to employ a populace in a grand collective achievement the result would be a highly visible declaration of the city's power however at the famous city of uruk after around 3100 bc an enormous city wall nine kilometers long was built around the settlement whatever social reasons the rulers of the city had these were undoubtedly fortifications meant to defend the city its rulers and its god against the forces of enemy cities defensive walls are built in response to the threat of hostile attack so clearly organized conflict came earlier than this but how much earlier what other evidence might we look for in the settlement patterns of early mesopotamia let us go back to the ubaid period starting around 6500 bc when the people here lived in villages scattered throughout the landscape by the tigris and euphrates as this long era approached 4000 bc the village settlements dotted along the plains began to cluster ever closer together what was driving these changes it is believed that a climatic shift dried up some of the marshland which led to the exploitation of new fertile land and water sources it is possible or even likely that conflict occurred at this time but uncovering evidence from this era evidence of any kind is incredibly difficult as it is buried beneath thousands of years of silt and settlement deposits we do know it's this era when the first monumental structures were erected in the form of temples but we don't really know how these settlements were organized socially or what role the temple played apart from its religious function were there chiefs and priests leading war parties in the name of their god against the god of neighboring villages did one group force another of the best land and take it for themselves did some individuals grow more powerful than others due to their prowess in combat and raiding without the evidence we simply cannot say for sure drawing on ethnographic studies around the world we could assume there were violent raids and temporary war bans organized by chieftains but it's safe to say there were no armies this early on an army is a more structured military force not necessarily made up of permanent soldiers but it is an institution with men often supplied and trained by the polity they serve much like the concept of civilization itself it's not always easy to define but you know it when you see it after the ubaid period comes a time we call the uruk period covering all of the 4th millennium bc plus a century or so either side during this era various settlements of the earlier ubaid period grew into urban centres the first cities the city of uruk was perhaps the first and initially the largest but many more appeared afterwards in southern mesopotamia these eventually became just as big or even bigger and the concept of a city would spread from suma to northern mesopotamia and beyond uruk eventually covered 200 hectares and had a population of perhaps 20 to 50 000 people and it grew so quickly that it could not have been by an increase in the birth rate alone these sumerian cities were dense settlements surrounded by irrigated farmland and also by satellite settlements villages and small towns that were also part of the city-state as it were culturally and politically and during the time of uruk's rapid expansion in population the surrounding settlements saw population decline it's clear that people were moving from their villages into the city itself this migration from the rural periphery to the urban centre is described by scholars as a rational response by the rural population to the opportunities presented by this new idea that was the city after all it's a process we've seen happen all over the world in the thousands of years since especially in the last 200 years or so but i wonder if there wasn't also something driving the people on the periphery into the center at this time raids on neighboring settlements might have driven people together in greater concentrations small isolated villages would be more vulnerable to sudden attack than larger settlements so perhaps a driving force for the rapid spread of urbanization in this era might have been violent competition for land and resources raids on neighbouring settlements might have been intended to bring back grain and livestock but it's possible raiders would have been after that other great resource of this fertile region people slavery was widely practiced throughout ancient mesopotamia it was an institution with various codes and laws regulating it there are surviving documents from later eras describing much of this it was common for people to be enslaved due to an inability to pay their debts impoverished widowed mothers sold their children some people sold themselves into slavery and criminals could be enslaved but slaves were also taken in war and again this is speculation but perhaps the migrations of so many people from the rural periphery of uruk into its urban center were not entirely voluntary they may have sought the protection of the city from the attacks of the nearby emerging city-states and they may have been forcibly moved even enslaved by their own overlords to provide labor and other services for the growing city but is there any evidence of organized violence from the uruk period uruk's cultural influence on the wider region during this era was enormous uruk-style pottery and architecture appear at this time hundreds of miles away to the north as far as modern syria and to the east in today's southern iran this is interpreted as the spread of uruk cultural and economic influence throughout mesopotamia especially due to trade in fact many mesopotamian sites springing up at this time are believed to be uruk trading colonies established to provide the home city with resources unavailable in southern mesopotamia it's an incredibly evocative idea here at the dawn of civilization such was the explosion of vitality innovation and enterprise that groups from the mother city were striking out into new lands and building new settlements at the edge of the known world here they would facilitate