The Entire History of the Akkadians // Ancient Mesopotamia Documentary

baghdad iraq site of so many conflicts in recent years dictators foreign invasion civil war scars of history run deep on this landscape with a population of some 8 million people it's the 4th largest in the middle east yet this isn't the first great city to dominate the southern mesopotamian plains not by a long shot heading out into the scorched deserts to the south-east of the city it doesn't take long until great earth and mounds line up on the horizon for this is a land of tells vast man-made hills built up from the refuse of thousands of years of occupation still standing guard over the country they once ruled now desolate remote [Music] halfway between baghdad and the persian gulf [Music] just to the south west of the town of nazarea stands one of the greatest of all those mounds [Music] once long ago the wide banks of the euphrates passed by here though little evidence of that can be seen now the great life-giving river having forsaken the place more than two thousand years before leaving just rubble dirt and bones [Music] and that's how it remained for more than 2 000 years wind and time burying the place entirely [Music] by the mid 19th century however strange artifacts began to show up in nearby markets a great revolution in archaeology was taking place at the time and due to the painstaking efforts of an entirely new branch of scholarship a seriology the ancient script on many of the items cuneiform was deciphered allowing an unprecedented glimpse into that world before so long ago [Music] and what the scholars read of that great mound by nazarea completely boggled the mind [Music] its name was er and it had been mentioned in the bible [Music] as the very place where abraham progenitor of three of the great world religions had been born [Music] before heading forth with his wife and children to wander the world after the city's demise [Music] at the time the fledgling field of archaeology mostly concerned itself with collecting tablets and artifacts from ancient sites for further investigation elsewhere but by 1920 new more vigorous scientific styles were favored and for the first time a comprehensive investigation of the city itself would be attempted the man to lead that mission was leonard woolley he'd worked under the pioneering discoverer of minoan crete sir arthur evans and more recently numbered the famous lawrence of arabia in his team accompanying woolly went max malawan and his soon-to-be wife agatha christie who'd later write a book inspired by the journey the world was watching [Music] it was to be one of the most famous of all archaeological expeditions unearthing some of the greatest treasures ever found in the ancient world matching that of toot and carmoon's tomb almost immediately woolly confirmed the city to be er a major center of the sumerian culture of the early bronze age excavations would continue for another 14 years revealing continuous occupation of the site from around 5000 to 500 bc at its height the city had been home to approximately 65 000 people one of the greatest the world had ever seen [Music] though european work in the middle east had begun as an effort to find the origins of the hebrew bible it ultimately revealed so much more [Music] revolutionizing our understanding of the sumerian world immensely elaborate graves of citizens kings and queens a culture surpassing even egypt in its antiquity and importance thousands upon thousands of graves were uncovered at er filled with a vast array of objects revealing links all across the known world one vast royal cemetery in particular dated to around the middle of the third millennium bc was the most spectacular ever found gold lapis lazuli carnelian chlorite bronze silver and other semi-precious stones flowed out along with expertly crafted items musical instruments and more a world so much older than the bible was unlocked the apogee of the sumerians woolly and those who followed him were able to construct an incredible account of ancient wealth and privilege like queen puabi whose grave goods can still be seen today and er wasn't alone [Music] just one of a glittering collection of metropolises [Music] in the span of barely a millennium the sumerians had established mankind's first real urban centers with towering walls and religious sanctuaries known as ziggurats the skyscrapers of their day building arguably the world's most advanced civilization [Music] in a landscape entirely devoid of natural resources the sumerians radically improved farming and irrigation techniques resulting in larger surpluses of grain and an increase in the overall food supply ultimately allowing many within their society to put down their plows and pursue other endeavors such as advanced mathematical and scientific knowledge perhaps the most famous of all sumerian inventions though was the development of a complex system of writing first used for bookkeeping and then later on to record their own history [Music] all of these innovations helped to lay the foundation for some of the most powerful and wealthy city-states the world had ever seen whose rulers presided over small but significant kingdoms [Music] within just a few centuries of queen pawabi however by the 24th century bc this prosperity was already coming to an end from its very beginnings civilization has been incredibly elitist far from everyone benefiting from the splendor of the first cities in fact most people didn't at all and by around 2400 bc the world of ancient sumer came to a breaking point texts uncovered from sumerian city-states such as lagash indicate that there was a massive chasm between the wealthy often hailing from the hereditary priestly class and the impoverished common people most of the latter being so mired in debt they had to sell their own children into slavery in an effort to pay it off though not as well documented it's believed that similar circumstances were prevalent in the other city-states too [Music] sometime between the years 2350 and 2340 bc those scholars debate the exact date a new type of ruler became king of the city-state of umar lagash's great rival the two had been fighting armed conflicts for centuries with lagash generally being the victor perhaps out of spite or the desire for revenge this new ruler brutally