Around 2300 BC, the world’s first empire was established. It was founded by Sargon of Akkad and was located between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. In its latest years, Akkadian hegemony extended from lands in Iran to as far as the Khabur plains in northeastern Syria. Akkad maintained a massive standing army, while the empire itself exhibited levels of systemization and sophistication on par with other empires to come. They introduced standardized weights and measurements, imposed a uniform dating system and had a state-run economy. The wealth of the empire was illustrated in their exceptional artwork, refinement and naturalism. Just as it was at its peak, the Akkadian empire suddenly collapsed. The people of the time attributed this to retaliation by the gods. However, archeologists today have an alternate theory.
In 1978, archeologist Harvey Weiss uncovered a lost city, today called Tell Leilan, in the Khabur plains (in Syria near the Iraqi border). Based on what was recovered from the soil, Weiss and his team concluded that the people of Tell Leilan had grown barley and several varieties of wheat, using carts to transport their goods. Thus, the livlihood of the people of Tell Leilan relied heavily on farming.
Based on soil samples and the artifacts they uncovered, Weiss and his team determined the timeline of the city’s history: it originated as a small farming village around 5000 BC, grew to become a city in about 2600 BC and finalyy reorganized under imperial rule by 2300 BC. However between 2200 BC and 1900 BC, they found Tell Leilan was completely uninhabited by humans – this was the time of Akkad’s fall. Lab analysis of the soil also concluded that it was lifeless; not even earthworms were found to have lived in the soil during that period. The dead soil corresponding with the fall of the Akkaian empire allowed them to conclude that there was a severe, prolonged drought during that time. It was one so serious that it was akin to a climate change, one dramatic enough to quickly lead to the destruction of an empire that took over 2500 years to form. One account describing this drought, called “The Curse of Akkad,” implies that the lack of water prevented the people form obaining any grain or fish, which resulted in soaring prices for goods, and the starvation and death of many.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Did your group discuss the quality of evidence linking climate change to the demise of the Akkadian empire? Do you think that this is a valid theory for what happened? What lessons should we learn from this?
ReplyDeleteWe figured that their explanation for what happened seemed reasonable for 2 reasons.
ReplyDelete1 - the scientific evidence about the dirt being lifeless at the same time that the empire fell. That seemed like too much of a coincidence for them to be unrelated.
2 - Nothing short of a huge change in environment (or say a climate change) could cause an empire like Akkad's to fall in such a short amount of time.
However, the gaps in that explanation, to me at least, is that they don't really explain how "lifeless soil" is an indication of a huge drought specifically. It could have been some other catastrophic event to cause the fall of the empire, but that's just my opinion. So as far as the quality of evidence is concerned, I think the science is good but the interpretation of it is a possibility, but at the same time not completely irrefutable.
As for lessons to be learned, I think one would be that we shouldn't be cocky. Just because we have such a huge, industrial civilization and it's lasted so long in history doesn't mean we don't have to worry about mother nature. The Akkadians must have considered themselves pretty invincible too, and yet there was a climate change sever enough to make their lands completely uninhabitable and to wipe out their empire within only a few decades.