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Sargon the Great and the Charismatic Rulers of Ancient of Mesopotamia*

Megan Lewis Marian Feldman

This work is produced by OpenStax-CNX and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0„

Abstract This module provides an introduction to the art of the (c. 2300-2150 BCE), focusing specically on the use of past artistic traditions by the Akkadian kings to promote a new ideology of kingship. Written by Dr. M. Feldman, professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and M. Lewis, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

1 Historical Overview During the late third millennium BCE, a dynasty of kings from the city of Akkad took control of Mesopotamia (g. 1), creating what is often described as the rst empire.1 The period immediately preceding the foundation of this dynasty, known as the Early Dynastic period (ED), was marked by separate city-states vying with one another for power and control of the land. The Akkadian dynasty united southern and central Mesopotamia (known respectively as and Akkad) under the rule of a single king for a period of about 150 years. The ocial state language was changed from Sumerian to Akkadian, though Sumerian was still spoken. This period appears to form a major break with the traditions of the Sumerian city-states because of the shift in language and the newly centralized role of the king, but these elements were already present in the ED period. The material culture of the Akkadian period in fact shows several elements of continuity with the ED period, and it is argued that the Akkadian kings consciously followed traditions practiced by their predecessors. Nevertheless, the unication of Mesopotamia represented a signicant change and aligns with changes seen in the cultural sphere such as the arts. The dynasty was founded by Sargon, whose name means the legitimate one. He was a cupbearer (a high court ocial) in the kingdom of and usurped the throne (g. 2). Having gained control of Kish, he defeated the city-state of and unied Sumer and Akkad. He and his successors claim to have campaigned as far as the Mediterranean Sea and took the title of king of the four corners of the universe, signifying their all-encompassing power and authority. While this is partly royal propaganda, an Akkadian period stele found near Nasiri©yah,Iraq, demonstrates a level of truth within the title. The stele shows victory

*Version 1.2: Jun 16, 2016 9:57 am -0500 „http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1http://leilan.yale.edu/works-progress/akkadian-empire-project

http://cnx.org/content/m61994/1.2/ OpenStax-CNX module: m61994 2 scenes, including a depiction of an Akkadian soldier holding a type of vessel commonly found in southeastern Turkey (g. 3). This indicates that the Akkadians were not only familiar with the area and the kinds of vessels used there, but that they wished to accurately represent geographically and culturally distinctive objects taken as booty. A signicant gap in the archaeological record unfortunately exists for this period for two reasons. First, the capital of the kingdom, Akkad, has not yet been located. It is thought to be in northern Babylonia near the city of Kish (g. 2), but its precise location is not certain. Second, the kings of the III period (which followed the Akkadian empire) destroyed much of the Akkadian period architecture at other sites in the course of their own building programs. More on this can be read in our Ur III module, "Ur III: Continuity and Erasure."2 Despite this deciency, several extremely important artworks from the Akkadian period survive. Many of these were carried o as booty over 1000 years later by the Elamites who took them back to their capital at in southwestern , where they were later uncovered by archaeologists (Amiet 1976). The Akkadian period can be divided into two artistic phases  from Sargon to Manishtushu, and then from Naram-Sin to the end of the dynasty (g. 4). This division reects a gradual development with some sudden changes during the time of Naram-Sin, rather than an abrupt change in the artistic output of the kingdom. The artwork of the Akkadian period was marked by major innovations while still using the visual vocabulary developed in the ED period. The Akkadian kings built on the earlier artistic traditions, but changed and adapted them to promote their own ideology, sometimes in quite radical ways, to create a new kind of charismatic kingship (Michalowski 1993: 87). For example, many themes of the ED period were continued but with an increased emphasis on the role of the ruler and the material world of kingship. This shift in emphasis will be seen later in this module in a comparison between the ED Stele of the Vultures and a stele of Sargon.

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Map of Akkad

Figure 1: Map of the Akkadian Empire at the time of Naram-Sin. Created by M. Lewis after Liverani 2014.

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Map of Akkad

Figure 2: Map showing the locations mentioned in this module. Image created by M. Lewis.