trade with foreign peoples from the mountains or the drier steps beyond the river valleys trading their pottery cereal crops and perhaps slaves for timber stone metal and everything else they desired this process is not generally seen by scholars today as a series of violent conquests but more the founding of trading colonies with cultural influence spreading along these trade networks however there was a small city called habubakabira 1300 kilometers up the euphrates from uruk in modern syria established around 3500 bc this distant outpost of uruk was built with strong defensive walls this is before the defensive wall had become a feature of cities in southern mesopotamia which will happen from around 3100 bc but here we are in this distant outpost with its pottery house and temple styles matching those of the homeland only it has also erected a strong perimeter wall this has led some scholars to think of these settlements less as trade emporiums at more like administrative centers established to maintain dominance over an area after a military conquest certainly the people living in this distant outpost of habubakobura required defenses against local groups who perhaps intended to raid the wealth within or even drive the invaders away whatever this small city actually was it was abandoned after a few generations perhaps it was just too distant from the center of power and too vulnerable to attack to be sustained despite the goods it could transfer back down the euphrates to uruk there is another site in syria further to the east this time on the tigris called hamukar excavations there in 2005. uncovered evidence that it suffered a violent destruction the archaeologists from the university of chicago who carried out this excavation argue that this is the earliest evidence of large-scale warfare in mesopotamia they uncovered smashed down walls burned remains and even ammunition lying in the rubble so what happened here most urban centers dating to the 4th millennium bc in syria and eastern anatolia are due to the uruk expansion from southern mesopotamia around 3 500 to 3200 bc some of these small uric cities were built on top of earlier tells the occupation mounds that build up over generations raising the land above that of the surrounding plane this uruk expansion is not often seen as a series of military conquests for one thing because there is little direct evidence for violence also the idea of organized military conquests at such an early date seems almost unthinkable military campaigns require logistical support that was simply beyond the capability of these early societies the settlement at hamukar however tells a different story not only about the uruk expansion but also about city formation itself this site is on the tigris and was part of the wider trade network of the fertile crescent and beyond it seems to have specialized in obtaining highly valuable obsidian from sources to its north and exporting the raw material and making obsidian tools and weapons this specialization in the manufacture and export of obsidian may have brought wealth and encouraged population growth and density hamukar it seems became a city initially before the uruk expansion it was a local development rather than an outpost or colony it is often said that widespread urbanism began in southern mesopotamia because of the nature of the environment there there was not enough rainfall for ordinary farming methods and so people had to dig and maintain enormous irrigation systems to bring water from the rivers this regular mass organization of labor gave rise to the first bureaucracies and social divisions and then a controlling elite an aristocratic priesthood and ultimately kings however here in the north there was enough rainfall for traditional farming this is reflected by settlement patterns in northern mesopotamia which generally remained dispersed in village-sized groups while suma grew its cities so how do we explain the rise of a pre-uruk complex urban society so far north at hamukar it's hard to say but perhaps there were other factors driving cooperation social control and urbanism the influence of the obsidian trade may be an important element here what is more the people of hamukhar erected a defensive wall to protect their wealth and resources including their population from their enemies these enemies could have been neighboring groups in the mountains beyond the plane or any other group they had contact with through their trade network and we know they had cultural contact with uruk because of the influence it had on some design motifs on hamukah clay seals but however impressive their fortifications were they were not enough excavations revealed a destruction layer in the city with mudbrick walls of buildings tumbled down and the remains of a terrible fire but of course this could have been an accident or a deliberate destruction by the inhabitants except for the 1200 sling bullets moulded from clay that the excavators found mixed in with the destruction the sling is an ancient weapon first used for hunting animals and then employed in war for thousands of years they were incredibly effective even during far later eras when men wore iron helmets and armor a sling bullet to the skull could kill even from considerable distance and the impact could break a limb or penetrate flesh causing terrible injuries they also found in the destruction layer 130 clay balls 6 to 10 centimeters in diameter which were apparently also used as ammunition this is evidenced by impact damage where they slammed at high speed into something hard like the mud brick wall of a building some of the sling bullets too show remarkable impact deformities which doesn't at first make much sense a teardrop shaped clay bullet fired or baked hard in the sun would surely break on impact rather than deform but some of these missiles also show the impressions of fabric on their surface which gives a clue to what was going on here because a portion of the sling bullets were launched before they had fully dried this sometimes left a slight impression