attacked lagash and is said to have massacred many of its people as well as destroying its great temples he then went on to conquer and annex other city-states ultimately claiming to have forged an empire stretching from the persian gulf all the way to the mediterranean sea most scholars though don't take lugel zagazi at his word [Music] he really may only have controlled the city-states of sumer which in itself would have been a remarkable achievement had he done this he would have created the first true world empire in history but unfortunately for him that honor would go to another not a sumerian but one whose origins lay further to the north a land also remembered in the bible akkad [Music] though his birth name is not known he would later call himself shahrukh kin meaning legitimate king we know him by a different name sargon the first great king of the akkadian empire [Music] generally regarded as history's first within just a few hundred years the sumerians would be forgotten eclipsed by another power revered by every state to arise in the region for 2 000 years to come this is the history of that empire but first a quick word from our sponsor hello and welcome to history time as always i'm your host pete kelly currently in my underground secret laboratory working on new videos [Music] the research for this one was undertaken by the great history with psy go check out his channel for everything ancient history now i'm still mostly a one-man team when it comes to making these things and they take years to make so i'm sure you won't mind me taking a moment to thank the sponsor of this one [Music] it's magellan tv a longtime supporter of the channel like netflix for scholars magellan tv has a library of thousands of documentaries to choose from space geography history science it's all here streamed seamlessly to any device you choose when i'm stuck for new ideas i often put something on from their playlists from the bronze age to outer space there's something here for everyone one in particular that i recently enjoyed and a playlist i often go back to is eternal egypt neighbors to the acadians and there are plenty of other ancient history programs to choose from too and now i've teamed up with magellan to offer you an exclusive free trial just click on the link in the description below thanks now back to the ancient world every so often in history an extremely capable and charismatic leader arises and for better or worse disrupts the world in which they live entirely altering it forever more [Music] whether cyrus the great of persia in the sixth century bc alexander of the greeks or julius caesar three centuries later [Music] the long span of antiquity has had its fair share of such figures [Music] and more than a thousand years before in the 24th century bc the very first arose [Music] sargon of akkad would go on to become the most powerful ruler that had ever lived up until that time in fact nearly all of the future kings of ancient mesopotamia and even beyond would try to imitate his style of rule adopt his empire's efficient administrative system and claim to be his worthy successor sargon was considered by those who came after to have been the model ruler and the epitome of all that a man could and should be like charlemagne and king arthur in centuries to come he was the archetypal king who lived long and well [Music] yet despite all of his great achievements and fame very little is concretely known about his early life myth history and legend entwine given the immense chasm of time since he lived the texts and inscriptions that archaeologists have uncovered about him are generally more legend than fact [Music] the vast majority being babylonian copies of originals thought to have existed closer to sargon's own day [Music] sometimes called the first histories compiled during the age of hammurabi writer of the first law code during the old babylonian period these clay tablets are copies of original royal inscriptions supposedly found on monuments from 500 years before [Music] though a tiny handful of original monuments survived too seized and taken to elam by a victorious king during the 12th century bc where french archaeologists found them [Music] one of the more complete copies from hammurabi's day believed by many to have been commissioned by sargon himself outlines the future king's humble beginnings he claims to be the son of a priestess his father he says is unknown [Music] unable to care for him his mother put him into a covered reed basket sending it down river where it was later discovered by a water drawer named aki who raised the child as his own it's a story that has parallels to the early biography of moses as told in the hebrew bible adding to the flood myth and the garden of eden concepts which also have their roots with the sumerians [Music] though not telling the story of his birth another document known as the sumerian king list first compiled several centuries after sargon's death stresses his humble roots by claiming him to be the son of a gardener eventually still early on in his career we're told that sargon became the cup-bearer of a man named er zababa ruler of the city-state of kish an important northern sumerian city standing upriver from all the great strongholds of the south and existing at a time of intense riverine management at times in its history kish seems to have been able to control the flow of water to a certain extent holding the lower cities to ransom of course presumably unlike his leader urza baba sargon was an acadian speakers of an eastern semitic language who occupied the regions just north of sumer known as akkad as far as the akkadians themselves however not much is known about them before sargon's reign most scholars believe they lived side by side with the sumerians in many cities being greatly influenced by their culture and religion today sumerian remains a culture and language with unknown roots though it had fully developed by the 4th millennium bc [Music] at vast centers like uruk and eredu the very place according to sumerian mythology where man was first chiseled out of the mud by the gods the origins of the acadians though are to be found with the so-called second phase of urbanization occurring in the mid third millennium bc in syria and northern mesopotamia at massive cities like