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Nasariyah Stele

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Figure 3: Nasariyah Stele of Sargon, alabaster. Image created by M. Lewis, after McKeon 1970, g. 6.(1). OpenStax-CNX module: m61994 6

Order of Kings

Figure 4: Order of the Akkadian kings

3 Elements of Continuity The Akkadian kings appear to have consciously used the earlier Sumerian traditions during their own reign to validate their rule and to appease local populations. This can be seen in both the artworks produced during this period and certain actions taken by the kings. For example, Akkadian kings drew on past practices and installed royal ospring in positions of high status within the temples of conquered city-states. A daughter of Sargon, , is known today as one of the earliest female authors (Feldman 2008). She was installed as en-priestess of the Sumerian moon god Nanna in the city of Ur, in a move which both mimicked the actions of ED kings and permanently placed a member of the new ruling family in a recently-conquered area. The temple of Nanna at Ur was one of the most powerful institutions in Sargon's newly-conquered territory. By acknowledging the importance of the cult and following established "kingly" behavior, Sargon may have sought to appease the local population. Enheduanna also appears to have been part of an eort to syncretize Akkadian and Sumerian deities, ultimately creating a single pantheon for the whole empire. Enheduanna's presence at Ur is attested there by an object known as the Disc of Enheduanna (gs. 2, 5). The disc, made of calcite and measuring approximately 25 cm by 7 cm, was found in the temple precinct at Ur in a highly fragmentary state. On the front of the disc, four gures are depicted facing to the left and in front of what appears to be an altar. Behind the altar is either a ziggurat or a seated deity  the reconstruction of the disc shows a ziggurat, but based on its initial condition either would be possible. Enheduanna is the tallest gure in the scene, wearing a ounced robe and hat. She oversees the libation being performed by the priest to her left, with her hand raised. On the reverse is an inscription that details

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Enheduanna's dedication of the disc to the moon god. Enheduanna is remembered in later times as the author of several important literary texts, a remarkable legacy given that she lived in a time during which authorship was rarely acknowledged and men dominated the scholarly eld. Her most famous work is the Exaltation of Inanna3 , an autobiographical hymn in praise of the foremost Mesopotamian goddess (known as Ishtar in Akkadian). The use of ED artistic themes can be seen most clearly in a comparison between a stele of Sargon and the Stele of the Vultures (gs. 6, 7, 8). The Stele of the Vultures is an ED stele that commemorates the victory of the city-state of over its rival, . Though it only survives in a fragmentary state, the stele is decorated with scenes carved in relief and is carved with a narrative account of the conict. The obverse of the stele is divided into two registers; the top depicts the god Ningirsu holding a net full of enemy soldiers, and the lower register probably shows Ningirsu riding in his chariot (Winter 1985: 14-15). The stele's reverse has four registers which use pictorial narrative to tell the story of the conict. Read from bottom to top, the rst register probably depicts the historical background to the conict between the two city-states (Winter 1985: 20). The second register shows the king in the temple, seeking a dream oracle about the outcome of a future battle (Winter 1985: 19). The top two registers show the soldiers of Lagash marching to battle behind their king, then the ensuing battle, and nally vultures carrying o the remains of the defeated enemy (Winter 1985: 20). The Sargon stele, which was found in several fragments at the site of Susa, has several similarities to the Stele of the Vultures:

• The use of horizontal registers • the kings wear the same style (ED) headdress • vultures carry o dead and defeated enemies • defeated enemy gures are contained within a net, held by the victor.

These visual similarities were, however, used in a new way on Sargon's stele in order to support a new ideology of centralized rule and the power of the king. In Sargon's stele, a new conception of the political importance of the king is evident in his role on the stele. For example, on one side of the Stele of the Vultures, the god Ningirsu holds the net full of enemy soldiers and as such military victory is attributed to him. On Sargon's stele, however, it is the king, Sargon, who holds the net, presenting it to the seated goddess Ishtar. The king, thus, assumes the active role in defeating the enemy troops, a role implied on the other side of the Stele of the Vultures, where the ruler is seen in battle. Unlike the Stele of the Vultures where the two sides of the monument ascribe agency to either the god (in a divine realm) or the ruler (in the human realm), the roughly circular format of Sargon's stele integrates the king's actions into the realm of the divine in addition to that of the human. As well as continuity of subject matter, the form of Akkadian monuments owes much to the Early Dynastic tradition. A stele of Sargon's successor , is also comparable to the Stele of the Vultures (g. 8). Both are made of limestone with a rounded top, and both have two faces divided into registers and carved in relief. Statues of another of Sargon's successors, Manishtushu, are made in the same form as Sumerian votive statues with the gure's hands folded in front of his chest (gs. 10, 11). A comparison with another statue of Manishtushu suggests that, in the same way that the stele of Sargon used ED themes to promote new ideas, the form of the votive statue may have been used to celebrate a military victory of the king rather than solely as an oering to the god. The second statue, also in the form of a Sumerian votive statue, has scenes of defeated enemies carved on its base (g. 12). The Akkadian statues are also much larger than the ED versions and restricted to royal gures rather than the broader professional population of the ED period.

3http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.07.3#

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Disc of Enheduanna

Figure 5: The Disc of Enheduanna. Image courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology4. Currently housed in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Ar- chaeology and Anthropology5.

