It is probable, if unfortunate, that there will never exist a detailed and numerically accurate picture of the demographic structure of a Sumerian city. It is assumed that in the oldest cities the government was in a position to summon sections of the populace for the performance of public works. The construction of monumental buildings or the excavation of long and deep canals could be carried out only by means of such a levy. The large-scale employment of indentured persons and of slaves is of no concern in this context. Evidence of male slavery is fairly rare before Ur III, and even in Ur III and in the Old Babylonian period slave labour was never an economically relevant factor. It was different with female slaves. According to one document, the temple of Baba employed 188 such women; the temple of the goddess Nanshe employed 180, chiefly in grinding flour and in the textile industry, and this continued to be the case in later times. For accuracy’s sake it should be added that the terms male slave and female slave are used here in the significance they possessed about 2000 bce and later, designating persons in bondage who were bought and sold and who could not acquire personal property through their labour. A distinction is made between captured slaves (prisoners of war and kidnapped persons) and others who had been sold.
In one inscription, Entemena of Lagash boasts of having “allowed the sons of Uruk, Larsa, and Bad-tibira to return to their mothers” and of having “restored them into the hands” of the respective city god or goddess. Read in the light of similar but more explicit statements of later date, this laconic formula represents the oldest known evidence of the fact that the ruler occasionally endeavoured to mitigate social injustices by means of a decree. Such decrees might refer to the suspension or complete cancellation of debts or to exemption from public works. Whereas a set of inscriptions of the last ruler from the 1st dynasty of Lagash, UruKAgina, has long been considered a prime document of social reform in the 3rd millennium, the designation “reform texts” is only partly justified. Reading between the lines, it is possible to discern that tensions had arisen between the “palace”—the ruler’s residence with its annex, administrative staff, and landed properties—and the “clergy”—that is, the stewards and priests of the temples. In seeming defiance of his own interests, UruKAgina, who in contrast to practically all of his predecessors lists no genealogy and has therefore been suspected of having been a usurper, defends the clergy, whose plight he describes somewhat tearfully.
If the foregoing passage about restoring the ensi’s fields to the divinity is interpreted carefully, it would follow that the situation of the temple was ameliorated and that palace lands were assigned to the priests. Along with these measures, which resemble the policies of a newcomer forced to lean on a specific party, are found others that do merit the designation of “measures taken toward the alleviation of social injustices”—for instance, the granting of delays in the payment of debts or their outright cancellation and the setting up of prohibitions to keep the economically or socially more powerful from forcing his inferior to sell his house, his ass’s foal, and the like. Besides this, there were tariff regulations, such as newly established fees for weddings and burials, as well as the precise regulation of the food rations of garden workers.
These conditions, described on the basis of source materials from Girsu, may well have been paralleled elsewhere, but it is equally possible that other archives, yet to be found in other cities of pre-Sargonic southern Mesopotamia, may furnish entirely new historical aspects. At any rate, it is wiser to proceed cautiously, keeping to analysis and evaluation of the available material rather than making generalizations.
This, then, is the horizon of Mesopotamia shortly before the rise of the Akkadian empire. In Mari, writing was introduced at the latest about the mid-26th century bce, and from that time this city, situated on the middle Euphrates, forms an important centre of cuneiform civilization, especially in regard to its Semitic component. Ebla (and probably many other sites in ancient Syria) profited from the influence of Mari scribal schools. Reaching out across the Diyālā region and the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamian influences extended to Iran, where Susa is mentioned along with Elam and other, not yet localized, towns. In the west the Amanus Mountains were known, and under Lugalzagesi the “upper sea”—in other words, the Mediterranean—is mentioned for the first time. To the east the inscriptions of Ur-Nanshe of Lagash name the isle of Dilmun (modern Bahrain), which may have been even then a transshipment point for trade with the Oman coast and the Indus region, the Magan and Meluhha of more recent texts. Trade with Anatolia and Afghanistan was nothing new in the 3rd millennium, even if these regions are not yet listed by their names. It was the task of the Akkadian dynasty to unite within these boundaries a territory that transcended the dimensions of a state of the type represented by Lagash.
