POWER CENTRALIZATION DURING THE EMPIRE OF AKKAD

Rimush Victory Stele.pdf

Benjamin R. Foster, “The Sargonic Victory Stele from Telloh,” Iraq 47 (1985): 15–30, pl. II.

Piotr, Steinkeller, “Land-Tenure Conditions in Southern Babylonia under the Sargonic Dynasty,” in Munuscula Mesopotamica: Festschrift für Johannes Renger, AOAT 267, ed. Barbara Böck, Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, and Thomas Richter (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1999), 553–71, p. 571.

Piotr, Steinkeller, “Land-Tenure Conditions in Southern Babylonia under the Sargonic Dynasty,” in Munuscula Mesopotamica: Festschrift für Johannes Renger, AOAT 267, ed. Barbara Böck, Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, and Thomas Richter (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1999), 553–71, p. 569.

Reorganization after Military Conquest

Sargon

Though much of Sargon’s life has been glorified in legendary tales from later periods, it is clear that he led several successful military campaigns, which brought various regions and city-states under Akkadian rule. In order to centralize power effectively, he reorganized the leadership of the various conquered peoples by appointing Akkadian governors (titled ensi) over them. This appointing of Akkadian governors also brought Akkadian administration to various regions.[1] Moreover, following the conquest of major city-states in Sumer, Sargon installed high-priestesses (like his daughter Enheduana) and high-priests, which also constituted a political reorganization of local leadership, as Steinkeller argues:

I would argue that this innovation [installing a priestess as a consort of a Sumerian god] was motivated by political reasons. By installing his daughter at Ur as the wife of Nanna – in which, as I believe, he merely followed the age-sanctioned tradition known in northern Babylonia  – Sargon very likely intended to counterbalance the influence of the local ensik and, more importantly, to create for himself an independent power base in the south. In this way, the institution of female priestly consorts put first roots in southern Babylonia. …

As I reconstruct it, the next step in this process was the adoption of the title en, previously reserved for the high priest and consort of Inanna, by priestly wives of male deities. This development appears to have been politically motivated, too, its most likely objective being to make the concept of such priestesses more palatable to southern religious tastes.[2]

As such, Sargon’s success in forming an empire was due to his fruitful military campaigns that were followed up by the reorganization of local leadership to serve Akkadian interests, thereby centralizing power around Akkad and its ruler.

Rimush

The reconstruction of Rimush’s reign is quite challenging, but just as Manishtushu inherited challenges to the Akkadian empire from various regions, so did Rimush, who likewise responded with military campaigns. Though it is not certain, it is possible that following one such successful campgain, Rimush redistributed conquered lands to his supporters, as Foster argues:

One may further suggest that one of Rimuš’ punitive measures was an extensive redistribution of land to his followers in the province of Lagash. Since this land was spoils of war, no purchase was called for, such as Maništusu made in Marad when he acquired land for his retainers.[3]

Foster’s comparison of Rimush’s land redistribution to that of Manishtushu’s is apt, especially

since he notes that the former achieved this through military conquest whereas the latter made a purchase, which is conceived of here as an economic conquest. Whether the land redistribution was accomplished through military or economic conquest, its goal was to further centralize power around Akkad. Whereas Manishtushu redistributed land ownership in the north closer to Akkad itself, Rimush did so in the south at Lagash to the following effect:

The fragmentation of land resources to typical of earlier Sumerian land administration was offset by a Sargonic, Akkadian procedure of assigning large tracts to privileged people, from which smaller tracts were measured off for their retainers. … The city-state [Lagash] became thereafter a centre of Sargonic royal economic interests based on huge tracts of expropriated land, and served perhaps as a seat of regional government as well.[4]

Though Sargon and Rimush both engaged in military conquests, Sargon tended to centralize power by the reorganization of leadership through new appointments while Rimush centralized power by the reorganization of land ownership, which probably resulted in concomitant leadership changes. Though this is conjecture, it is possible that Rimush’s redistribution of land ownership after a military conquest served as an example for Manishtushu to later emulate.

Reorganization after Economic Conquest 

Land Ownership Prior to the Akkadian Empire

The details of land ownership prior to the Akkadian Empire are difficult to reconstruct, despite the availability of written sources.[5] Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that, in Sumer, “most of the arable land was concentrated in estates nominally owned by the chief deities of individual city-states.”[6] Not only was land primarily organized around the chief (or patron) deities of various individual city-states, but each city-state possessed clear boundaries such that all of the surrounding countryside belonged to one city-state or another with virtually no neutral territory between city-states.[7] Concerning this system of land ownership in pre-Sargonic Sumer, Steinkeller writes:

The single most important point about the city-state ideology is that the S was viewed as a closed political system, with the assumed existence of permanent, divinely sanctioned borders between the individual city-states. Obviously, this tenet made any form of territorial expansion within the system exceedingly difficult, rendering any notion of unification theoretically unthinkable.[8]

As for the north, there was no development of such clearly demarcated city-states. Instead, there was a territorial state, usually focused around Kish,[9] which tended towards “‘imperial’ size and objectives.”[10] The Sargonic rulers, however, through military and economic conquests, disrupted these northern and southern systems through the reorganization of leadership and land ownership, which centralized power and transferred control of land to the crown.[11]  

The Impact of Manishtushu’s Land Purchase

Manishtushu’s purchase of significant parcels of land had both immediate effects as well as lasting influences on land ownership. As has been discussed previously, this purchase served immediate political ends to centralize power so that Manishtushu could rally supporters to his cause. Since his reign was short-lived and shrouded by later accounts, the success of this purchase cannot be easily measured. However, it probably served as an example of power centralization that Naram-Sin and Shar-kali-sharri later employed. Though Manishtushu purchased land from northern Babylonia, which was not strictly tied to patron deities, Naram-Sin and Shar-kali-sharri were able to confiscate lands at a modest price from Sumerian lands to the south, such as at Umma and Lagash. This was made possible in part by the deification of Naram-Sin who paved the way for confiscation of Sumerian lands by Sargonic rulers.[12] Even though the deification of Naram-Sin partly validated his purchase of lands formerly owned by a patron deity, the proprietary rights to the land did not technically belong to the temple officials who sold it, meaning that they were essentially bribed. With regard to the politicking involved in these purchases, Steinkeller elaborates:

These were compulsory sales, of course, which, in the final analysis, amounted to confiscations. However, by dressing the royal take-over in a cloak of fictional ‘selling’ and ‘buying’ the whole process was formalized and even legalized, making the transition less disruptive politically and economically. The managers of the defunct temple estates, rewarded for their cooperation (or should we say, collaboration?) with ‘price’ money, no doubt became fervent supporters of the crown. Many of them probably continued to administer the holdings they had been associated with, this time on behalf of their new owner, the divine ruler of Akkade.[13]

As such, it is evident that Manishtushu as well as his successors were able to centralize power through the reorganization of land ownership without the use of outright military force, but through economic channels, complete with validating textual witnesses to their activities.