Naram-Sin and the Fall of the Akkadian Empire

 

Victory stele of Naram-Sin,
from Susa, Iran, 2254-2218 BCE.
Pink sandstone, 6′ 7″ high.
Musée  du Louvre, Paris.
(Image from Ancient to Medieval Art page
on Mesopotamia and Persia).

The reign of Naram-Sin (c. 2254–2218 BCE) is important because it helps us to understand why Mesopotamian rulers were not worshiped as gods even though their counterparts in Egypt, the Pharaohs, were. And, yet, as a successful Mesopotamian ruler, Naram-Sin attempted to establish himself as a minor deity. His success lie in part in the favorable perception of the reigns of his father, Manishtushu (c. 2270 BC – 2255 BCE), and his grandfather, Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334–2284 BCE). Because he and his father had been able to hold onto and enlarge the empire created by Sargon the Great, Naram-Sin's reign enjoyed this idea of stability.

We can see the association of Naram-Sin with divinity on the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, a carved sandstone marker that recounts Naram-Sin's defeat of the Lullubi, a people who lived to the east in the Iranian mountains. The stele shows his army marching over the slain bodies of the enemy as he leads his soldiers into battle. Naram-Sin's deified nature is indicated in four ways. First, he carries two weapons, a spear and a bow, suggesting that he is proficient in both, while each soldier carries only a spear or a bow but never both. Second, Naram-Sin's soldiers and the enemy are all the same size, while Naram-Sin is much larger than anyone else; he towers over them much as would a god. Third, the horns on Naram-Sin's helmet were signs of divinity and were only used for gods. Fourth, one can see two stars at the top of the stele, and these stars symbolize the presence of a god or, in Naram-Sin's case, a demigod. Contestation of Naram-Sin's association with the gods was successful until the end of or after his reign, which forces to ask "What changed?" 

People's perceptions of the next part of the story are recounted in "The Cursing of Agade" (sometimes referred to as "The Curse of Akkad"), a text written down sometime after 1750 BCE, though it is believed to have been composed well before then. In lines 1–39, the poem recounts Sargon's success in establishing the empire and the favor that the gods bestowed upon him by ensuring that the the people had food to eat and that the any conquered people provided tributes that included such exotic animals as monkeys and elephants. Indeed, the land was so loved by the gods that old women gave wise counsel, young women entertained, old men were eloquent, and young men could fight.

Everything turns for the Akkadian Empire beginning with line 40, where Naram-Sin builds a new temple for himself that rivaled the temples of the gods. Furthermore, Naram-Sin diverted food and resources from the gods' temples to his own. These actions indicated that he not only rivaled them for supplication but no longer worshiped the gods themselves. These actions angered the gods, and they withdrew their favor from the Akkadian Empire and instead opened the heavens to pour deluge upon the land (lines 149–175). Food became scarce (lines 149–175) and the costs of everything rose (lines 176–192). Life became difficult to sustain as people competed for fewer and fewer resources (lines 193–280).  In the end, the gods destroyed the Akkadian Empire (line 281). While "The Cursing of Agade" contains some truth, the Akkadian Empire did collapse, and its inhabitants suffered widespread hunger, it misses a number of factors because the author(s) could not see the wider picture. 

Historical and archeological investigation into such things as weather patterns, flooding, crop yields, and people's movements provides a broader tableau for us to see. Near the end of Naram-Sin's reign, weather patterns took a turn for the worse throughout the Mesopotamia and even in Egypt. In most years, the Nile valley, the center of Egyptian civilization, enjoyed predictable and well-timed weather. Each year, the rains came before the planting season and caused the Nile river to flood. These rains eroded nutrient-rich soil from Nubia and placed it along the northern Nile and in the river's delta region just before planting season. This regularity ensured abundant crops and sealed the Pharaohs as successful intercessors with the gods for securing this annual bounty. 

By contrast, Mesopotamian weather was erratic, meaning that no one could predict whether or not it would rain or how much rain would fall if it did rain. Moreover, rains often came after the planting season and at a time when floods could wash away the crops. This irregularity is why Sumerians first built canals on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, so that they could direct any floods away from the crops and then try to control how much water could reach the crops. Even with the use of canals, Mesopotamian agriculture was always subject to heat waves and/or floods that could destroy the crops in any given year. For this reason, the Mesopotamian kings were considered to be important intercessors with the gods, but not necessarily great ones.

With the First Interregnum (c. 2181–2055 BCE) in Egypt and the fall of the Akkadian Empire, we see that a major change in weather patterns caused both regions to suffer widespread crop failures. In each kingdom, people died on a massive scale because of hunger. With their respective armies reeling from lack of food, invaders pillaged with ease. Egyptian and Akkadian governments buckled and broke, and administrations on a large scale disappeared, although some leaders were able to maintain some sense of order on local levels. 

Because weather patterns and the orderly flooding of the Nile later returned to normal, Egyptian leaders were able to retain the godhood status of the Pharaohs, even if that belief took a beating. However, it should be no surprise that the more mercurial nature of Mesopotamian weather caused the people to challenge any notion of godhood on the part of Mesopotamian leaders. If weather patterns had remained similar to those experienced through Sargon's, Manishtushu's and the first part of Naram-Sin's reigns, the association might have been strong enough for the common people to accept their leaders as divine. With a regional collapse just after an important ruler had claimed divinity, though, was another matter. In this way, the difference in perception of Egyptian and Mesopotamian rulers lay their role as intercessors for the gods as well as in the relative stability or instability of the region being ruled. 