Ur-Nanshe of LagashUr-Nanshe, king of Lagash, detail of a limestone relief, c. 2500 bce; in the Louvre, Paris.© Photos.com/Jupiterimages
Sumer and Akkad from 2350 to 2000 bce
There are several reasons for taking the year 2350 as a turning point in the history of Mesopotamia. For the first time, an empire arose on Mesopotamian soil. The driving force of that empire was the Akkadians, so called after the city of Akkad, which Sargon chose for his capital (it has not yet been identified but was presumably located on the Euphrates between Sippar and Kish). The name Akkad became synonymous with a population group that stood side by side with the Sumerians. Southern Mesopotamia became known as the “land of Sumer and Akkad”; Akkadian became the name of a language; and the arts rose to new heights. However, even this turning point was not the first time the Akkadians had emerged in history. Semites—whether Akkadians or a Semitic language group that had settled before them—may have had a part in the urbanization that took place at the end of the 4th millennium. The earliest Akkadian names and words occur in written sources of the 27th century. The names of several Akkadian scribes are found in the archives of Tall Abū Ṣalābīkh, near Nippur in central Babylonia, synchronous with those of Shuruppak (shortly after 2600). The Sumerian king list places the 1st dynasty of Kish, together with a series of kings bearing Akkadian names, immediately after the Flood. In Mari the Akkadian language was probably written from the very beginning. Thus, the founders of the dynasty of Akkad were presumably members of a people who had been familiar for centuries with Mesopotamian culture in all its forms.
bronze head of a kingBronze head of a king, perhaps Sargon of Akkad, from Nineveh (now in Iraq), Akkadian period, c. 2300 bce; in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad.Interfoto Scans/age fotostock
Sargon’s reign
According to the Sumerian king list, the first five rulers of Akkad (Sargon, Rimush, Manishtusu, Naram-Sin, and Shar-kali-sharri) ruled for a total of 142 years; Sargon alone ruled for 56. Although these figures cannot be checked, they are probably trustworthy, because the king list for Ur III, even if 250 years later, did transmit dates that proved to be accurate.
Stone relief depicting Sargon (c. 2334–c. 2279 bce) standing before a tree of life; in the Louvre, Paris.© Photos.com/Jupiterimages
As stated in an annotation to his name in the king list, Sargon started out as a cupbearer to King Ur-Zababa of Kish. There is an Akkadian legend about Sargon, describing how he was exposed after birth, brought up by a gardener, and later beloved by the goddess Ishtar. Nevertheless, there are no historical data about his career. Yet it is feasible to assume that in his case a high court office served as springboard for a dynasty of his own. The original inscriptions of the kings of Akkad that have come down to posterity are brief, and their geographic distribution generally is more informative than is their content. The main sources for Sargon’s reign, with its high points and catastrophes, are copies made by Old Babylonian scribes in Nippur from the very extensive originals that presumably had been kept there. They are in part Akkadian, in part bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian texts. According to these texts, Sargon fought against the Sumerian cities of southern Babylonia, threw down city walls, took prisoner 50 ensis, and “cleansed his weapons in the sea.” He is also said to have captured Lugalzagesi of Uruk, the former ruler of Umma, who had vigorously attacked UruKAgina in Lagash, forcing his neck under a yoke and leading him thus to the gate of the god Enlil at Nippur. “Citizens of Akkad” filled the offices of ensi from the “nether sea” (the Persian Gulf) upward, which was perhaps a device used by Sargon to further his dynastic aims. Aside from the 34 battles fought in the south, Sargon also tells of conquests in northern Mesopotamia: Mari, Tuttul on the Balīkh, where he venerated the god Dagan (Dagon), Ebla (Tall Mardīkh in Syria), the “cedar forest” (Amanus or Lebanon), and the “silver mountains”; battles in Elam and the foothills of the Zagros are mentioned. Sargon also relates that ships from Meluhha (Indus region), Magan (possibly the coast of Oman), and Dilmun (Bahrain) made fast in the port of Akkad.