Sargon of Akkad

Over 4,000 years ago, Sargon of Akkad carved his name into history by forging what many consider the world’s first empire. But who was this enigmatic warlord, and how did he transform from a man without a dynasty to the revered founder of the Akkadian Empire? In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes ventures to the British Museum to unravel the mysteries surrounding Sargon's legendary life. Joined by expert Assyriologist Dr. Paul Collins, they explore the origins of Akkad, the epic conquests of cities like Ur and Uruk, and the groundbreaking archaeological evidence that sheds light on Sargon's extraordinary legacy. Join us to discover how Sargon reshaped Mesopotamia and laid the foundations for one of history’s most influential civilisations. Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Theme music from Motion Array, all other music from Epidemic Sound The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

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• 1:20Tristan Hughes?

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• 2:01Tristan Hughes?

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• 2:40Tristan Hughes?

  He's one of the earliest recognizable names from history, a warlord who lived more than 4,000 years ago and forged what some have argued was the world's first empire. He was a king who became revered by later generations in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area of modern-day Iraq, with his story becoming mythologized with great legends for almost every aspect of his life. And yet, the real story of Sargon of Akkad remains steeped in mystery down to the present day. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, we're exploring the story of Sargon of Akkad, the founder and first ruler of the Akkadian Empire back in the third millennium B.C.

• 3:25Tristan Hughes?

  To talk through his life and the evidence we have surviving for him, I was delighted to interview a good friend of mine and an esteemed desirologist who has been on the podcast several times over the past few years, covering everything from the Sumerians to Aroch to Nineveh. I am, of course, talking about Dr. Paul Collins, Assistant Keeper of Later Mesopotamia in the Department of Middle East at the British Museum. My producer, Joseph, and I, we headed to Paul's office at the British Museum just before Christmas to record this episode, and I really do hope you enjoy.

• 3:59Tristan Hughes?

  Paul, welcome back. It is always a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Thank you very much. Thrilled to be back.

• 4:04Tristan Hughes?

  And we're doing it once again in your lovely office in the British Museum. And Sargon of Akkad, this feels like one of the first big names we have from written history.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Well, it is a big name and it's a big name in antiquity that was certainly considered, he was considered to be someone very special in ancient Mesopotamia itself. And in a way, his legacy continues, the rediscovery of Sargon through the texts. And some monuments have transported him into superstar status in this period as well.

• 4:35Tristan Hughes?

  Just get a bit of a superstar status and we'll kind of explore that, especially when we get to the sources very quickly. But I mean, first of all, in context, how far back are we going with the story of Sargon?

• 4:43Speaker 03

  So Sargon can be dated to the second half of the third millennium B.C. So approximately 2,330.

• 4:53Tristan Hughes?

  So over 4,000 years ago.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  4,000 years, yes.

• 4:57Tristan Hughes?

  From the surviving archaeology, can we date it quite precisely when he's about in that millennium?

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Yes, we can date him based on king lists to approximately 2,330 B.C., thereabouts.

• 5:11Tristan Hughes?

  And whereabouts are we talking with Sargon's story? I mean, the whole region of Mesopotamia, it feels such a vast region.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  So Mesopotamia, of course, is modern day Iraq, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates River. And Sargon's power base was in the centre of Mesopotamia, effectively where the modern capital of Iraq, Baghdad, is located. That's where he has his origins.

• 5:37Tristan Hughes?

  And this is geographically, so with those two rivers there, I'm guessing very fertile lands, you know, kind of known as part of that fertile crescent, early farming and so on. This feels, it's an ideal place where you see these extraordinary early civilizations from thousands of years ago, and then these extraordinary figures emerging too, like Sargon.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  So Sargon belongs to a period when the vast alluvial plains of southern Mesopotamia, southern Iraq, immensely fertile region, crisscrossed by rivers and then modern canals, as a word, dug to increase that fertility. Sargon is king in a period when that region is divided between city-states.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  So this huge area split up between capital cities and surrounding villages and towns, dominated by individual kings. So you've got a fragmented political world.

