Akkad

“ In fact, it has been thought that Agade-Akkad was situated opposite Sippar on the left bank of the Euphrates, and was probably the oldest part of the city of Sippar.
In the Assyro-Babylonian literature the name Akkadū appears as part of the royal title in connexion with Sumer; viz. non-Semitic: lugal Kēngi (ki) Uru (ki) = šar mât Šumeri u Akkadī, “king of Sumer and Akkad,” which appears to have meant simply “king of Babylonia.” ”

“ Among the various Semitic kingdoms and small principalities which were founded and endured for a time in this portion of Western Asia, that of Akkad won the pre-eminent place. In the mountainous regions to the east and north of Elam the immigrants doubtless dominated the country, but they found a population in a state of culture little more advanced than their own, and, if subject to no other influence, they must have remained in a condition of semi-barbarity. But in Babylonia the case was different. Here the vigorous nature of the nomad found a rich soil to support its growth and development. ”

“ Originally foreigners, invaders from Akkad or Sumer, the pharaohs first conquered, then surprised. It was they that embanked the Nile, turned morasses into meadows and piled the pyramids. More exactly, it was by their commands that these miracles were contrived. To the neolithic people whom they subjugated their divinity was clear. So elsewhere was that of the kings of Akkad. Like them, like the Incas, the pharaohs were of the solar race and so remained from the first dynasty to the Greek conquest, when Alexander, to legitimatize his sovereignty, had himself acknowledged as Amon's son. ”

“ On the transference of power from Kish to Akkad an expansion of Semitic authority from Northern Babylonia appears to have taken place throughout a considerable portion of Western Asia. Elam no longer claims the principal share of attention from the rulers of Akkad and Sumer, and Shar-Gani-sharri seems to have devoted his energies to extending his influence northwards and, more particularly, in the west. ”

“ Whether Akkad, or some other city, still claimed a nominal suzerainty over the southern districts it is impossible to say, but it is at least clear that in the reign of Gudea no such claim was either recognized or enforced. We may suppose that Lagash and the other great cities in the south, relieved from the burden of Semitic domination, enjoyed a period of peace and tranquillity, which each city employed for the development of her material resources. ”

“ The lands of Sumer and Akkad were situated in the lower valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and corresponded approximately to the country known by classical writers as Babylonia. On the west and south their boundaries are definitely marked by the Arabian desert and the Persian Gulf which, in the earliest period of Sumerian history, extended as far northward as the neighbourhood of the city of Eridu. ”

“ There is no doubt, however, that the Semitic conquest of Elam was accompanied, and probably preceded, by extensive Semitic immigration. Even at the time of the Dynasty of Ur, when Elam was subject to direct Sumerian control, the Semitic influence of Akkad had become too firmly rooted to be displaced, and it received a fresh impetus under the later rulers of the First Dynasty of Babylon. ”

“ But the original impulse to artistic production was of purely Sumerian origin, and it is possible to trace the gradual development of its products from the rudest reliefs of the archaic period to the finished sculpture of Gudea's reign. [21] The character of the Semitic art of Akkad was secondary and derivative, though the Semites certainly improved on what they borrowed; in that of the Sumerians the seeds of its later excellence may be detected from the beginning. ”

“ If the king's object in purchasing the land had been merely to make a profitable investment, he would not have removed the former labourers, for whose maintenance he undertook to provide elsewhere. Manishtusu's action can only be explained on the supposition that he was anxious to acquire land on which he might settle the men from Akkad and their adherents. The purchase appears therefore to have been dictated by the necessity of removing certain citizens from Akkad to other sites in Northern Babylonia. ”

“ It is true that the records, from which our information is derived, were drawn up by the rulers of Lagash whose deeds they chronicle, and are naturally far from being impartial authorities. A victory may sometimes have been claimed, when the facts may not have fully justified it; and to this extent we have been forced to view the history of Sumer and of Akkad from the standpoint of a single city. Had the sites of other cities yielded as rich a harvest as Tello, it is probable that other states would be found to have played no less important parts. ”

“ We here learn the name of one of the enemies with whom Kish had to fight in the early stages of its existence as an independent city-state, and we may conjecture that many more such battles had to be fought and won before its influence was felt beyond the boundaries of Akkad by the Sumerian cities in the south. The fact that after his victory Utug deposited the vase at Nippur as a thank-offering proves that in his time the shrine of Enlil was already regarded as the central sanctuary of Babylonia. ”

“ Such monuments as the recently discovered stele of Sharru-Gi, the statues of Manishtusu, and Narâm-Sin's stele of victory afford valuable evidence concerning the racial characteristics of the early [Pg 40] inhabitants of Northern Babylonia, and enable us to trace some of the stages in their artistic development. But in Akkad itself the excavations have not thrown much light upon these subjects, nor have they contributed to the solution of the problems as to the period at which Sumerians and Semites first came in contact, or which race was first in possession of the land. ”

