The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia Benjamin R. Foster
: The book examines the shift from independent city-states to a centralized government. A major highlight is the reign of
The story of the Akkadian Empire begins with the legend of Sargon. According to later texts, he was a cup-bearer to the King of Kish who rose from humble origins to claim divine favor. Unlike the Sumerian kings before him, Sargon wasn't content with being a local hegemon.
: The era was a peak of artistic and linguistic creativity, notably the adaptation of Sumerian cuneiform for the Semitic Akkadian language. Notable Perspectives The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia
We do not have its bricks. We do not have its ziggurat. We have only what the empire left behind: a psychic scar on the Mesopotamian soul; a cautionary tale written in the Curse ; and a political blueprint inscribed on stone.
This epic poem is a masterpiece of anti-imperial propaganda. It claims that Naram-Sin committed a sacrilege by destroying the temple of Enlil at Nippur. As punishment, the gods "brought out of the mountains a people who knew no cities, who knew no houses—the Gutians." The poem describes the fall of Agade in visceral terms: its young women were starved, its dead floated like fish in the rivers, and the great goddess Inanna "changed her body to clay."