• 6:30Tristan Hughes?

  That's interesting. So so population wise, do we think the majority of the population would be in those great cities? Or are they spread around the countryside and those cities, they're just the nodes of power almost?

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Cities clearly become the main place for residents, I think, in the third millennium B C. So the first great cities in the world emerging a thousand years earlier, the fourth millennium B C, in southern Mesopotamia. And urbanisation, living in cities, becomes the main way in which people live their lives.

• 7:00Tristan Hughes?

  These are cities like we've actually covered in a previous episode with you. These are cities like like the fabled Uruk, aren't they?

• 7:06Speaker 03

  Uruk, Ur, yes, famous names. So these are some of the world's earliest urban centres.

• 7:12Tristan Hughes?

  An extraordinary. Before we delve more into that world that Sargon is born into, I'd like to take a step back and ask about the source material that we have for learning about this figure, this ruler, from some four thousand years ago. What types of sources does an Assyriologist like yourself have to learn more about this figure and the world he's living in?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Sargon is known to us really from very, very fragmentary evidence from early on. So from his own time, there are a few inscriptions, a few clay documents inscribed in cuneiform in the wedge-shaped writing of Mesopotamia.

• 7:49Tristan Hughes?

  That's the writings that cuneiform, isn't it?

• 7:50Speaker 03

  That's the writing, the script, so written on clay tablets. And we have a few references to Sargon from his own time. There are also a few stone monuments carved sculptures dating to the time of Sargon, a few of which are inscribed with his name. But they really tell us very little about the man himself and his achievements. So what we're really reliant on are later texts, texts that claim to be copies of inscriptions on monuments that simply no longer survive.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Or increasingly fables and tales, myths and legends about this man. And our challenge is to tease out historical information from these later accounts.

• 8:43Tristan Hughes?

  Because that's so interesting. It's also the case you get sometimes, let's say, with Arthurian legends later emerged, like romances of the achievements. So it sounds like with Sargon, something similar later, they create these, you say, the great myths, these extraordinary feats that feel unbelievable that surround this figure and then looking at those later accounts, but also seeing like, is there a basis of truth, at least for some of the information that survives?

• 9:07Speaker 03

  That's it. I mean, the challenge is, of course, working out in between all those exciting adventures, what reflects reality a thousand or more years earlier.

• 9:19Tristan Hughes?

  And in regards to that archaeology, so not as much from his own time. So is it, as you say, so inscriptions, are they a key source of information for people to have like figured out that this figure of Sargon, he's not just this legendary person, that there was actually a ruler called Sargon?

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Well, we certainly know there was a ruler called Sargon. As I say, we have documents which are economic in nature, they're records of transactions and many of them are dated by a so-called year name. A classic way in which Mesopotamian rulers determined the change of time. So each year was given a name based on a spectacular event that had happened either the year before or earlier in the year in question. And it tells us a lot about what they thought was important in terms of events. And very often it's about conquests, it's about building, it's about great achievements of individual kings.

• 10:20Tristan Hughes?

  Similar like Sargon, does he name certain years after certain military conquests or something like that? Is that what he does?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Completely. And that becomes the standard way in which Mesopotamian kings. Order their their world, order time up until around fifteen hundred B C and then some new.

• 10:38Tristan Hughes?

  So let's move on from the source material and go back to the world of Sargon. So do we know much about his background or his rise to power and what the Mesopotamian world looks like as he is rising to prominence?

• 10:52Speaker 03

  So teasing out from these very different types of sources, we get a sense that Sargon emerges in this world of city-states. And the most important city-state, it seems, in the middle of the third millennium B C is the city of Kish. Located quite close to the modern city of Baghdad in the northern half of this rich alluvial plain of Mesopotamia, Kish had come to dominate large areas, it seems, of the region. And Sargon, so the texts seem to imply,

• 11:30Speaker 03

  emerges out of this important political centre and establishes his own base. However he does it, he gathers together followers in sufficient numbers that he can rival the king of Kish in power and establish his own authority. And it is from that authority he marches out and conquers the other city-states of southern Mesopotamia.

