Akkadians

“ A thousand years later, the Akkadians were forced to submit to the rule of the Amorites, another Semitic desert tribe whose great King Hammurabi built himself a magnificent palace in the holy city of Babylon and who gave his people a set of laws which made the Babylonian state the best administered empire of the ancient world. ”

“ Influences Coming from the Far East.—The early inhabitants of this country have sometimes been called Turanian to distinguish them from Aryans, Semites, and other races sometimes called Hamitic. They seem to have been closely allied to the Mongolian type of people who developed centres of culture in the Far East and early learned the use of metals and developed a high degree of skill in handicraft. The Akkadians, {155} or Sumer-Akkadians, appear to have come from the mountain districts north and east, and entered this fertile valley to begin the work of civilization at a very early period. ”

“ It is generally agreed that this civilization can be traced back to an earlier race, the Sumero-Akkadians, whose language seems allied to the agglutinative idioms of central Asia. If this ancient civilized race was really allied to the ancestors of the Turks and Huns, it is a remarkable instance of how civilization thrives best by being transplanted at a certain period of growth. ”

“ His name, as god of deep wisdom, was Nin-igi-azaga, “the lord of the bright eye,” a name which would seem to show that the Akkadians (the names of most of the deities of the Assyro-Babylonian Pantheon are written in Akkadian) associated, as we also do at the present day, intelligence with brightness of the eyes, or, more correctly, with alertness of appearance.
But this god had many other names than those [pg 062] mentioned above. He was En-ki, “lord of the world”; Amma-ana-ki, “lord of heaven and earth”; Engur, “god of the Abyss”; Nudimmud, “god of creation”; Nadimmud, “god of everything” ”

“ The People. In all probability the Babylonians consisted of what may be called the original Semites of that tract, with the Akkadians, also aboriginal, with whom they lived and had already, at the time of the dynasty of Babylon, mingled to such an extent that they must have become a homogeneous people, notwithstanding the racial differences which were probably noticeable at certain points—for example, a more strongly-marked Semitic type at Sippar and in that neighbourhood, and a more strongly-marked Akkadian type in the State to which Lagaš belonged. ”

“ These peoples soon became acquainted with the astronomical learning of the Akkadians, and were taught the wonderful phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes; and it is highly probable that the fact of the vernal equinoctial sign having changed shortly before B.C. 2000 from that of the Bull to that of the Ram or Lamb had much to do with the changing of the old Semitic name Shamsh to that of El, as a designation of the sun-god, El (אל) being the old Chaldean word for Ram. ”

“ But in every case the goddess is associated with many distinctive traits which reveal her identity with her homologues in Cyprus, Babylonia, and Egypt.
Among the Sumerians "life comes on earth through the introduction of water and irrigation". [112] "Man also results from a union between the water-gods."
The Akkadians held views which were almost the direct antithesis of these. To them "the watery deep is disorder, and the cosmos, the order of the world, is due to the victory of a god of light and spring over the monster of winter and water; man is directly made by the gods". ”

“ The usual signs denoting Akkadū in the Semitic narrative inscriptions were read in the non-Semitic idiom uri-ki or ur-ki, “land of the city,” which simply meant that Akkadū was the land of the city par excellence, i.e. of the city of Agade of Sargon I., which remained for a long period the leading city of Babylonia. [3]
It is quite probable that the non-Semitic name Agade may mean “crown (aga) of fire (de) ” [4] in allusion to Ištar, “the brilliant goddess,” the tutelar deity of the morning and evening star and the goddess of war and love, whose cult was observed in very early times in Agade. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The name of Sargon of Agade, or Akkad, bulks largely in later Babylonian tradition, and his reign has been regarded by modern writers as marking the most important epoch in the early history of his country. The reference in the text of Nabonidus to the age of Narâm-Sin has caused the Dynasty of Akkad to be taken as the canon, or standard, by which to measure the relative age of other dynasties or of rulers whose inscriptions have from time to time been recovered upon various early Babylonian sites. ”

“ As in the sphere of art, so, too, in that of politics and government, the Dynasty of Akkad did not originate, but merely expanded and developed its inheritance along lines already laid down. Even with Sharru-Gi, it is clear that we have not reached the beginning of the Semitic movement in Northern Babylonia, and that in this respect the kingdom of Kish resembled the later empire of Akkad. The battle scenes upon his monuments prove that Sharru-Gi was a great conqueror, but the traces of the text supply no details of his campaigns. ”

“ If, in spite of the Orientalists and the conjecture of M.F. Lenormant— who invented a name for a people whose shadowy outline he dimly perceived in the faraway Past as preceding the Babylonians—we say that this Aryan race that came from Central Asia, the cradle of the 5th race Humanity, belonged to the "Akkadian" tribes, there will be a new historico-ethnological difficulty created. Yet it is maintained that these "Akkads" were no more a "Turanian" race than any of the modern British people are the mythical ten tribes of Israel, so conspicuously present in the Bible, and absent from history. ”