ebla and sometimes nomadic cultures like the canaanites and the amorites living on the outer limits of the sumerian world [Music] by sargon's day though the acadians seem to have shared the same gods as sumer living more or less the same way of life yet given his linguistic roots sargon or at least his ancestors were outside us whether he came from the mountains or the desert is unclear but it is he who is given credit for the foundation of a new city not far from kish he called it a guarde agarde's existence has never been in doubt showing up in contemporary records throughout the third millennium bc and onwards however that great city has never been found we know roughly where it was near susa at the southern edge of sumair and the mesopotamian lowland a region with a lack of agricultural potential but excellent access to the disparate peoples all around regions and cultures sargon and his descendants would integrate into their own expanding the horizons of mesopotamia significantly [Music] without any archaeology to go on though sargon's city remains obscure it may be that he really did create the city himself he allegedly ruled for a ridiculously long time after all though some scholars now suggest his cult of personality to have become so strong that it could have caught some of the deeds of his successors in its orbit as we know it did those of his predecessors [Music] for those sargons is often seen as a new dynasty a break with the old really he may have inherited concepts that came before a continuation of the development of kingship [Music] for this was the age of the lugals local head men and warlords ruling through personal charisma and power rather than divine rule [Music] had it not been for the actions of one of those sumerian kings sargon might never have amounted to anything at all for just as he began his career at kish the king of uma lugal zagazi moved his capital to the great city of uruk taking ur along the way ultimately expanding his rule over the whole of southern mesopotamia [Music] sargon is often credited with many firsts in history the first standing army the first land empire but really lugel cigarsi may have been first according to archaeological evidence and the archives of the various city-states it was he who first ruled from the lower sea to the upper holding sway over 50 governors and bringing an end to independent samaria [Music] and one of those cities he annexed was kish given this burgeoning growth of militaristic sumerian kingship by his day it's no surprise really that sargon had a go [Music] he just had to cut off the head of the snake to make his play for power a snake with many enemies though the details are murky we're told that soon after lugal zagazi seized kish sargon with a band of faithful followers directly marched on uruk sargon the king of akhad the bailiff of ishtar the king of the universe the anointed one of ahn the king of the land to the governor of enlil he vanquished uruk in battle and smoked 50 governors in the city by the mace of the god ilaba and he destroyed its fortress and captured lugul zagasi the king of uruk in battle he led him to the gate of enlil in a next stock taking lugal zagazi to the gate of enlil the holy city of nippor was a powerful symbolic gesture the old king's power was clearly broken and sargon favored by the gods the old king's ultimate fate we're not told unlike his early days sargon's reign as king as well as the actions of his new government are relatively well documented much more so than most at the time and though the records make it seem as if sargon had an easy time conquering so many territories holding on to them especially the proud cities of sumer proved to be a challenge most of the city-states he claims to have controlled eventually rose up in rebellion against him though he and his men the beginnings of a professional army personally loyal to him were able to put down every revolt using a combination of fear brute force and at times diplomacy [Music] within a number of decades sargon was able to establish himself as the undisputed ruler of both sumer and akad as well as reorganizing and reforming many aspects of the societies he ruled [Music] sargon king of akkad vanquished ur in battle and smoked the city and destroyed its fortress he smote its territory and lagash as far as the sea he vanquished uma in battle and destroyed its fortress [Music] by around 2334 bc with the completion of sargon's conquest the era that scholars call the early dynastic period of sumer comes to an end the akkadian period begins so famed was sargon that in the two millennia to come babylonian kings used the title king of akkad all the way down to the persian period the akkadian king becoming the very embodiment of empire and kingship what it meant to be a ruler lugel zagazi was forgotten [Music] when european archaeologists first began excavating in mesopotamia in the early 19th century seeking to understand the origins of their own civilization next to nothing was known of the ancient history of that land besides the biblical stories it's mud brick cities having died millennia before [Music] one by one as the years went by the great mounds began to be investigated the cities of the bible unearthed foremost amongst these early discoveries was the assyrian capital at nineveh made famous by the earlier cereologist austin henry layard work went on for decades brick by brick uncovering a vast metropolis of the iron age and great amounts of information on the assyrian era of the first millennium bc [Music] yet underneath that city lay far older foundations [Music] in 1931 the latest in a long line of astonishing discoveries was made for fifteen hundred years before the assyrians the place had originally been built by acadian workmen [Music] it was in the acadian layers of the city that a number of artifacts were discovered chief amongst them a great bronze head thought to be part of an impressive statue of an acadian king [Music] though defaced at some point in history today the head is rightly considered one of the great masterpieces of ancient art providing a rare glimpse into the art style of the akkadian world generally thought to represent either sargon or his grandson naram sin in reality almost nothing is known about the head though it is reminiscent of similar heads from