4http://www.penn.museum/collections/object/293415 5http://www.penn.museum/collections/object/293415

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Stele of Sargon

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Figure 6: Fragment from a stele of Sargon. Diorite. Image courtesy of Marie-Lan Nguyen6, via Wikimedia Commons7. OpenStax-CNX module: m61994 10

6https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jastrow 7https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAkkadian_victory_stele_Louvre_Sb2.jpg

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Stele of Sargon

Figure 7: Line drawing of a fragment of a stele of Sargon (as in g. 6). Image created by M. Lewis, after Amiet 1976, g. 7.

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Stele of the Vultures

Figure 8: King 's Stele of the Vultures. Limestone. Image created by M. Lewis, using photographs taken by M. Feldman. Currently housed in the Louvre8.

8http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/stele-vultures

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Stele of Rimush

Figure 9: Detail from the stele of Rimush. Image courtesy of Mbzt9, via Wikimedia Commons10. Currently housed in the Louvre11.

9https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Mbzt 10https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P1150890_Louvre_st%C3%A8le_de_victoire_Akkad_AO2678_rwk.jpg 11http://www.louvre.fr/en

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Manishtushu Statue (1)

Figure 10: Statue of Manishtushu. Diorite. Image after Hansen 2003:193. http://cnx.org/content/m61994/1.2/ OpenStax-CNX module: m61994 15

Early Dynastic Votive Statue

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Figure 11: Early Dynastic statue with clasped hands. Limestone. Image courtesy of Daderot12, via Wikimedia Commons13. Currently housed in the Oriental Institute Museum14. OpenStax-CNX module: m61994 16

12https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Daderot 13http://tinyurl.com/hvlumaq 14https://oi.uchicago.edu/museum-exhibits

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Manishtushu Statue (2)

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Figure 12: Statue of Manishtushu. While this image isn't ideal, shapes of trampled enemies are visible on the base. Image after Contenau 1931: 670. OpenStax-CNX module: m61994 18

5 Elements of Innovation Artworks from the Akkadian period are typically considered more realistic than those from the ED period, a description that often carries an implicit judgment, as Western aesthetics place a higher value on life- like artistic depictions. There is, however, little evidence that Mesopotamian aesthetics placed the same importance on realistic artworks, and so the question arises regarding what purpose this sudden shift served for the Akkadian kings. A close analysis of Akkadian art suggests that it is not attempting to replicate what an object or person might look like in a physical space, but instead it displays an interest in materiality. The high relief used to depict the gures, which appear to exist in a spatial vacuum, emphasizes the physical presence and the tactile nature of the rendered item. Rather than creating the illusion of spatial reality, Akkadian artwork emphasizes the corporeality of the physical world. The interest in the physicality of the human body can be seen also in the statues of Manishtushu (gs. 10, 12). The subtle folding of the skirt material on the diorite statue of Manishtushu is especially skillful, conveying the tactile quality of the depicted textile. The material nature hints at the physical presence of the king. This materiality is evident also in the metalwork that survives from the period, exhibiting an exceptional technical expertise in copper casting (gs. 13, 14). The new ideology of the empire may hold an answer to understanding this new, corporeal style. The kings of the Akkadian empire were attempting to control and unify a territorial state made up of previously autonomous city-states whose ideological basis for independent rule lay in the notion of the city as the property of one particular deity. In bringing together these city-states, the Akkadian king hierarchically placed himself above the individual cities and their patron gods. Emphasizing the physical and material presence of the king and the world in general may have helped to build the new royal ideology of a single all-powerful ruler. The abundant use of diorite was also an innovation from the preceding ED artworks. While the use of limestone (popular in the ED period) did continue, diorite became popular and more widely used. Diorite is a very hard, dark stone that is dicult to work but can be polished to a high sheen, presenting quite a dierent appearance in comparison to light colored limestone (for example, compare gs. 10 and 11). The high relief carving used for these artworks would have been emphasized by the highly polished surface of the diorite, drawing attention to the surface of the stone and the tactile nature of the monuments. The appearance of diorite also indicates the opening of new trade routes that are echoed in the textual record, with distant place-names such as Meluhha (the Indus valley), Magan (Oman) and Dilmun (Bahrain) becoming more common (g. 2). Elements of innovation are also present in Akkadian cylinder seals. Cylinder seals are small spool-shaped objects, usually made of stone, with images and inscriptions carved on them in intaglio (for more information on cylinder seals, please see our module Cylinder Seals and the Development of Writing in Mesopotamia."15 ) They were used as an administrative tool, making impressions on a malleable surface such as clay to document a variety of transactions. While some Akkadian cylinder seals continue to show strong ties to ED traditions, in particular in the use of combat scenes, changes in the seals reect those found in monumental sculpture. In particular, there is an increased emphasis on the physical nature of bodies, highlighted through their isolation within the composition. For example, in combat scenes the combatants move further apart and are clearly dened as individual entities as can be seen in a comparison between the ED and Akkadian cylinder seals carved with combat scenes (gs. 15, 16). There is also greater attention paid to the physical nature of the participants, with a concentration on elements such as bones, muscle, and hair, as in the cylinder seal of Ibni-Sharrum (g. 17). The introduction of `royal' seals  seals given by a king to his ocials  served as another means by which the Akkadian kings established their royal ideology. These seals were a material manifestation of the links binding ocials to the centralized palace. They typically depict scenes of animal combat and are always high quality, leading scholars to suggest that they were produced by highly controlled palace workshops (Zettler 1977: 36-37, g. 18). The standardization of imagery seen in the `royal' seals is echoed by other standardizations implemented by Akkadian rulers, such as that of a system of weights.

