CHAPTER TWO

The Old Akkadian and Ur Iii Periods in Mesopotamia (2350–2004 bce)

I. The Old Akkadian Period

1. The Expanded Geographic Scene and Its Political Regime

In the previous chapter, the royal inscriptions of the Mesopotamian Early Dynastic Period served as the main and actually the only source for any significant information pertaining to international law of that period. Yet, while there are quite a number of these inscriptions, only few contain more or less significant information about the concepts of interstate relations and law. Moreover, that information is actually confined to the concepts of the Sumerians who populated the southern half of the Mesopotamian alluvial plain. The ideas of the Akkadians, who lived in the northern half, are hardly expressed in these records. The more informative Sumerian inscriptions tell us that interstate relations were already conceived as being under the control of the gods, but the gods mentioned are only of the Sumerian pantheon, reflecting the fact that the geographic horizon of these inscriptions is also very limited. While some powerful city-states outside the Sumerian region are mentioned as taking part in the playoff to gain hegemony over the alluvial plain, the actual orbit of these inscrip- tions was limited to the southern Sumerian city-states. Things began to change with the onset of the Sargonic Period (2334– 2113),1 which introduced the Eastern Semitic Akkadians to the historical scene. With it, a new phase in the development of ideas and practices of interstate relations in the Ancient Near East may be discerned in the Mesopotamian documents of that period.2

1 The dates, which include the 40 years of Gutian rule, follow Brinkman 1977’s chronol- ogy. For a more recent discussion of the various opinions, see Boese 1982 and Foster 1982a: pp. 152–156 (who advocates the dates 2310–2160 for the dynasty of Akkade). 2 For a survey of the available documents of the Sargonic Period with references to relevant studies and literature, see most recently Westenholz (A.) 1999. For more concise surveys, see Edzard 2002b; Steinkeller 1992: pp. 726–732). A very important collection of papers discussing some main aspects and questions pertaining to the Sargonic period and 24 chapter two

The most conspicuous innovation of the Sargonic Period was the cre- ation of the Akkadian empire by Sargon (2334–2279), the first empire in the recorded world history.3 This new political system replaced the former “hegemonic” looser form of control over subordinate states by a centralist system that abolished the autonomous standings of the Sumerian city- states. Under the new system they were rendered into mere provinces with Akkadian officials, replacing their local kings. Political submission was expressed by the destruction of defensive walls, payment of tribute, quartering and supplying members of the crown household and military, erection of royal stelae in conquered areas, forfeiture of certain lands to the crown for redistribution to royal retainers, sporadic use of royal year names in dating, acceptance on the local level of royal administrators, and, in the later Sargonic period, imposition of a cult of deified kings, acceptance of royal family members for high priesthood in important sanctuaries, and ceremonial expressions of fealty in the form of greeting gifts, visits to the capital, oaths using the royal name, and use of a specific type of seal.4 The driving forces behind this empire were the Semitic speaking Akka- dians who populated the northern part of southern Mesopotamia already as early as ca. 2900 if not earlier.5 It was recently suggested that many of the attributes of this new system—namely, autocratic monarchy, cen- tralized government, land-tenure practices, and ideology of conquest— were already characteristic of the region populated by the Akkadians long before Sargon.6 According to this opinion, the greatness of Sargon and his successors lay in their ability “to forge these traits into the instruments of total power”.7

empire is Liverani (ed.) 1993, which includes also a very detailed bibliographic essay (pp. 171–182, by B.R. Foster). 3 Cf. Foster 1993a: p. 36: “If by empire is meant a large, multinational state with a heart- land and provinces, presided over by a ruler who presents himself as larger than life, with a consistent, centralized pattern of administration throughout its domains, then the Sar- gonic political achievement can certainly be called an empire.” 4 Foster 1993a: p. 28 with note 29. To these we may also add royal progress of the kings visiting their realm, as was pointed out to me by Dr. Joan Goodnick Westenholz. 5 The name Akkadian, for both the people and their Eastern Semitic language, is derived from Akkade, the name of the city which Sargon, the founder of the Sargonic dynasty, chose to be his capital. Note that the name of the city is also spelled as Agade or Aggade. 6 Steinkeller 1993: pp. 116ff. 7 Steinkeller, op. cit. p. 129. This is the place to provide the uninformed reader with the warning issued by Westenholz (A.) 1999: p. 18, that “almost everything pertaining to the Sargonic period is a matter of controversy”, and that “current scholarship on Sargonic his-