• 11:56Tristan Hughes?

  That's interesting. So for his own power base, it seems he's almost a usurper. So he's not an original prince of Kish or anything like that. He gathers support and, as I said, presumably it's unclear, but seems to overthrow the ruler of Kish and becomes the leader potentially of that city.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Well, it's thought that he probably was a commoner in the sense that he's not a a member of the the royal family, although it's very hard to be certain about that, very difficult to be certain that he wasn't in some way related to a royal family. He, however, adopts the throne name on coming to power of Sharu Cain, what we describe as Sargon. And that means the king is established or the king is legitimate, which suggests that perhaps he wasn't.

• 12:43Tristan Hughes?

  Yes, it's more kind of affirming his status, isn't it? And he's now come to power, but presumably if he's got these ambitions of expansion with with his soldiers, who are the other big players in the region? Surely they're not going to be lying down when this happens.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  No, so the king of Kish, of course, is a primary source of power in the north of the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia. But to the south are the great cities of Ur and principally Uruk.

• 13:12Tristan Hughes?

  Uruk.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  And it is those cities that that represent, as it were, the opposition to Sargon's authority over the entire region. And earlier on, a powerful ruler of Uruk called Lugal Zagesi had gone out with his own armies and conquered neighboring city-states. So you end up with this picture of the alluvial plain divided between two great powers. Kish, with Sargon in the north of the region, and then Lugal Zagesi and his power base to the south, the old heartland of Sumer. And it is when Sargon defeats Lugal Zagesi that he can claim to be the supreme ruler

• 13:58Speaker 03

  over the entire alluvial plain. And it's the first time politically that the region is unified.

• 14:05Tristan Hughes?

  Well, because it seems almost a bit of a silly question from me, but of course, words like the first empire builder sometimes get associated with Sargon. Had there been much of that there before the time of Sargon and the king of Uruk who he faces?

• 14:18Speaker 03

  There certainly had been lots of conflict. So city-states were often in conflict with each other. Battles over access to water, over access to trade routes, over access to farmland. So this was a common feature, it seems, as far as the evidence we have suggests. But no one had managed to conquer the entire region before. So that vast plains across southern Mesopotamia brought together politically for the first time.

• 14:49Tristan Hughes?

  And how does Sargon react to this achievement of defeating Lugal Zagesi and said uniting the plain in one political entity?

• 14:57Speaker 03

  But he doesn't stop there. That's what's remarkable, is that he marches both north up the river Euphrates to places like Mari in modern day Syria, another major city, trading centre but also a powerful political centre. And he marches south to the Persian Gulf, where he conquers, so he tells us, the region of Elam in south-west Iran. Again, a very powerful state, wealthy, access to metals and stones. Quite how far his claims to conquest actually were, we of course don't know. And it may well be that his armies

• 15:40Speaker 03

  are simply controlling the trade routes and access to them. But nonetheless, he becomes immensely wealthy and his power reaches right the way across much of the Middle East.

• 15:51Tristan Hughes?

  And does he boast of his military achievements much? Like in the surviving archaeology, do we see him as the victorious king, like over and almost towering above his defeated enemies?

• 16:03Speaker 03

  So that's a vision of kingship, which of course later compilers of accounts in Mesopotamia imagined. They saw Sargon emerging as this great conquering hero. Whether he was as powerful as later stories will tell us is unclear, but certainly his inscriptions point to widespread conquests, but also widespreads and rebellions that followed.

• 16:31Tristan Hughes?

  Well, we'll get to that in a second. I must also ask, I mean, you've mentioned how he gathers this large army, this powerful army. As I said, we don't know the extent, but certainly seems that he had a sizable army with him for the conquest that he did do. Do we know much about the army itself?

• 16:45Speaker 03

  We have some images of the soldiers of Sargon. They are shown with battle axes over their shoulders and marching in regiments, with Sargon leading the way. One very fragmentary, steely, now in the Louvre museums, inscribed with the name of Sargon, shows the king leading his forces. He's marching forward, dressed in typical Sumerian fashion and protected by a parasol or umbrella.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Marking him out as a major ruler and his soldiers marching behind him.