Enheduanna and Gods

Image of Enheduanna on a clay tablet.
(Image from a Wikipedia page on Enheduanna).

It is often difficult for historians of pre-modern eras to study the lives of women. Within the small number of sources that have survived, few discuss the lives of women and even fewer were written by women. For this reason, highly value those sources that shed light on or were written by Enheduanna (2285–2250 BCE), who was the daughter of Sargon the Great (c. 2334–2279 BCE), high priestess of the Nanna temple complex in the city of Ur, and a renowned poet.

With few exceptions, women were not permitted to fill political roles within Mesopotamian cities. However, we can see with Enheduanna that women occupied important religious roles, through which they influenced the social, cultural, and political life of a city. Enheduanna exhibited her influence in her city through her administering the temple and its personnel as well as by carrying out rituals in Ur's major temple that celebrated the gods and asked for their favor. 

She also had an impact on other temples by writing poems that were recited throughout Akkad. Indeed, enough of her poetry survives to permit us to see that her petitionary poems greatly influenced this genre for thousands of years throughout Mesopotamia, Israel and Judea, and Greece. 

For this reason, discussion of Enheduanna permits an investigation into Mesopotamian belief systems. For example, each city’s main temple was dedicated to a different deity. In Ur, the patron god was Nanna, who represented the moon and wisdom. Other cities focused on Enlil, Itu, Inanna, and so on. Whenever the Sumerian city-states went into battle, their patron god fought alongside them against their enemies.

Despite the adoption of patron gods, the people in each city worshiped all of the gods. While Nanna might protect the city and residents of Ur, Innana or Ninsurhag were called upon in matters of love, lust, and reproduction. When people were worried about water for their crops, they could call upon Enlil, the god of wind and storms, or Enki, the god of water. And Utu was a favorite in matters of justice.

In these ways, the gods represented nature and the elements that affected daily and seasonal life: the weather, water for drinking and crops or the sun that helped crops grow and or killed humans, animals, and plants with its heat. The gods also stood in for such concepts as reproduction, justice, warfare, and so on. There was a god for anything that affected the ability to survive or interactions between individuals. Indeed, peoples around the world worshiped very similar gods, sometimes differing only in name, but often adding or subtracting one or more attributes.

Bronze Age survival depended on many factors that were outside human control. Belief in these gods provided people with a way to concentrate their wishes and fears into prayers that they hoped would sway chance to their benefit. 

With the poem The Exaltation of Inanna, in which Enheduanna asks the goddess of love Inanna, for help, the text can be broken down into several parts. The first 65 lines recount Inanna's power and relationships with the other gods, often whether she is beloved or feared by them. For example, the first few lines state:

Lady of all the divine powers, resplendent light, righteous woman clothed in radiance, beloved of An and Urac! Mistress of heaven, with the great pectoral jewels, who loves the good headdress befitting the office of en priestess, who has seized all seven of its divine powers! My lady, you are the guardian of the great divine powers!

These relationships are important, because they highlight that the gods work through their own powers or by getting the other gods to do favors for them. This reliance on relationships in turn reflects the manner in which people in Sumerian and Akkadian societies were able to accomplish things. 

If someone needed something or to have something done, he or she would approach and petition the individual in a position of authority that he or she felt would most likely hear and help her or him, even if that item or task were not within that individual's authority. That individual in a position of authority would then use his or her relationships with others to accomplish the goal of the petitioner. This web of relationships in Sumerian/Akkadian society has been mapped onto how the gods interact, because this methodology is familiar to humans. In this case, Enheduanna is in a sense reminding Inanna about her relationships to these other gods so that she can more quickly aid the high priestess.

It is with lines 66–73 that Enheduanna turns the poem to her problems and the reason for her petition: she is unable to carry out her role as high priestess to the Sumerian gods.

I, En-hedu-ana the en priestess, entered my holy jipar in your service. I carried the ritual basket, and intoned the song of joy. But funeral offerings were brought, as if I had never lived there. I approached the light, but the light was scorching hot to me. I approached that shade, but I was covered with a storm. My honeyed mouth became venomous. My ability to soothe moods vanished.

We then learn more about the cause of her problems in lines 74–90. As part of his rebellion against Sargon, Lugal-Ane forced Enheduanna into exile. 

Suen, tell An about Lugal-ane and my fate! May An undo it for me! As soon as you tell An about it, An will release me. The woman will take the destiny away from Lugal-ane . . . . In connection with the purification rites of holy An, Lugal-ane has altered everything of his, and has stripped An of the E-ana. 

Enheduanna also makes clear that Lugal-Ane is an enemy of the gods, since he does not fear or worship the gods and has destroyed their temples. 

He has not stood in awe of the greatest deity. He has turned that temple, whose attractions were inexhaustible, whose beauty was endless, into a destroyed temple.

The rest of the poem recounts the resolution that Enheduanna would like to receive from the gods, reassurances that she has remained faithful to them and has protected their secrets, and reminders of the gods' awesome fury and power to their foes as well as their love for humanity.

As this one poem shows, we can learn a lot about Sumerian and Akkadian society from Enheduanna's writings. For example, they suggest how the city-states were ordered politically, how human—and godly—relationships worked, political events as they unfolded, and the religious rites conducted within the temples. It is through analysis of these poems that we can learn more about ancient societies as well as about ourselves.

The Ancient History Encyclopedia contains more context about Enheduanna as well as an example of her poetry. More Sumerian literature, including more of Enheduann's poems, can be found on The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.