of the sling pouch on the surface and squashed them on impact with a wall or an unfortunate forehead this shows that the sling bullets were made on-site by the attackers which makes sense why carry thousands of sling bullets with your forces when you can make them when you get to the place you're going to fight after all clay can be found pretty much everywhere on the mesopotamian plain this also speaks to some level of organization in the attacking forces they took the time to stop outside the walls and prepare their resources for the attack it may be somewhat anachronistic to call this event a siege but it certainly looks like one the researchers at this site believe the sling bullets were used against people while the larger clay balls were used against the mud brick walls also launched by sling the extra mass of the clay balls was enough to damage buildings from a distance and even to topple the walls the remnants of the southern walls of two excavated buildings were where most of the clay balls were found and this shows that the attack there came from the south with sections of the building walls broken down the attackers could have switched to sling bullets for use on the people inside surely hand-to-hand combat followed but we don't have evidence of that here but who were these attackers where had they come from well on top of the destroyed city was built an uruk-style settlement with associated uruk pottery while the researchers are on the side of caution it seems highly likely to me that this city was conquered by some kind of military force from southern mesopotamia and if they really were capable of that kind of military excursion perhaps the uruk expansion should be seen in a new light not only is the spread of cultural and economic influence but also including campaigns of organized violence this was a period without evidence of palaces and so it is assumed that there were no kings some researchers argue that kingship as a concept may have emerged out of military leadership while the early cities might have been organized by priests and temple bureaucracies armed defense and military campaigns might have been led by another kind of figure perhaps a temporary war leader was selected who had military rather than political control over time perhaps due to the increasing importance of warfare the nature of these positions changed became permanent and then hereditary the rise of these figures we call kings today heralds the end of the uruk period and the beginning of the early dynastic period of course these divisions between ages are modern inventions but the third millennium bc is different from what came before this is where we start to see royal inscriptions recording the deeds of rulers initially to mark the dedication of offerings to the gods towards the end of the early dynastic period the kings also begin to record their military successes in inscriptions this isn't to say that military activity didn't happen before this or that it wasn't important until now nor that military activity suddenly became more important at this time just that the idea of recording events in the form of writing was an innovation that people had to invent however military successes were clearly important to these rulers whatever social roles kings would go on to have as lawgivers and judges and whatever religious roles they had as representatives of their gods in sacred rights they certainly had military responsibilities warfare was important in the early dynastic period the chief sumerian gods tended to have military functions enlil the high god was described as he who breaks the enemy like a reed famously the goddess of love inanna known to the acadians as ishtar was also a goddess of war and the king was the deputy of the chief god of their city this is important because sumerians conceived of warfare at this time as a conflict between the god of one city against the god of another the specific deity in the form of a statue resided in a temple in the city the temple was their house the god literally lived there the priests and servants formed the household of the god the city as a whole was under the divine protection of that god and war was carried out in their name led by their representative on earth the king military victory was often depicted on royal monuments but unfortunately we almost never see combat itself instead the early mesopotamian ruler is more frequently shown triumphing after the battle perhaps reviewing war captives who are usually naked and completely humiliated in their defeat utterly dejected as they are led into slavery by this era there were a number of city-states in mesopotamia we have the names of about 15 cities in sumer and another 10 in acad to the north these were probably the largest cities and there were other smaller urban centres these cities were often located very close to one another sometimes even within sight of one another across the plain the land around the cities was used for agriculture and grazing and so there would be a definite border between the lands of each city-state and these borderlands would be the zone of conflict the best evidence of this is a remarkable artifact we call the steely of the vultures this is one of the earliest surviving depictions of any war in mesopotamian art showing soldiers in battle formation while the text describes the long conflict between the city-states of uma and lagash [Music] the steely of the vultures is thought to date to around 2400 bc it is a monument erected to mark the victory of inatum of lagash over the king of uma originally it was a single slab of limestone but all we have today are fragments one fragment shows an atom at the head of a formation of soldiers who are marching on top of the bodies of their enemies this single fragment tells us so much it shows the city ruler leading his men in battle suggesting that he took personal command and the soldiers in fleeced skirts are shown in matching equipment this was mass-produced weapons and armor they were protective helmets that could have been leather but