15https://cnx.org/contents/hj0fKLrZ@1/Cylinder-Seals-and-the-Develop

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Seals with mythological scenes were also introduced during this period, though matching imagery on the seals to known myths has proved challenging. Only a single scene has been convincingly linked to a later known myth (g. 19). It shows a man on the back of a large bird in ight and has been connected to the myth of . Etana was a king of Kish, as Sargon was, and he is mentioned in the the later literary composition known as the Sumerian Kinglist16 as a ruler who unied all the lands, just as the Akkadian kings were attempting. It is perhaps unsurprising then that Etana would have been used as a legendary template on which Akkadian kings could base their rule. Other mythological seals indicate the creation of a unied pantheon, as opposed to the separate and competing city gods that existed in the ED period. As seen in the works of Enheduanna, particularly the temple hymns17 , the Akkadian rulers were interested in unifying the pantheon to create a single divine hierarchy. This hierarchy allowed gods to have dierent ranks and statuses and enabled the presence of a chief god, Enlil, mirroring the new political order in the human world. For example, presentation scenes showed gods presenting mortals to another deity, apparently showing diering ranks of deities.

16http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.1.1# 17http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.80.1#

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Copper Statue Head

http://cnx.org/content/m61994/1.2/ Figure 13: Copper head of an Akkadian ruler. Copper. Image courtesy of the Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities via Wikimedia Commons18. Currently housed in the Iraq Museum19. OpenStax-CNX module: m61994 21

Lost Wax Casting

Figure 14: Bronze casting using the lost-wax technique, created for the Hadrian: An Emperor Cast in Bronze20 exhibition. Courtesy of Reana Aldor and Kobi Vogman21.

Early Dynastic Combat Seal

Figure 15: Early Dynastic cylinder seal showing a combat scene. Lapis lazuli. Image courtesy of the British Museum22. of the British Museum. Seal currently housed in the British Museum23.

18https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sargon_of_Akkad.jpg 19http://www.iraqmuseum.org/ 20http://www.imj.org.il/en/exhibitions/2016/hadrian/ 21https://vimeo.com/159788008 22http://www.britishmuseum.org 23http://tinyurl.com/gnv32wo

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Akkadian Combat Seal

Figure 16: Akkadian period cylinder seal with the combat scene. Serpentine. Image courtesy of the British Museum24. of the British Museum. Seal currently housed in the British Museum25.

24http://www.britishmuseum.org 25http://tinyurl.com/htq5ezm

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Cylinder Seal of Ibni-Sharrum

Figure 17: Cylinder seal of the the scribe Ibni-Sharrum from the reign of king Shar-Kali-Sharri. Ser- pentine. Image courtesy of Mbzt26, via Wikimedia Commons27. Seal currently housed in the Louvre28.

26https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Mbzt 27https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 28http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/cylinder-seal-ibni-sharrum

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Cylinder Seal of Shakullum

Figure 18: Cylinder seal of the the scribe Shakullum. Quartz variegated chalcedony. Image courtesy of The British Museum29, of the British Museum. Seal currently housed in the British Museum30.

29http://www.britishmuseum.org/ 30http://tinyurl.com/jchkvqx

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"Etana" cylinder seal

Figure 19: Cylinder seal showing the myth of Etana. Serpentine. Image courtesy of The British Museum31, of the British Museum. Seal currently housed in the British Museum32.

7 Bibliography

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• Winter, I. 1985. "After the Battle Is Over: The "Stele of the Vultures" and the Beginning of Historical Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near East," in Studies in the History of Art Vol. 16, Symposium Papers IV: Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, vol. 16, pp. 11-32. • Zettler, R. 1977. "The Sargonic Royal Seal: A Consideration of Sealing in Mesopotamia," in M. Gibson and R. D. Biggs (eds.), Seals and Sealing in the Ancient Near East, Biblioteca Mesopoamica Volume Six, Primary sources and interpretive analyses for the study of Mesopotamian civilization and its inuences from late prehistory to the end of the cuneiform tradition . pp. 33-39. Pleasant Hill, CA.

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