• 17:37Speaker 04

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• 20:02Tristan Hughes?

  Forgive my ignorance, but this is the time when bronze working is being discovered. So is it bronze weapons or is it still stone? Do we know much about that?

• 20:09Speaker 03

  Bronze had been in use for tools and weapons for many hundreds of years by the time Sargon comes to the throne, but certainly prestige weapons in metal were being used by his soldiers.

• 20:25Tristan Hughes?

  Okay, so how far and wide? I know it's debated and it's unclear, but at least for boasts of Sargon that emerge, how far do his conquests supposedly stretch?

• 20:39Speaker 03

  If one interprets his own inscriptions as copied by later scribes in Mesopotamia, then they reach north as far as modern day Syria and south down the Persian Gulf.

• 20:53Tristan Hughes?

  Because I see words like upper sea to lower sea. Is that in reference to the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf?

• 20:59Speaker 03

  They would certainly later would describe these two areas, the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf as the two ends, as it were, of any Mesopotamian empire worth its existence. And Sargon is credited very often with establishing that as a model that future kings should follow. Whether he actually achieved it himself, of course, is debatable.

• 21:22Tristan Hughes?

  And Paul, this all feels, you know, regardless of the extent of his conquests, this all feels unprecedented, the extent that he's undertaken, that he's achieved so far. But if it is unprecedented, and you hinted at it earlier, is it also quite unstable? He's conquered these lands, but is it very quick before rebellions break out?

• 21:42Speaker 03

  That is true. I mean, the the whole story of Sargon is one of origins. He begins it all. He's the the individual who establishes a dynasty that does conquer much of Mesopotamia. And he does so, of course, from his own power base, which is also new, establishing his own capital city of Agade.

• 22:06Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, Kish goes out the window.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Kish, Kish is sidelined in favour of a new royal centre. We call it either Agade or Akkad, hence Sargon of Akkad. And that becomes the base from which he then marches out and conquers the region. So that is all new. And he tells us in his own inscriptions that he had some five, at least 5,000 men eating before him on a daily basis. So this is perhaps an indication of some sort of standing army. And yes, that power is then a threat, of course, to other city-states. They're conquered, but they never actually disappear.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  And lying behind the Agade empire is always this city-state structure with dynasties attempting to rival and return to their authority.

• 23:02Tristan Hughes?

  So do we know much about Sargon? If he's got these, you know, these troublesome families in other city-states, how does he go about kind of deciding to consolidate his control, his rule over this empire that he has created?

• 23:18Speaker 03

  It seems as if Sargon establishes his control by using the old city-state structure. So some rulers are left in place as long as they submit to his authority. And that authority is one based on force. The empire is held together by brute strength. Later, his successors will introduce new forms to hold the empire together, new forms of administration, weights and measures, standardisation, and the introduction of increasingly texts written not in Sumerian, the traditional royal language of inscriptions in Mesopotamia,

• 23:59Speaker 03

  but in the language that he's speaking, a Semitic language, which we call Akkadian after his capital.

• 24:08Tristan Hughes?

  And is that a game changer for the time, kind of changing? I guess it's not the lingua franca, is it? But making that the main language of his empire. You know, these are all things you see later on with empires established and then making a new language, that the main administrative language of an empire. But of course, is this the first time this is done? So this also feels really significant if he's also just implanting on these other places, write the main bureaucratic figures. You've now got to learn this language and do writing this way, kind of thing.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  I think the challenge again, as always, is finding ways in which we can understand how much this was a novelty with Sargon, or actually a development of the empire under his successors. And certainly, he succeeded by two of his sons, Rimush and Manish Tushu. And under those rulers, you start to get consolidation and centralisation of the empire, much, much more effectively. And the development of some of the most incredible art from the ancient Near East, a court art of incredible refinement, but that comes later.

• 25:19Tristan Hughes?

