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.