gudea in the years following acadian rule this was an age when realistic representations of humans almost entirely unknown [Music] making the head entirely unprecedented [Music] this bronze artifact precisely and expertly crafted wasn't just a statement of the king's power but a perpetual embodiment of his very being more than a representation for those who looked upon it this statue would channel the very presence of the king himself working as a substitute in his absence the fact that the head was possibly still on display and defaced many centuries later during the sack of nineveh in the 7th century bc suggests that his power lived on for more than a thousand years after his death [Music] notably the figure is very different from the usual depictions of sumerian rulers generally bald with smiling benevolent features this statue has elaborate hair whether it was a wig or a new acadian hairstyle is unclear but it wasn't just fashion that changed under sargon he attempted in sumer was revolutionary for over a millennium the ruling establishment had long consisted of priesthood and nobility working hand in hand to control nearly every aspect of sumerian society especially in the cities often with single hereditary families controlling all aspects of temple life in their respective strongholds when sargon arrived however he broke the power of the priesthood and the noble families replacing them with hand-picked acadian governess fiercely loyal to him and him alone the acadians who now controlled these estates were able to keep the vast majority of the crops and revenue for themselves a sizable share of the new empire's wealth such a system also helped to ensure their loyalty to the new regime obliging them to serve it because it now gave them a huge stake in the state's success they'd bought in to the new system [Music] this transfer of such productive lands also greatly diminished if not outright destroyed the power and influence of the former religious and ruling establishment because up until then such property had been their main source of income [Music] while in most cases the acadian government compensated the previous owners the estates were still forcibly taken if there was resistance to the offer then it's safe to say there would have been serious consequences for those refusing to make the sale in addition to the temple estates those loyal to sargon were also put directly in charge of managing the main temples and religious endowments that were found in most large cities in one instance sargon put his daughter who later went by the name en eduana in charge of the great temple complex of the moon god nana in the city of ur thus allowing her to directly oversee that institution's wealthy endowment and associating the new kingship with divine support consolidating his hold on sumer sargon looked beyond his borders claiming to have conquered lands stretching from the western areas of elam in what's today's southwestern iran to the shores of the eastern mediterranean bringing immensely wealthy trade routes under his direct control and providing access to others yet further away these were diverse far-flung lands inhabited by people speaking many different languages and worshiping different gods [Music] for the first time brought under the sway of a single government though most of the places sargon attacked outside of sumer can't tell their own stories one place can discovered in the 1960s by italian archaeologists the city of ebla had one of the largest cuneiform archives ever found and a destruction level in the archaeological record to match acadian claims sargon may even show up briefly in the ebola records just before the sack of the city as the king of kish or father of the king of kish he having put his son to rule there perhaps once one of the great cities of the early bronze age instrumental in the urbanization of syria during the third millennium bc ebla now became an acadian provincial city with its millennia old cities religious institutions and complex irrigation networks samaria had arguably been the center of civilization for centuries [Music] and now sargon shifted this center northwards to acad by establishing his new capital on the euphrates [Music] it was here that he built elaborate palaces for himself and his family as well as temples dedicated to his patron deities most notably the goddess ishtar and with this new loyal city as his base of operations sargon began the great undertaking of governing his new empire [Music] one of the ways he did this a mainstay for all empires to follow through the long span of history was through ingenious political propaganda boasting for the first time in history of the exact numbers his forces had killed on campaign swearing to the accuracy of what he reported an unheard-of tactic for the time part of a new cult of personality developed to keep his people in submission by ruling through fear and awe [Music] one of sargon's first acts was to make acadian the official language for all administrative purposes part of the reason for this may have been to find a common language that could unify the disparate parts of the empire where in addition to acadian and sumerian elamite hurrian and a number of western semitic languages and dialects were also spoken sumerian was not abandoned though with scribes still studying it and using it widely in scribal schools [Music] but as time went on and the government promoted greater use of acadian as well as resettling large numbers of acadian-speaking people in sumair it was gradually replaced as the common tongue surviving for thousands of years more when sumerian died out [Music] as well as the political center of the empire agar day became its main commercial hub boats carrying goods from dilman and magan today modern bahrain and oman respectively docked at its ports [Music] caravans stocking a variety of tradable goods flowed in from anatolia elam arabia and the levant traders setting up shop for the future [Music] and it wasn't just acadians that benefited from this system surviving records from the sumerian cities suggest it significantly expanded horizons than those they'd had access to before no longer middlemen but having direct links to the other side of the world [Music] by around 2500 bc this burgeoning global trade system was already booming largely