  Well, we'll get to that in a moment, but let's then keep on Sargon for a bit and not jump the gun. My apologies there for kickstarting that. But I'd like to ask a bit more about Sargon's new capital, Akkad or Agade. I mean, do we know much about this new capital?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  We know really very little about Agade. It was clearly a magnificent place. It is referenced in later inscriptions by later Mesopotamian kings, but we have no idea exactly where it is. It's never been located archaeologically. It's likely that it lies under a suburb or indeed under the centre of modern day Baghdad. And so as a result, it may never be discovered. But if it is, then it will no doubt have some of the most magnificent palaces and temples to have survived.

• 26:13Tristan Hughes?

  This is a bit of a tangent, but I still think it's very interesting. For myself, Paul, like coming into Mesopotamia from the outside. Originally, I would have heard names like Nineveh, Babylon, maybe Susa as well. But you've mentioned names like Kish, it was La Gash, Uruk. I didn't realise just the sheer quantity of extraordinary cities that there were in ancient Mesopotamia. And is Agade, is it an anomaly? Do we know, do archaeologists know where most of the cities mentioned from Mesopotamia are today? Or are there still quite a lot of cities that we don't know where they are quite yet in Iraq?

• 26:54Speaker 03

  We know where most of the great cities were located. Many of them have had excavations, so we can actually know from spades in the ground, literally, that these cities existed and they weren't just described in texts. But there are certainly many cities, names recorded in political, economic documents, which have yet to be located.

• 27:21Tristan Hughes?

  Economically, with Sargon's new empire, you mentioned earlier, you know, he got the Euphrates River, the Tigris River, and he's covering a huge amount of land and fertile land as well. What are the economic benefits that that brings Sargon? Does his new empire quickly become very rich?

• 27:40Speaker 03

  We imagine he was immensely rich because, of course, he was controlling not just the rich agricultural land, now brought together under his control, which could be taxed centrally. And so the whole system is based on siphoning off from each of the old city-states, an element of taxation to the centre, again, part of this centralising policy. But of course, the conquests also allow him to dominate the rivers and the roads. And that means that those exotic materials, which Mesopotamia doesn't have, like metal and stone, can also be funnelled towards the centre. So again, Agade may well have been the most extraordinary.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Ordinary place with this great wealth pouring in.

• 28:26Tristan Hughes?

  And this is shipping like copper in and stuff from the Mediterranean, but I guess maybe also the great step as well. Are these all kind of areas or Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, should we be imagining? You know, that is the extent of trade that Sargon and his empire has is that they have these great connections far beyond the empire's supposed borders.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Yes, and of course, trade had been a major factor in Mesopotamian civilisation for hundreds of years before that. Those trade routes, copper actually coming at this time from up the Gulf.

• 28:58Tristan Hughes?

  From the Gulf.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Some places like Oman and Iran. And that was the main source and Sargon in his own inscription tells us that he had the boats of Magan, Dilmun and Melucha dock at the Keys of Agade. And that refers to Bahrain, the island that we know today, of course. Magan was the shoreline of Iran and Melucha, the Indus Valley civilisation.

• 29:29Tristan Hughes?

  Wow.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  So all the way across the Indian Sea, boats would have brought resources like Carnelian, Lapis lazuli, but of course also copper to Agade and it's to his capital that he brings them.

• 29:44Tristan Hughes?

  I'd like to ask now about some of the figures surrounding Sargon and his administration. And first of all, before we focus on particular figures, given the administration and recording all the stuff and controlling an empire, how important are scribes for Sargon and for the running of his empire in his court, let's say?

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Every city state was dependent on scribes and scribes at all level of society. From your basic accountant who had a little bit of of skill in writing, to manage estates privately.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  But at the state level, scribes were fundamental in recording and managing the flow of goods, people, resources in and out.

• 30:33Tristan Hughes?

  And what other types of professions, what other people would have been very close to Sargon in his court, let's say at Agade? I mean, do we know much about the other, the job roles that were available and that were important in an early Mesopotamian empire like Sargon's?