“ Art, too, reached a high perfection. The seal-cylinders of the reign of Sargon of Akkad represent the highest efforts of the gem-cutter's skill in ancient Babylonia, and a bas-relief of Naram-Sin, found at Diarbekr in northern Mesopotamia, while presenting close analogies to the Egyptian art of the Old Empire, is superior to anything of the kind as yet discovered in Babylonia of either an earlier or a later date. As in Egypt, so too in Babylonia, the sculpture of later times shows retrogression rather than advance. ”

“ He was attacked by the ruler of the neighbouring city of Umma and destroyed.
The abuses Urukagina tried to abolish were, in essence, those which vitiate the realization of any political ideal. Weaknesses peculiar to Mesopotamia, however, became clear when serious attempts were made to establish a unified state comprising all the separate cities. This change was attempted by Sargon of Akkad and his successors (Fig. 22) . [118] Sargon had 83 been a high official under a king of Kish, and about 2340 B.C. he founded a city of his own, Akkad. ”

“ Granting these conclusions, if Narâm-Sin had been the son of Sharru-Gi, as suggested by Père Scheil, Urumush would have been separated from Manishtusu by the Dynasty of Akkad, a combination that is scarcely probable. Moreover, the context of the passage on the tablet from Tello, on which the names of Sharru-Gi and Narâm-Sin are mentioned, though of doubtful interpretation, does not necessarily imply that they were living at the same time; they may have been separated by several generations. ”

“ The city of Nippur stands in a peculiar relation to others in Sumer and Akkad, as being the central shrine in the two countries and the seat of Enlil, the chief of the gods. Niffer, or Nuffar, is the name by which the mounds marking its site are still known. They have been long deserted, and, like the sites of many other ancient cities in Babylonia and Assyria, no modern town or village is built upon them or in their immediate neighbourhood. ”

“ Pir'-Bêl, the son of Bêl-eṭir, sometime after he and his father went, some ten years ago, to Elam, came again from Elam to Akkad, he and his father. When they came, whatever was evil against Assyria, they kept on doing in Erech. ”

“ The fact proves the long and permanent influence of Babylonian culture from the banks of the Euphrates to the shores of the Mediterranean, and is intelligible only in the light of the further fact that the empire of Sargon of Akkad had been founded more than two thousand years before. Nothing but a prodigiously long lapse of time could explain the firm hold thus obtained by a foreign language, and a system of writing the most complex and difficult to learn that has ever been invented. ”

“ In spite, therefore, of the fact that so much of the labor of the country was performed by slaves, agriculture was in high esteem and the free agriculturist was held in honor. Tradition told how Sargon of Akkad, the hero of ancient Babylonia, had been brought up by Akki the irrigator, and had himself been a gardener, while the god Tammuz, the bridegroom of Istar, had tended sheep. Indeed, one of the oldest titles of the Babylonian kings had been that of “shepherd.” ”

“ This was the view which prevailed in the earlier days of Semitic supremacy. [pg 169] Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin are entitled “gods;” temples and priests were dedicated to them during their lifetime, and festivals were observed in their honor. Their successors claimed and received the same attributes of divinity. Under the third dynasty of Ur even the local prince, Gudea, the high-priest of Tello, was similarly deified. It was not until Babylonia had been conquered by the foreign Kassite dynasty from the mountains of Elam that a new conception of the King was introduced. ”

“ Before he became king, Sargon of Akkad, the Sharrukin of the texts, was, according to tradition, a gardener and watchman attached to the temple of the war god Zamama of Kish. This deity was subsequently identified with Merodach, son of Ea; Ninip, son of Enlil; and Nin-Girsu of Lagash. He was therefore one of the many developed forms of Tammuz--a solar, corn, and military deity, and an interceder for mankind. The goddess of Kish appears to have been a form of Bau, as is testified by the name of Queen Azag-Bau, the legendary founder of the city. ”

“ The peak of the mountain rises to the stars.
The fact that the stele was found at Susa has been employed as an argument in favour of regarding Elam as a dependency of Akkad during his reign. But, in addition to Narâm-Sin's own text, the stele bears a later inscription of the Elamite king Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, from which we may infer that it was captured in Northern Babylonia and carried off to Susa as a trophy of war. But it is not unlikely that Narâm-Sin, like Shar-Gani-sharri and the kings of Kish, achieved successes against Elam. ”

“ The whole of the Euphrates valley was at this time divided into petty kingdoms, and Izdubar by his prowess established a dominion over many of these, making thus the first empire in Asia.
The centre of the empire of Izdubar appears to have laid in the region of Shinar, at Babylon, Akkad, Erech, and Nipur, and agrees with the site of the kingdom of Nimrod, according to Genesis x. 8, 9, 10, where we read: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. ”