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The Collapse of the Akkadian Empire a Review of Historical and Textual Sources

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The Collapse of the Akkadian Empire a Review of Historical and Textual Sources CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto The Collapse of the Akkadian Empire A Review of Historical and Textual Sources Nikolas Malcolm Virtanen Pro gradu - tutkielma Yleinen Historia Humanistinen tiedekunta Helsingin yliopisto Marraskuu 2019 Risto Marjomaa Tiedekunta – Fakultet – Faculty Koulutusohjelma – Utbildningsprogram – Degree Programme Humaninstinen tiedekunta Yleinen historia / Aineenopettajan koulutus Opintosuunta – Studieinriktning – Study Track Yleinen historia Tekijä – Författare – Author Virtanen, Nikolas Malcolm Työn nimi – Arbetets titel – Title The Collapse of the Akkadian Empire: A Review of Historical and Textual Sources Työn laji – Arbetets art – Level Aika – Datum – Month and Sivumäärä– Sidoantal – Number of pages year Pro Grady - työ 72 Marraskuu 2019 Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract The latter stages of the 3rd Millennium BC saw the rise and collapse of the Akkadian Empire. Although their system of political organization was not necessarily invented by the Akkadians, they developed it much further than had been done ever before - with a centralized state power that had hegemony over most of Mesopotamia and kings that developed new ideologies of world dominion to legitimize their rule. Yet, as spectacular as the Empire might have been, so too was its sudden collapse. Due to the scarcity of our sources, the causes and events that eventually led to the collapse are enigmatic to us. Several theories have been presented, and especially the rise of palaeoclimatology and its methods have produced new theories as to why the Akkadian Empire collapsed. This thesis is an in-depth review and examination of the historical and textual sources that concern themselves with the Akkadian collapse, with the purpose of assessing their reliability and to compare and reflect them against the prevailing theories. These sources include royal inscriptions, letters, chronicles, king lists and literary compositions. All sources are examined through translations to modern languages. The results show how most of the theories have contradictions and issues relating to the textual sources. The fact of the matter is that with present sources no assured conclusions can be drawn, and it will take a breakthrough in discoveries – notably of the Akkadian capital – before any more light can be shed on the matter. Avainsanat – Nyckelord – Keywords Akkad, societal collapse, Mesopotamia, Assyriology, palaeoclimatology Säilytyspaikka – Förvaringställe – Where deposited Muita tietoja – Övriga uppgifter – Additional information Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Research Question and the sources ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 The Akkadian Empire: an Overview ......................................................................................................... 2 Presargonic Period ..................................................................................................................................... 2 Sargon forges an empire ........................................................................................................................... 4 An abrupt end: Who indeed was king? ..................................................................................................... 5 1.3 The importance of Akkad to contemporaries and to us.......................................................................... 7 2 The Sources..................................................................................................................................................... 9 2.1 Overview .................................................................................................................................................. 9 2.2 Nature of the sources: a complex Mesopotamian historiography........................................................ 10 2.3 The Contemporary Sources ................................................................................................................... 16 Sargon ...................................................................................................................................................... 17 Nāram-Sîn ................................................................................................................................................ 20 Šar-kali-šarrī ............................................................................................................................................. 25 After the fall: Period of Confusion, last Kings of Akkad and the Gutians ................................................ 31 2.4 Later and non-contemporary sources ................................................................................................... 38 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 38 The Sumerian King List ............................................................................................................................ 39 Weidner chronicle, or the Esagila chronicle ............................................................................................ 44 Chronicle of Early Kings ........................................................................................................................... 46 The Birth Legend of Sargon ..................................................................................................................... 48 The Curse of Akkad .................................................................................................................................. 49 The Cuthean Legend, or Nāram-Sîn and the Enemy Hordes ................................................................... 51 The Great Revolt against Nāram-Sîn ....................................................................................................... 54 Conclusions .............................................................................................................................................. 55 3 Discussion ..................................................................................................................................................... 57 3.1 Gutium and external threats ................................................................................................................. 57 3.2 Internal threats and dissolution ............................................................................................................ 61 3.3 Climate ................................................................................................................................................... 63 4 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................... 67 5 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................. 69 1 Introduction 1.1 Research Question and the sources In this thesis I will study the Akkadian Empire and its fall circa 2150 BC. The original idea was to attempt to find similarities and links between modern climatological data and historical records, but this proved quickly to be quite impossible due to the scarcity of historical sources. The question whether there are any mentions of climate or abrupt climate change in the historical record can be answered with a rather simple and resounding no - which would not have made for a very interesting thesis. Nevertheless I continued my research on the subject and simplified my research question to what caused the fall of the Akkadian empire, with the emphasis of the research being specifically in the historical sources. Thus the objective of my research was to study the historical sources and see how well they reflect on the current theories concerning the Akkadian collapse. In this work I will examine and study a variety of sources. First there are the primary sources, which fall into two categories. First, there are the contemporary sources that are not only very rare but also random in their content. These consist of a few original royal inscriptions, seal impressions and other short inscriptions on objects. These are, however, supplemented by the richer and more numerous later (mostly) Old Babylonian copies, that are considered contemporary sources in this work; justifications for this will be presented later. Secondly, the later, non-contemporary sources take the forms of chronicles, legends and literary compositions that address the end of the Akkadian era on different terms and in a different fashion. The specifics of the historiography of the period and its implications to our research are discussed in chapter 2.2, whilst individual sources and pieces are presented and examined throughout this work. All of my research was done through secondary sources; through the works of modern scholars. Even my examinations of primary sources happen through secondary sources due to my lack of knowledge of ancient languages (most notably the Akkadian languages and Sumerian) and the cuneiform script, meaning that I have had to rely on translations to modern languages. I make this distinction because in this work I will largely
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