• 30:50Speaker 03

  You had administrators, of course, of the palace and the treasury. But the other key part of any Mesopotamian city were the temples. And the temples, of course, were the homes of the gods, and it was the gods who supported the kings. And so you devoted huge resources into constructing their homes, but also, of course, furnishing them and offering them gifts. So much of the wealth that was coming into places like Agade would have been deposited in the temple. You achieved the support of your gods and therefore you could achieve even greater conquests and stability.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  But the gods and their worship were key. So members of the royal family would have been closely associated with the temple complexes.

• 31:42Tristan Hughes?

  Do we know which gods he worshipped?

• 31:44Speaker 03

  So we know that Ishtar, the goddess of battle and sexuality, was one of the most important goddesses with it for the Agade dynasty. And she's constantly referenced as a source of power and authority.

• 31:59Tristan Hughes?

  Right. So you see in the inscriptions, once again, that understandably, that close connection between the rulers and the gods. Do they, is there a sense of him portraying himself as a god king or his successors portraying themselves as god kings? Or is that a step too far?

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Sargon doesn't appear to present himself in any other way, other than a typical, what we'd describe as an early dynastic king, a king like those of other city-states. It's just that he, he extends his control over a much broader area. His successors, however, in the, the dynasty that follows him, do gradually acquire more divine-like characteristics. And it's his grandson Narum Seen, who ultimately is given the title of divine ruler.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Not a god per se, he's not elevated to a god everywhere. But in his city, in Agade, a temple is built for him where he is worshipped as a god. And therefore you have this sense of them achieving the ultimate authority.

• 33:04Tristan Hughes?

  Over time, almost as their dynasty has been more consolidated perhaps. Big question now, Paul, a funny question. I think we might be going back to his successors too with this as well. But I mean, do we have any idea what Sargon looks like?

• 33:18Speaker 03

  No idea what Sargon looks like. There wasn't in Mesopotamia the idea of portraiture based on sort of physical characteristics. So most of the monuments that we have depict the ideal kingship. For example, one of the most magnificent monuments from antiquity is a cast bronze head of what was certainly a life-sized statue.

• 33:43Tristan Hughes?

  Very recognisable. We got it on the front cover of a book right in front of us.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  It's the most, one of the most magnificent pieces of art to have survived from antiquity. And expresses the power of an Agade king, probably not over Sargon. Because the style suggests it belongs to the reign of one of his successors, either his son Manush Tushu or his grandson Narum Se.

• 34:09Tristan Hughes?

  It is a beautiful piece, isn't it? But what strikes me the most is the whole creation. It's bronze statues, it's made out of bronze. It is the whole creation of the beard and the various kind of little flicks in the beard, a very pointed beard as well. It conveys a very striking image.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  Very striking, and that is the point. It expresses the power of an Agade king rather than an individual and is designed to last for all eternity. And in fact, it was such a powerful and important image that it was then targeted for attack. So when the Agade Empire fell, it was probably at that point mutilated. Its ears were cut off, its eyes gouged out, its nose flattened by a hammer. And therefore, the power of this Agade king, hearing, sight and smell were removed. And you remove the power of these great kings.

• 35:07Tristan Hughes?

  See figures rising and fall even after their death.

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• 36:17Tristan Hughes?

  Now, one other key figure, which we haven't covered yet, but very close to Sargon, which I'd like to talk about, which is introducing his daughter. And I think a lovely way to bring this in would be if we could now, first of all, focus on a particular artifact I know you know a lot about, and contemporary to the time of Sargon. Please forgive me if I get the pronunciation wrong. Kitushdu's seal. What is this?

• 36:47Speaker 03

  Perfectly pronounced. You have the impression made by a cylinder seal, so a carved cylinder of stone, which had belonged to one of Sargon's daughter's officials. This impression in clay has a depiction of a deity, of a god, but also part of a cuneiform inscription, which records part of that official's name. This indicates that the inscription tells us that they were an official in the employ of Sargon's daughter Enheduanna. Enheduanna is perhaps one of the most famous females from ancient Mesopotamia.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  She was appointed as the high priestess of the moon god. Of the city at Ur. So Sargon appointed his daughter Enheduanna as the high priestess of the moon god at Ur, stressing again the importance of temples as part of the ways in which these kings controlled their territory. Now Enheduanna had staff, we know from contemporary inscriptions and impressions of seals, including hairdresser and her own personal scribe, and she devoted her time at Ur to ruling that city on behalf of her father.