frequented by independent traders who'd rarely if ever make the entire journey from east to west themselves rather passing on goods from one region to the next it seems that like the romans did much later the acadians got the whole trade system or much of it under their direct control succeeding where all mesopotamians after them failed directly controlling elam ii and acadian traders went much further at the mysterious ruins of konar sandal in eastern iran once a city of 20 or 30 000 people part of the still largely unknown jiroft culture recently uncovered there a clay seal from akkad has been discovered complete with cuneiform and two facing figures typical of sargon and his successors it seems acadian travelers came here to barter with the trader lords of girofft [Music] standing side by side with their contemporaries from the indus valley civilization in bartering for the chlorite vessels expertly crafted by the region's workmen [Music] and because of these direct links with iran the gulf egypt and even into the eurasian steppe some of the earliest evidence of horses being found in the middle east around this time akkad prospered [Music] cedarwood flowing down from lebanon diorite from dill moon grain from sumer tin from the mountains of elam lapis lazuli chlorite and tin from far off afghanistan and the indus valley civilization trade ships from malua mahashi and dil moon coming into port due to sargon's conquests the world was growing larger alongside trade though agarde became fabulously wealthy from the taxes that were collected from the empire's various provinces it must have been a truly spectacular place in its day and surely one day it will be found [Music] the sumerian king list claims that sargon ruled for 56 years an incredible length of time in which such a charismatic leader would have without a doubt left an indelible mark on the society that he ruled over however when sargon died in 2279 bc apparently of natural causes several parts of the empire especially in the sumerian heartland broke out in rebellion once more [Music] of all the artifacts of the bronze age world the monuments the statues the inscriptions that come down to us today few would compare to a single piece of metal casting supposedly ordered by the second monarch to rule over the akkadian empire though it didn't survive to our time if it had due to the sheer audacity and opulence of its construction it surely would have been the envy of all the world for sargon's son and successor rimoush according to inscriptions referring to him not only began to account himself amongst the gods in a foreshadowing of the full deification of his nephew a generation later but ordered a statue of himself to be made of pure tin one of the rarest materials in the world immensely expensive largely imported into mesopotamia from half a world away and found only in tiny quantities in a handful of locations the piece would be akin to a statue of pure diamond today clearly attempting to forge divine legitimacy for the new ruling dynasty as well as protecting their image of immense wealth and power it may well be that like his father before him rimoush was forging his own cult of personality and as we shall see he needed it upon sargon's death almost immediately the massive state he'd forged erupted into war and chaos it's not known why sargon's first son manish tushu was passed over for the position of king but given the tendency of later mesopotamian rulers to do the same it may be that rimoush possessed certain qualities of kingship that were desired over his brother such as decisiveness and a certain level of ruthlessness that would be vital if the empire were to survive its founder's death it may also be the due to a total lack of primogeniture or succession policy simply the strongest ruled and rimoush seized power from his elder brother for rimoush as with every acadian ruler it would be a baptism of fire with most of the major sumerian cities rising up to fight him including er lagash adab and uma clearly inheriting the strong standing army from his father the king's retribution was swift by his own account remoush tore down the walls of the rebellious cities brutally killing several thousand sumerian troops while selling thousands of the survivors into slavery but he went further too expelling yet more thousands of non-combatants of fighting age in the defeated cities subjecting them to cruel punishments mass deportations and hard labor documents uncovered from the city of uma seem to confirm this as they tell of citizens working and dying in what can only be described as labor camps once the rebellions had been crushed rimoush stripped many of these cities of whatever remaining lands they had and like sargon distributed them to his supporters in one of the largest land transactions ever recorded in ancient history in one fell swoop the new king seized and reorganized approximately 134 000 hectares of farmland from the cities of lagash and uma lands they bitterly fought over for centuries before redistributing them to the new acadian land holding class that his father sargon had created just a few decades before an entire landed class of cronies promoted by the new regime acadians and sumerians too new men all too happy to go against the old order and tradition in order to further themselves and their families this culture of nepotism was extremely significant because it meant that the elite and temple priesthoods of these city-states after perhaps thousands of years lost all claims to their ancestral lands it was just another example of how many of the centuries-old institutions of sumer were being dismantled as a result of the new acadian order the priests had been instated by the gods and now they were being demoted [Music] yet revolts continued to rage throughout rimoushi's reign in many parts of akkad as well as the south one of these was in the city of kazulu on the euphrates river which had years before also revolted against sargon only to have many of its citizens butchered contemporary chronicles tell the city fared no better under rimoush whose men brutally stamped out any resistance acadian texts claim that 12 000 rebel soldiers were killed with another 5 000 sold into slavery kazulu's walls were demolished similar accounts have also been given for campaigns in elam a