were probably bronze they're armed with bronze spears and axes in one scene the spears are held aloft for marching and in another they are levelled for combat their shields are large and rectangular interestingly they're not carrying their shields when on the march what the shields were made of is hard to say some scholars believe they were leather and reinforced with bronze plates others suggest they could have had a wicker or timber frame and that the circles we see are individual shield bosses each shield would have had one bronze shield boss and we're looking at an artistic effort to represent rows of shields just as we see many hands and spears layered one on top the other in fact there are many questions about artistic interpretation and symbolism with this artifact the soldiers are described in modern texts as a shield wall or a phalanx but whether this represents an actual military formation or is just an artistic means to indicate many soldiers is unclear likewise the king marches alone and on foot ahead of his soldiers he is much larger than the ordinary men dressed in a long textured garment that was perhaps a sheepskin he carries no shield but wears a helmet in fact he seems to have his hair tied back in a bun behind his helmet so perhaps he is wearing something similar to the golden helmet found in a tomb at the royal cemetery at ur so we see the king as a heroic individual standing head and shoulders above the anonymous interchangeable masses both dead and alive but is this really how the kings fought in wars out alone ahead of their army surely they would not last long if so and surprisingly few mesopotamian rulers are said to have been killed in battle but if this representation is instead intended to symbolize the king's strength bravery and vitality then what else here might be symbolic rather than an accurate representation there's no doubt this is supposed to be a bloody and terrible scene the artifact was named after the vultures flying above the piles of slain enemies some carrying human heads in their beaks the victims of this war are utterly defeated and are in a state of complete degradation their corpses have been stripped and piled up after being trampled underfoot by the victorious soldiers so what was this bloody war all about well the cities of uma and lagash were about 30 kilometers apart and were repeatedly in conflict over a disputed piece of irrigated land on the border the inscription tells us that the great sumerian god enlil established the border between ningirsu and shira the patron deities of the two cities involved however the treacherous king of the city of uma violated the sacred border by smashing the boundary stone and so he was entirely to blame for starting the war with lagash ningirsu the god of lagash appeared in a dream to anatum king of lagash and ordered him to restore the god's beloved field ningirsu promised him that uma would be abandoned by its ally the king of kish and that the king of uma would be killed by his own people and lagash was victorious over uma the inscription says ningirsu cast the great battle net of enlil over the umaids and it's shown on the steeler the victorious god of lagash with his netted captives warriors at this time must have used nets to disable their enemies before killing them and of course these would also be useful for capturing human beings for slavery on the battlefield or in raids the inscription goes on to say the victors erected 20 burial mounds over their fallen enemies on the plane attempts have been made from this claim to estimate battle losses and therefore army sizes concluding from the 20 burial mounds erected by lagash that a few hundred umayats were killed in battle or executed afterwards and therefore army sizes must have been in the low thousands but i'm not sure we can make those kinds of conclusions what we can say is that the deaths in this battle if it was recorded honestly may have been exceptionally high the king's nephew and matana raised just five burial mounds in his victory over uma while another king of lagash claimed victories over uma and ur with only one mound each we get a sense that great victories might not have been as materially devastating as the propaganda suggests after all if these wars went on for generations how could they have been but where were the battles fought were these clashes occurring on the disputed border between the two cities again the evidence is slim and open to interpretation perhaps both sides marched out to the plane and faced off no doubt slingers and archers were involved and spearmen fought one another protected by their shields some scholars such as doing dawson in his book the first armies believed battles would have been fought outside the walls of the defending city if a battle was lost then the army could quickly retreat inside the villages and smaller towns beyond the city would be looted and burned and banks and ditches could be destroyed to disrupt the irrigation systems but it is unlikely that siege warfare was much more sophisticated for much of the early dynastic period it seems siege towers ramps and battering rams had not been invented yet what about storming the walls with ladders or breaking them down like at hamucha a thousand years earlier well the walls by this time say by 2500 bc had grown enormous and strong fortifications surrounded the cities of mesopotamia the mud brick walls of ur were about 25 meters or 80 feet wide and 8 meters or 26 feet high scaling or breaking down such walls while under attack from above seems an almost insurmountable obstacle and we have little evidence that it happened in this era it seems that for centuries defensive warfare had the upper hand and there was little chance of an army storming a city by force at least there is no archaeological evidence of a city being destroyed and its walls reduced at this time despite the claims of some kings the mismatch between the written and archaeological evidence has been explained as exaggerated propaganda or describing a metaphorical metaphysical destruction