• 38:14Tristan Hughes?

  She is incredibly important to Sargon in the whole ruling of the empire. And it seems to say, we have a lot of source material surviving for her. Perhaps, could you say more contemporary evidence for Enheduanna compared to her father?

• 38:27Speaker 03

  I would say about the same.

• 38:29Tristan Hughes?

  About the same, okay.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  So we have a very famous little sculpture, a disc carved in relief with an image which almost certainly depicts Enheduanna in a ritual, making a libation before what was certainly a seated figure. It's very badly damaged. The disc is now in the University Museum, Pennsylvania. But the inscription on the back names Enheduanna as the wife of the god Nana, the moon god, and really situates her as this really important individual in this major political centre. Enheduanna, however, like Sargon, much of what we know about Enheduanna

• 39:13Speaker 03

  comes from later inscriptions, and there are tales and hymns and prayers which were attributed to Enheduanna. And they may well have been composed by her, but almost certainly were not, and were composed at a later period and then credited to this important, powerful woman of the third millennium.

• 39:38Tristan Hughes?

  So she, just like Sargon, gets these, you know, kind of extra tales and legends added to them over time. So it is not just Sargon, it's almost like a family tale, that kind of the story of these, these figures from the distant past, you know, they get this, this, this legendary afterlife that just adds more to their story as the hundreds of years go on.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  The Agade dynasty as a whole have become incredibly famous and as a result tales and myths and legends are added to them.

• 40:10Tristan Hughes?

  Well, if we go to, if we end Sargon's particular story and then go on what happens afterwards. But I mean, do we know much about either the length of his rule or what happens to him at the end of his life, how he dies, how it all ends for Sargon of Akkad?

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Later texts, Sumerian so-called king lists, list Sargon in the sequence of dynasties that were said to have ruled all of Mesopotamia. And they credit Sargon with a length of reign of about 55 years. Now, it's very difficult to know how reliable those figures are and it may well be that he ruled for much shorter. But it gives us a sense again of the importance placed on Sargon as a founding figure in the creation of this unified political world.

• 41:01Tristan Hughes?

  And you mentioned earlier how after his conquests, there are rebellions from these particular prominent families of other city-states. By the end of his rule, I mean, from the surviving archaeology, can we tell how stable an empire he left for his sons and his successors?

• 41:21Speaker 03

  We have a sense that the empire was never that stable. So he certainly passed his achievements to his successors, two sons, Rimush and Manush Tushu in sequence, and then ultimately to his grandson Narum Sine. But under each of those rulers, there was an attempt to conquer further, but rebellions were always lurking behind the scenes. And under Narum Sine, perhaps the greatest of these Agade rulers who conquered even further into Syria as far as the mountains of Lebanon and down the Persian Gulf to Arabia.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  A great rebellion occurred, according to the inscriptions, under which the city-state structure once again emerged to try and rival that unified political structure.

• 42:15Tristan Hughes?

  You know, because I'd heard the name Sargon before, but I never heard the name Narum Seem. But it's interesting. So is it almost by that point, it said, is that the Zenith of the Akkadian dynasty, the grandson of Sargon, almost like following Genghis Khan? You have a few of the Khans following him, that almost extend the empire further before it rescinds again. Does it seem that actually with the Akkadians, with Sargon's dynasty? It's not with him at the start that it's at its greatest extent. It's actually with his grandson Narum Seem.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  If you're interested in conquests and extent of control, then it is certainly under Narum Seem that it reaches its highest point. But later legends credit the collapse of the Agade Empire to Narum Seem. So it's seen as reaching its greatest extent, but is also, in a way, hubris presses it, takes it too far. And Narum Seem is cursed by the gods and the empire collapses.

• 43:17Tristan Hughes?