similarly ancient region of city builders in addition to the thousands butchered inscriptions on various objects detailed the large quantities of plunder brought back to a gaday and the city of nippor center of mesopotamian religion by the end of his reign rimousha's success in mercilessly defeating his enemies had clearly gone to his head beginning to think of himself less as a man and more like a god [Music] soon enough though he would be proved to be mortal after all having ruled for only nine years rimoush fell to assassins within his own court [Music] allegedly using not daggers or poison but cylinder seals strangling him in a back room the texts that have been uncovered so far do not state who orchestrated the murder though being such a brutal ruler he had no shortage of enemies the most likely scenario though is that the assassins acted under the orders of the elder brother manish tushu who promptly ascended the throne inheriting the many wars his brother had started [Music] around 4260 years ago 964 men sat down to a feast in the land of akkad great pieces of mutton and pork roasted on spits bread olives vegetables and of course vast quantities of beer flowed and yet all was not well 49 witnesses stood by ominously surveying the day's events ready to step in if needed no doubt for those 964 individuals we're giving up their lands in return for only two years worth of harvests the men watching may even have been those who were to be allocated this land the second generation of a new elite men looking for the king's patronage muscling in on the old land owners of the realm and this scene recorded on tablets during the reign of the third acadian king manish tushu was a common one [Music] like the two kings before him this new ruler constantly sought to expand his own household at the expense of local institutions [Music] this is the story told by the vast amounts of administrative documents recorded on cuneiform tablets a tale further added to by the archaeological evidence of vast administrative centers at sites like tel brak and tel leyland apparently built in part to oversee the immense land reforms taking place great armies of bureaucrats recording it all [Music] and yet in comparison to his brother's reign manish two shoes seems to have been much more stable it's possible that many of the acadian court preferred the new ruler to rimoush because of an inclination to maintain peace in an empire perpetually riven apart by war a situation perhaps added to by manish tushu's indignation had been passed over for rule in favour of his younger brother it may even be that manish tushu and his court faction worked behind the scenes to remove rimoush from power themselves perhaps even instigating an unrecorded civil war between the two men we'll likely never know all manish tushu says is that enlil called him to power [Music] rather than starting new wars by brutally making examples of those who rebelled manish tushu quietly finished his brother's conflicts before focusing his efforts on promoting commerce and opening up trade links with places as far away as egypt [Music] by this time few alive had experienced a life outside the yoke of acadian kingship the archaeology suggests that the empire really did now stretch from c to sea an immense land empire stretching from the borders of anatolia to the deserts of iran a remarkable achievement many items survive from this time from excavations all over the middle east and yet one relic in particular is perhaps the best example of the immense power of these earliest emperors the obelisk of manish tusu [Music] at 1.4 metres tall this inscribed black diorite stone is a legal record telling of the distribution of four pieces of land large estates given to the king's officers in the region of kish we're told in acadian that the stone itself was taken from magan across the persian gulf in what is now oman loaded onto boats and docked on the key at akad where the king fashioned his statue and dedicated it to enlil [Music] this is a material previously unknown in mesopotamia and then just like his brother before him in 2255 bc the king was murdered conveniently his son already out on military campaign waited patiently in the wings he would be one of the greatest acadian rulers of them all overseeing a new unparalleled age of sophistication in art society and commerce this is the age of naram sin [Music] [Music] by the 6th century bc nearly 2 000 years had passed since the heyday of the acadians it would be another 2 500 years before leonard woolley began his excavations at ur elsewhere in the world this was the age of the buddha confucius and the burgeoning philosophers of ancient greece paradigm shifting new styles of thought during this so-called axial age [Music] and yet in mesopotamia where the great kings had never truly lost their power just consolidating it into the strongest contender a near unbroken line of culture still stretched back to the very first cities of the world and at that time babylon was the greatest of them all some 200 000 occupants lived and died amidst the magnificent gardens and colonnades center of the all-powerful neo-babylonian empire and it was here in the year 550 bc that one of the first archaeological digs in history was carried out in that year we're told king nabanidus led men to sipar to uncover the foundation deposits of the temples of samas the sun god anunnatu the warrior goddess and the sanctuary that naram sin had built to the moon god in haran nabanidus then restored all of these sites to their former glory but he went further too attempting to date the archaeological artifacts at naram sin's sanctuary though his estimates were off by around 1500 years naram sin was clearly still a popular and renowned figure in nabanidus's day but what of that king why him and not his father or uncle well like sargon naram sin was portrayed as the model warrior king [Music] later in his career he'd presided over the very apogee of the state the very heights of architecture and material goods a time known in art history as the classical acadian era to differentiate it from the earlier and later eras and yet he would be one of mesopotamia's most controversial rulers too with a scathing story later told about him and of course his reign began very badly with the greatest revolt yet breaking