some believe there may have been a tradition of the defeated titty dismantling a section of wool as a real but mostly symbolic sign of their submission presumably they would quickly repair the damage before going to war again but if taking cities by force was so difficult why did they not starve them out well the logistics of supplying a besieging army in the field for so long may or may not have been possible but the military forces of the early dynastic period were not standing armies those fighting were not professional soldiers they were men conscripted from the cities and surrounding lands most of whom were farmers military campaigns could only happen therefore when their labor was not required in the fields so it was not only the advanced state of fortification technology that limited warfare in this age but the supply of manpower for the armed forces campaigns could not last for long and could only take place when sowing harvesting and canal maintenance was not being done warfare then was heavily in favor of the defenders and at the conclusion of conflicts at least during the generations-long lagash uma wars the defeated city appears to surrender on terms these terms might include the deposition of the defeated king because the god's representative had failed to protect the god's home some treaties ended with a formulaic curse calling for the king who breaks his oath to be overthrown and killed by his own people and in one defeat to lagash the king of uma seems to have been overthrown by his own people just as prophesed by ningirsu after this however the wars would go on under future kings of course we're getting the story from the lagash side and no doubt uma felt differently about these events in fact the inscriptions suggest that both sides throughout this long war would seek to expand their side of the border whenever they were strong enough to attempt it in the marching scene on the steely of the vultures the soldiers are following the king who this time rides in a battle wagon with a quiver of javelins at the ready these wagons are seen in that other famous artifact from early dynastic mesopotamia this magnificent object was called by its modern excavator the standard of ur it is a beautifully decorated hollow wooden box about 50 centimeters or 20 inches long on the long side and no one knows what it was really for it was discovered in the 1920s at a cemetery in the city of ur and the excavator thought it would have been mounted on a pole and carried aloft hence the name but it might have been used to hold some special or sacred items or to sit in a palace or temple perhaps it contained the texts of a treaty written after a great victory whatever it was the decorations on the exterior show scenes of war on one side and scenes of a victory feast on the other like on the steely of the vultures the king is an enormous figure towering over the lesser people in battle and in the glory of his victory where he is toasted by his lords as they enjoy the playing of a liar accompanied by a singer the defeated enemies bring an endless line of tribute for sacrifice and feasting on the war side the soldiers wear bronze helmets and one just like those shown was found still on the head of a guard in this same cemetery squashed flat by the weight of soil above over thousands of years but still recognizable they wear the same kind of skirts as seen on the steeler of the vultures but they carry bronze axes as well as spears and javelins many of them are also wearing capes these have been interpreted as having a defensive function perhaps constructed of sturdy leather or hides with the dots on them being bronze discs meant to serve as armor but something heavy that restricts the movement of your arms while only partially defending your back doesn't make much sense as a useful armor system to me while some of the soldiers lead captive enemies away others drive battle wagons the ecwid's pulling them trampling the fallen underfoot these vehicles are sometimes referred to as chariots but of course that's incorrect chariots are light fast and with two spoked wheels pulled by horses and they would not be invented for hundreds of years after this on the eurasian step over 2 000 kilometers away to the north these wagons had four solid wheels and were pulled by onagas or donkeys or onaga donkey hybrids horses were not native to these lands and had not been imported yet and with four solid wheels they would have been difficult and slow to turn especially as the animals were controlled with nose rings and the weight made them slow to move we are told on the steely of the vultures that the army of uma left 60 of these wagons on the battlefield to be captured when they were defeated by lagash if this is true then it suggests that abandoning the battle wagons leaping from the back and running away on foot was perhaps quicker than turning them around and driving them away but clearly they were an important feature of the battlefield supported by infantry and missile troops they provided an elevated and mobile position from which to hurl javelins at the enemy and some scholars believe these were prestige vehicles for the elites walking to and from the battlefield was something for the commoner while the aristocrats would be driven there and back in relative comfort while preserving their strength standing above the foot soldiers they could see further and command their divisions as well as throwing javelins at the enemy perhaps the seated men toasting the king on the peace side of the standard were the same men or fellow elites at least as the ones commanding these vehicles in spite of these speculations the fact is we don't actually know how these first armies were organized during the fighting what the command structures were or what formations they used if they used any at all but change was coming again innovations in offensive warfare would finally catch up with and overwhelm defensive technology the end of the early dynastic era would come from a conflict between two mighty kings and would see the rise of what's