“ The part played by these Accadians in the intellectual history of mankind is highly important. They were the earliest civilizers of Western Asia, and it is to them that we have to trace the arts and sciences, the religious traditions and the philosophy not only of the Assyrians, but also of the Phœnicians, the Aramæans, and even the Hebrews themselves. It was, too, from Chaldea that the germs of Greek art and of much of the Greek pantheon and mythology originally came. Columnar architecture reached its first and highest development in Babylonia ”

“ Both in art and politics a Sumerian reaction followed the period of Semitic power, and the establishment of the Dynasty of Ur was significant of more than a shifting of political influence southwards. It would appear that a systematic attempt was made to return to the earlier standards. But the influence of Akkad and her monarchs, though deliberately ignored and combated, was far from ineffective. As the sculptures of Gudea owe much to the period of Narâm-Sin, so the empire of Dungi was inevitably influenced by Shar-Gani-sharri's conquests. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The Accadai, or Accad, were " the highlanders " who had descended from the moun tainous region of Elam on the east, and it was to them that the Assyrians ascribed the origin of Chaldean civilisa tion and writing. They were, at all events, the dominant people in Babylonia at the time to which our earliest contemporaneous records reach back, although the Sumir, or " people of the home language," as they are sometimes termed, were named first in the royal titles out of respect to their prior settlement in the country. ”

“ Under the later kings of Ur the cult of the reigning monarch was diligently practised, and his worship was continued after death. There is no evidence that this custom obtained among the earlier Sumerian kings and patesis, and we may with some confidence set its origin in this period of Semitic supremacy. That the kings of Akkad should have claimed divine honours during their own lifetime may probably be connected with the increase in their dominion, based upon conquests which extended from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, and from Arabia to the mountains of Kurdistan. ”

“ According to this view, as we have already pointed out, [19] the first Semitic immigration into Northern Babylonia, or Akkad, is not to be synchronized with the empire of Akkad, which was founded by Shar-Gani-sharri and consolidated by Narâm-Sin. In spite of the absence of Semitic idiom from the few short votive inscriptions of the earlier kings of Kish that have as yet been found, the possibility must not be disregarded that they too date from a period of Semitic and not of Sumerian domination in the north. At Sippar also we have evidence of very early Semitic occupation. ”

“ Since Sumir, the Shinar of the Bible, was the first part of the country occupied by the invading Semites, while Accad long continued to be regarded as the seat of an alien race, the language and population of primitive Chaldea have been named Accadian by the majority of Assyrian scholars. The part played by these Accadians in the intellectual history of mankind is highly important. ”

“ In short, the Akkals are a sort of domestic hermits, although they may, and do, own private property, and practise all the various callings in life like any other men. The fact of belonging to the initiated class does not give them emoluments of any kind, nor any decided rank among their fellow Druses, except in matters of religion; although, as a general rule, most respected men of their nation are Akkals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Frequently all the Acadians—of Chignecto, Annapolis, Piziquid, Minas—were harried in punishment for the acts of a few. Often they were called upon to renew their vows of allegiance. This they did by word and by deed. When the French were at war with the English in 1744 they called on their brothers for aid which was steadfastly denied, despite threats from their priests and the menace of Indians. ”

“ The mutilation of the tablet prevents our knowing whether the story was continued. Its preservation at all is due to a curious accident. It is found in an Accadian reading-book, intended to teach the elements of the extinct Accadian language of primitive Chaldea to Babylonian boys of a later date. Easy passages in Accadian have been selected for the purpose, and provided with Assyrian translations, while the text is interspersed with exercises upon the principal words occuring in them. ”

“ If the Acadians can anywhere be seen in the prosperity of their primitive simplicity, I fancy it is in the parish of Vermilion, in the vicinity of Abbeville and on the Bayou Tigre. Here, among the intricate bayous that are their highways and supply them with the poorer sort of fish, and the fair meadows on which their cattle pasture, and where they grow nearly everything their simple habits require, they have for over a century enjoyed a quiet existence, practically undisturbed by the agitations of modern life, ignorant of its progress. ”

“ The Akkadian is called Turanian, as showing undoubted resemblances to the Turki and Mongol languages of the lands lying north and east of Persia, which were named by the Persians Turan, as distinguished from Iran. The place of the Khemi in philology is not so easily defined. It does not seem that any other language than that of Egypt was ever written in the Egyptian script. The case is somewhat different with the Chaldee characters. They were adopted in varying modes for writing Semitic and Aryan languages, as well as the native Akkadian. ”