  And of course, I mean, as you kind of hinted at there, it's not all about military conquests and all of that with this empire. With Sargon having established this empire and the generations that follow with the capital at Agade, culturally, how big of a shift is this period marked by, let's say in regards art styles and things like that? How much of a change can you see in the archaeology? When we get to this period of Sargon and post Sargon?

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Artistically, it's one of the high points of Mesopotamian civilization. I mean, extraordinary works of art produced under this centralized regime. And that has a legacy that lives on. So when the Agade Empire collapses, the Mesopotamian world fragments once again back to a city-state structure. But kings now attempt to emulate the achievements of the Agade kings. So they become a model that later kings pursue. And that produces new kingdoms and finally empires. And so in the first millennium B C, when the Assyrian Empire is dominating the region

• 44:26Speaker 03

  from Egypt to Iran, a king takes the throne name of Sargon in emulation of this early third millennium ruler.

• 44:37Tristan Hughes?

  What would you think is almost the most significant part of Sargon's legacy? Is it the fact that later rulers see him as a role model for those who want military conquest and want to build an empire? Or is it, you know, that wider idea of of that artistic change and that, you know, that great age of art that this period introduces? Or something else?

• 45:01Speaker 03

  I think the art is very specific to the Agade period. I mean, it impacts later time, but new traditions emerge, new styles emerge. But certainly that idea of a centralized, single political centre, which dominates the region with administrative, strong, centralized control, taxation, those are the the messages that are carried into the future and future kings want to emulate.

• 45:31Tristan Hughes?

  Does he deserve the title as like the world's first known empire builder?

• 45:35Speaker 03

  That always depends how you define empire. And many people will say the first true empire in Mesopotamia doesn't appear until the Assyrian conquests of the first millennium B C, when there is strong centralized control, but with provincial governors. Sargon and his dynasty never quite achieve that. It's held together by brute force. And as a result, when the Agade Empire collapses, brute force is is taken out on their monuments. That's probably why so few of them survive.

• 46:12Tristan Hughes?

  And what happens with the legacy of Sargon? So of course, important in Mesopotamia for hundreds, thousands of years, outside of Mesopotamia, does his legacy endure? Let's say when the Greeks take over that part of the world, the Greeks and the Romans. Do we know much about Sargon's later history as the centuries and millennia go on?

• 46:32Speaker 03

  So unlike many other Assyrian kings, sorry, unlike many other Mesopotamian kings, Sargon's name doesn't reverberate down through time.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  And was really only rediscovered in the 19th century with the excavations at places like Nineveh, where tablets, cuneiform tablets, recorded some of this early history or the myths associated with the Agade dynasty. And then in the 19th century, scholars began to identify Sargon as a key figure that marked a transition in Mesopotamian history.

• 47:08Tristan Hughes?

  Do you think there will be more archaeology uncovered, particularly about Sargon, or, let's say, discovered in an archive of a museum somewhere, more cuneiform tablets that will mention his name? Do you think it's only a matter of time before more information comes to light about this figure?

• 47:24Speaker 03

  Almost certainly we'll be finding more material about Sargon, contemporary evidence from excavations in Mesopotamia itself, in Iraq. There are excavations happening at the moment that are in third millennium levels. So at any moment, it's possible a tablet will be found, which will provide additional illumination to this extraordinary period.

• 47:46Tristan Hughes?

  Well, Paul, this has been absolutely brilliant. And we're talking about an actual figure. We're not talking about the pyramids or Stonehenge. This is an actual ruler and seems very important in the whole story of Mesopotamia. Are there any key messages you would like us to take away from this chat today?

• 48:02Speaker 03

  I would say go and find translations of these incredible stories about Sargon, because they are some of the most impressive creations from the ancient world of Mesopotamia.

• 48:13Tristan Hughes?

  Paul, thank you so much, as always.

• 48:19Tristan Hughes?

  Well, there you go. There was Dr Paul Collins returning to the podcast to talk through the life and legacy of Sargon of Akkad. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Ancients. Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's enough from me and I'll see you in the next episode.

• 49:04Speaker 01

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• 49:35Speaker 02

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