often called the world's first empire this would be ruled by one of the most influential figures in history sargon of akkad [Music] lugol zaghezy who lived around 2350 bc was a ruler of uma he was more ambitious and successful than any of his predecessors in fact he was the first great conqueror of mesopotamia and the first to end the centuries-long power balance between the cities of sumer lugal zaghezi had the will to defeat not only one city but all of them he started with his city's ancient enemy lagash not only defeating them in battle and taking the city but burning its temples and carrying away treasures in gold and lapis lazuli looting the home of the god may have been unheard of before then there is a surviving tablet in which a scribe of lagash calls on the gods of both lagash and uma to avenge this sacrilege lugal zaghazi then became king of ur and uruk which became his base from there on he is said to have had 50 nc which were rulers or governors under him when he won recognition from the city of nepur as their overlord he dedicated vaz's in the temple of enlil bearing the following inscription when to lugal zaghezy king of uruk king of the land king of countries enlil had given the kingship of the land made the land obedient to him thrown all countries at his feet and subjected them to him from sunrise to sunset at that time he made his way from the lower sea which is the persian gulf via the tigris and euphrates to the upper sea which is the mediterranean and enlil allowed none to oppose him from sunrise to sunset under him all countries lay contented in their meadows and the land rejoiced end quote this was a new concept he was king not only of a city or more than one city but the whole land the whole region but it's not clear how he achieved this or if he even achieved it at all what level of control did he exert over these places did he really lead a conquering army to the mediterranean well what we can say is that it's clear military capability in suma had been developing in the years up to his reign the ruler featured on the steely of the vultures an artem of lagash recorded victories against elam to the east in modern iran these were likely raids meant to obtain tribute secure the borderlands and to win glory rather than conquests but these expeditions of 200 kilometers and more obviously required logistical planning and execution so military activity was becoming more sophisticated and lugol zaghesi advanced the art of war still further perhaps new siege methods had been developed that allowed him to take city walls by force or perhaps swift marches to the walls of distant cities frightened foreign rulers into nominal submission but however he did it lugal zaghesi began an escalation of warfare which would lead to his own downfall as he had set the stage for the coming of sargon of akkad the semitic speaking region we call acad was part of the same cultural world as suma to itself and it had the same kind of independent city-states and there are different accounts of the origins of sargon most of which are far later when he had become a legendary figure but it seems he started out as a commoner and became a cup bearer to urzubaba the king of kish one of the most ancient and important cities sargon then overthrew urza baba probably using his access to the king to assassinate him and took the throne of kish for himself this incredible ruthlessness and decisiveness would soon be brought to bear on all mesopotamia the name he took for himself we call him sargon but in acadian it was shahrukh ken can be translated as something like legitimate king of course he was anything but legitimate so this is a sign of his bravado and his disregard for convention but his military might made him right and soon enough no one could doubt the authority that he took for himself after taking kish sargon quickly attacked and somehow defeated the mighty king of uruk self-proclaimed king of the land lugal zaghezy himself the inscription that celebrates this victory was read at the start of this video it says quote sargon king of akkad overseer of inanna king of kish anointed of anu king of the land governor of enlil he defeated the city of uruk and tore down its walls in the battle of uruki one took lugal zaghazi king of uruk in the course of the battle and led him in a collar to the gate of enlil end quote this was an incredible victory over the most powerful king mesopotamia had ever known we're not told what happened to lugal zaghezy after he was led out of his city in a collar but presumably it wasn't good sargon founded a new capital called akhed or agade which hasn't yet been discovered but it is thought to be near kish and it's from this that we get the name of the empire and the period that he began and sargon went on with more and more conquests there is another famous inscription from this time that says the following sargon king of agade was victorious over ur in battle conquered the city and destroyed its wall he conquered eninma destroyed its walls and conquered its district and lagash as far as the sea he washed his weapons in the sea he was victorious over uma in battle to sargon lord of the land the god enlil gave no rival the god enlil gave to him the upper sea and the lower sea end quote the part that says he washed his weapons in the sea meaning he washed the blood of his enemies of his spear in the waters of the persian gulf is incredibly evocative you know exactly what it means and the imagery is so vivid and powerful that later conquerors would also employ this phrase he conquered cities beyond akhad and suma too powerful cities like mari and ebla in the north and west and led his armies to conquer elam and even beyond this is why he took the title not only king of the land as lugul zaghezy had done but king of the world how did he achieve all of this what was different about his army compared to those who came before him well there is perhaps a clue in another inscription that says sargon daily 8 with 5400 men there are various translations and interpretations of this enigmatic