out against the new order it was a conflict that could have very easily stamped out the empire before it really got going describes the war as the great revolt led by the cities of kish and uruk then still perhaps the largest city in the world soon enough most if not all of the cities of sumer along with the empire's territories in elam and the west called their banners rising up on mass against their imperial overlords [Music] according to naram sin's inscriptions it took at least nine battles but ultimately all of the rebel cities were defeated and order brought back to the realm in what had now become standard practice in acadian warfare the vanquished suffered tremendously in kish the euphrates river was filled with the bodies of dead soldiers who'd defended the gates of their city while another 2500 were slaughtered once the acadians breached the walls and the destruction didn't stop there after the fighting had come to an end as punishment naram sin tore down kish's walls and had the city flooded [Music] meanwhile in the sumerian heartland uruk led a massive rebel coalition including the cities of lagash umar adab issin shuripak and even the religious center of nippor they too especially uruk suffered nearly the same fate as kish with thousands killed [Music] their lofty already ancient city walls being torn down and in what seems to have been a hallmark of acadian campaigns their cities flooded it may seem excessive but naram sin clearly an astonishingly capable military commander wanted to make the point that any descent within the akkadian realm would be met with death and destruction finally with the state under control naram sin could focus on not only ruling but expanding his borders yet further [Music] in the 36 years that naram sin ruled he expanded the acadian empire's network territories and tributary states to their greatest extent roughly from the kingdom of marhashi believed to have been in what's today central iran all the way to the waters of the mediterranean and perhaps even the island of cyprus [Music] one of his many victories is commemorated on the famous victory stele of naram sin in which he is seen defeating tribespeople of the zagros mountains trampling the bodies of their fallen warriors it may have been naram sin who finally destroyed early bronze age ebla inside the empire such was his iron grip that a level of stability does seem to have been reached allowing less warlike pursuits to be furthered [Music] naram sin for example was the first mesopotamian ruler to boast of his hunting prowess a tradition that would go on for millennia though like all acadian rulers he failed to integrate traditional mesopotamian leadership with his new order naram sin's reign was the most magnificent period in the entire history of the empire both militarily as well as economically [Music] it's from the records of his foreign campaigns not to mention the great monuments erected such as his victory stele that naram sin is mostly remembered as a fierce warrior king however he was also a great builder along with other sanctuaries such as that at haran he completely renovated ancient mesopotamia's most famous and sacred temple the echo at nippor which was dedicated to the god enlil [Music] the building was to be the crowning achievement of his reign once finished it would have been an immense sight to behold one of the most ornate ever constructed documents uncovered from that city detail much of its construction activities as well as the sheer quantity of precious metals and the number of workers involved in its renovation overseen by the crown prince shakali shari one text records that in addition to hundreds of workers there were at least 77 special woodworkers 86 goldsmiths 10 sculptors 54 carpenters and other groups of specialized labourers brought there from all over the empire [Music] by this time very few if anyone left alive had experienced a time before acadian rule thus naram sin dominated religion [Music] perhaps seeing his predecessor's downfall in their only being viewed as mortals naram sin had other ideas seeking to claim a total monopoly over religion he had a number of daughters establishing them as priestesses all over sumer thus forging intimate links with the various temples naram sin though didn't just worship other gods and goddesses he believed himself to be a god as well in one inscription found on a monument in the ruins of a temple the great king wanted the world to know the following [Music] naram sin the mighty king of agadha when the four quarters of the earth attacked him together through the love ishtar borhym was victorious in nine battles in a single year and captured the kings whom they had raised up against him because he had defended his city in crisis the people of his city asked of him that he be the god of their city agarde with ishtar in iyana with enlil in nippur with dagan in tuttle with nihusag in keshe with enki in eredu with sin in ur with shamash in sipa with nergal in kutha and they built his temple in agade yet unlike sargon naram sin proved to be especially unpopular in the generations to come his self-deification along with what many felt was his vanity would be remembered by the authors of later epic literature as just a few of the reasons for his downfall the most notable being the curse of agarday a largely fictional retelling of the fall of the empire with naram sin cast as the reason for its demise as we've seen the truth seems to have been far from this though he may have believed himself to be divine after 36 years on the throne of akkad like any mortal naram sin died not a warrior's death in battle or from the blade of an assassin's dagger but simply we're told natural causes that come with old age soon enough though everything in the empire was to change [Music] in 2217 bc when the new king shakali shari came to the throne the acadian empire stood at the very height of its size and prosperity [Music] just 25 years later only a rump state around acad remained hemmed in beset by hostile enemies on all sides [Music] unfortunately unlike his predecessors there are relatively few inscriptions dating to his reign so it's hard to get a clear picture of the goings-on in mesopotamia at this time we know he fought a bitter struggle against gutien and amorite invaders amassing at the peripheries