Original subtitles

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

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[Music]

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[Music]

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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]

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[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

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