phrase and it could be referring to courtiers or the royal household but many scholars take it as evidence that sargon retained a standing army and 5400 is a round number in the sexismal number system they used so it may or may not be an accurate figure but if he did have a core army of around 5 000 men fed year-round by food surpluses from his empire that would have provided the ability to carry out so many extended campaigns so far from his homeland utilizing the resources of his territories he could fight out of season while his enemies could not no doubt in addition to the royal army he also recruited thousands more temporary conscripts from royal and temple lands just like his predecessors had done relying on the city governors he installed to provide the men food and equipment he needed with such large forces spread over so widened area sargon must also have developed systems of delegated command in military bureaucracy and on the battlefield there was a position called the sagina which is variously translated as general or captain who served as military governors controlling the garrison of a conquered city and perhaps as battlefield commanders and what made this army so effective was its ability not only to campaign but to swiftly overcome the fortifications of cities by employing new techniques in siegecraft and there was one method that tends to be translated as sapping in the medieval era sapping meant digging down beneath stone walls to undermine and collapse them and maybe that's what they did here too but it's more likely it meant digging through the walls or tumbling them down as always with this era there's frustratingly little evidence in mesopotamia for the actual meaning of these hints but there is something from around 2000 bc over in egypt on a wall painting in a tomb we see men inside a movable shelter poking at a wall with a long pole during a violent assault on a city these poles may have been tipped with bronze and used to lever out mud bricks to make a breach they wouldn't have to break all the way through using this technique bringing down a tumble of mud brick would create a route up to the top for an assaulting force to scramble up multiple breaches could be made for the attacking acadians to pour through another method was the construction of massive earth ramps from the plane up to the top of the city walls this technique would continue to be employed for thousands of years the roman army famously constructed a massive ramp at masada in 73 a.d texts from the babylonian era show that if they knew the height of a war they could calculate precisely the volume of earth the number of men and the time it would take to complete a ramp building a ramp like this in the acadian period would have been a monumental and dangerous effort but once constructed the attackers had a route into the city even a ramp halfway up a wall would help the work of those sappers and ramps could also be used in conjunction with the final development siege towers these platforms were erected outside the city ideally reaching as high or higher than the walls so archers and slingers could shoot the defenders to support assaults there is evidence to suggest fortification technology also now developed in response with external ditches being dug and sometimes filled with water like moats towers and bastions were built into the defenses double lines of walls even triple lines or walls were erected but even so it's after the innovations of sargon of akkad and his armies that cities became more vulnerable to attack holding on to his conquests however was not easy later sources tell us that late in his reign sargon faced rebellion in all the lands and was even besieged himself at agoday but that he defeated his enemies and his descendants would struggle to maintain acadian military dominance his first son and successor was assassinated after nine years of rule and his second son spent much of his reign campaigning with the armies sargon's grandson naram sin was another great conqueror the famous victory stealer of naram sin shows the giant muscular king weapons in hand in battle against barbarian tribes from the zagros mountains these enemies cower before his might as he tramples them underfoot tumbling them down the mountainside his own troops follow behind him looking up in awe at the strength of their king naram sin also wears a horned helmet which signifies that he is now divine this heroic figure is a god king and the artwork makes it clear that his power on earth comes from his military prowess the acadian dynasty achieved the most impressive conquests and created the largest empire the world had seen a generation after norim sin however and rebellions and outside invasions especially by the gutians would bring an end to this era of military dominance by a single ruler as the sumerian king list famously says of this chaotic period after the fall of akkad who was king who was not king later centuries would see the rise of great babylonian assyrian and persian conquerors in mesopotamia but the origins of organized warfare can be traced all the way back to these first armies of sumer and akkad thank you to my patrons for supporting this channel if you enjoyed this video please use the link in the description to subscribe on patreon so that you can access exclusive content and help me to keep making videos like this in future if you found this video interesting then please do hit like because it really does help us out now please watch this video about the first people in the world to use horses in warfare and 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Channel: Dan Davis History

Views: 820,595

Keywords: bronze age history, history of europe, history documentaries, ancient history documentary, ancient civilizations, sumer, akkad, sumerian warfare, mesopotamian warfare, akkadian warfare, ancient military history, ancient sumerian history, sargon of akkad, bronze age, Iraq history, syria history

Id: 10Kc7NmPpME

Length: 52min 19sec (3139 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 03 2022