of the realm and not long into his reign the south finally managed to shake off acadian rule though the exact details are lost several revolts are mentioned in the acadian sources but the outcome of these events given the acadian propensity for propaganda often remains uncertain there were several short-lived kings ruling in agardae after shakhali shari's death though their relationship to the acadian dynasty of sargon isn't clear the final of these rulers was shu doral who later texts and traditions maintain was killed when a people from the zagros mountains the gutians breached agardai's walls and set the city on fire as mentioned earlier though the ruins of agarde have yet to be found and so this part of the story cannot yet be confirmed with archaeology though surely a city like agade had to have met its end in a siege in recent decades a new culprit for the empire's demise is often named by a majority of scholars scientific data suggesting an unprecedented drought descending on the land between the two rivers [Music] specifically the northern regions around accad an already marginal environment at the best of times this drought which also may have put an end to old kingdom egypt and a variety of other bronze age states alike lasted for years possibly even decades this new lack of rain would have resulted in increased desertification as well as a reduction in the vital flow of the euphrates and tigris rivers thus reducing the amount of arable land that could have been irrigated and farmed soon leading to famine an overall collapse of the regional economy and massive unrest amongst the general population in such conditions it would have been extremely difficult for any ruler to keep such a large state together no matter how great such conditions would also have given people such as the gutians an opportunity and perhaps need to raid acadian lance [Music] and ultimately make it to the capital of agarde itself which as later texts make clear they destroyed before ruling themselves as the new lords of mesopotamia for a century or more the story doesn't end there though at least not in the popular sumerian and acadian literature that would follow a century or two later once some semblance of order was restored by the final sumerian dynasty that of er which formed its own successor empire to the acadians [Music] there are several legends about sargon in particular mostly revolving around his life and conquests that were compiled into various mini epics and recited by poets and bards as they traveled from city to city telling stories of the great figures of the past interestingly there were also several works of literature dealing with the life of naram sin but unlike those of sargon they are more cautionary tales than stories of valor the most famous of these being the curse of agarday a work of fiction loosely based around historical events the curse of agarday tells of the fall of naram sin and the glorious city of agarde for reasons unknown to naram sin enlil the chief deity of the sumerian pantheon withdraws his favour from the city the acadian king implores the gods to give him a sign or an omen as to how he can win back their favour but it's all in vain after seven years of frustration in anger naram sin sends his men to destroy the echo enlil's holy sanctuary in the city of nipple as punishment for his actions enlil sends the mountain people known as the gutians along with famine to ravage agarde and its people the overall moral of the story is that no one should question the gods let alone act with such haste and disrespect towards them archaeological findings along with several texts from naram sin's reign tend to stand at odds with much of what's been described in the curse of agade and yet the events that may have ultimately brought about the city's downfall namely gutien attacks and widespread famine do seem to have some basis in history albeit likely having taken place towards the end of the reign of his successor perhaps later misconstrued by storytellers [Music] in reality naram sin himself was a very pious individual who as mentioned before ordered the renovation of the echo and made it grander than ever before regardless of their portrayals in later literature both sargon and naram sin would be remembered for centuries to come as two of ancient mesopotamia's most powerful rulers their stories and achievements would inspire many of the kings who would come after them to establish great empires of their own the acadian rulers completely changed the landscape of the near eastern world forever more gone were the days of petty city-states whose citizens fought wars over plots of farmland and whose lives revolved around their patron deity as part of the acadian state these cities became part of a much larger and more dynamic political entity unlike anything that had ever been seen before thus laying the framework for all empires to follow sargon and his descendants opened up a whole new world for the people of the ancient near east that was not sustained by might alone but through fostering trade and the exchange of ideas with most of the known civilizations at the time not just this but future empires of the near east would all imitate aspects of the acadian model of administration and centralized government for at least two millennia after regard as fall and finally the acadians gave the region and the surrounding areas their language acadian which became the lingua franca for the near east until it was replaced by aramaic nearly 1500 years later [Music] thanks for watching my name's pete kelly you've been watching history time don't forget to like and subscribe to check out all the content i've already made my ancient history and for much more in the future check out my other self-titled history channel too for many more videos on history and archaeology thanks for watching and i'll see you next time [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: History Time

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Keywords: history time, history, documentary, ancient history, archaeology, anthropology, mythology, early medieval, early middle ages, learning, history documentary, ancient history documentary, history medieval, medieval

Id: Q-mAWItV2q0

Length: 88min 9sec (5289 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021