No Sargon of Akkad

ar-pharazon

Banned
Akkad, Sumer and Kish were unified by an ancient Mesopotamian king known as Sargon. This unification crystallized the idea of Mesopotamian unity and identity and was a critical event in early world history.

What if Sargon had been killed or had otherwise not been successful in uniting some of the Mesopotamian city states in the late third millennium BC.

How would no Sargon have affected near eastern, European and world history?
 
The Internet would be a much less aggravating place.

Oh, wait, the ancient one. Someone would have probably eventually unified the region because of geographical reasons, but the PoD is so far back that it's really hard to speculate how those cultures would have developed.
 
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Deleted member 97083

The Mesopotamia cultural continuum probably would have been unified at some point, as other regions close to it had been steadily uniting into larger states, both on the Mediterranean coast and in Sumer. But without Sargon, the Akkadian language wouldn't have enjoyed its prominence as a lingua franca for 2,000 years.

The main centers of power without Akkad could be Ebla, Mari, Sumer (including Kish, Uruk, and Umma), and Elam.
 
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It is really easier to say what would not change than what would change. Even if someone else had done something similar, the POD is so far back that the butterflies would run wild. Another person would make different choices, which would also effect other regions, resulting in similarly different choices there. What is clear, is that the topography would be the same. You would surely butterfly for instance Judaism, and therefore also Christianity and Islam, but even long before Judaism there would be significant changes. This POD would even influence which language groups would be strong in various regions. It is still quite possible that Indo-European would be widespread. Semitic would also still be an important group of languages, but one must assume that both language groups would develop differently as the butterflies would affect the migrations of people. Proto-Germanic would clearly be butterflied as this language seems to have been spoken some time around 500 BC. The same would be the case with many other languages. I assume that one would sooner or later develop the knowledge of how to make steel, but when (and where?) this would happen might change. When it would happen would also effect which group of people and which languages would become dominant.
 
Lower Mesopotamia was losing fertility of the soil due to salination, and migratory movements caused by distant developments but also by M's famed abundance were exerting pressure. Others before sargon had taken to wars of conquest and submission, but sargon was militarily very successful, probably creative, too.
Would someone else do a similar thing in roughly the same time and space? Probably yes, but "roughly" could yield Great differences. A Gutian Sargon could fuse Sumer with the East to a greater degree? A Sargon after 2200 would have brought together polities after a Great drought and migration. Etc.
 
I hear even pre-Sargon, Mesopotamia was already divided into lower Sumerian plains and upper Akkadian plains (basically later Babylonia & Assyria)
So without Sargon, there could probably be less Akkadian infiltration to Sumer proper, but the rest of the country will go Akkadian anyway. But without the disastrous Third Dynasty of Ur reconquista... Would there be longer lasting Sumeria?
 
I hear even pre-Sargon, Mesopotamia was already divided into lower Sumerian plains and upper Akkadian plains (basically later Babylonia & Assyria)
So without Sargon, there could probably be less Akkadian infiltration to Sumer proper, but the rest of the country will go Akkadian anyway. But without the disastrous Third Dynasty of Ur reconquista... Would there be longer lasting Sumeria?
I would say, upper Mesopotamia had an ethnic Mix with greater Semitic components, as Akkad became prominent with Sargon only. But yes, a Semitic-speaking Upper Mesopotamia is in the cards, unless it's conquerors from the Iranian highlands who bring their (Elamite?) language as the new lingua franca.
Preserving a distinct Sumeria in the South hinges, imho, on continuing trade links with Aratta, Meluhha and other Eastern polities.
 
What happens if we take this singular individual off the board? Sargon came up in what was already a dynamic and escalating period for Mesopotamian history. Great forces were at work, and would play out dramatically in his absence.

The region was suffering a single environmental crisis that was exacerbating a single horrendous crisis of debt. Already the administrative classes of various cities and two ethnicities seem to have been bleeding into each other at the edges. And obviously the vast majority of people were in similar positions - facing slavery, disintegration of traditional rights and families - as they struggled to survive crop failure with predatory lending their only recourse.

And a reformist solution to the primary crisis had been innovated just decades before Sargon's rise to power. The trouble was that traditional elites hated government mandated debt-cancellation, and turned on the guy who attempted it.

So you had a crippling and almost universally hated regional problem that elites openly recognized as a problem, and had a known solution for, but refused to actually solve outright, because the solution was seen to be too radical. And you had traditional sources of redress (religion) directly complicit in the economic crisis - they were the first major lenders, and probably invented usury. And you had the crisis forcing people off traditional lands (flight creating folk movements; lenders moving their debt slaves around) where they encountered foreigners across the floodplain all facing the same threat, to the point it overshadowed local issues.

A true radical movement was almost inevitably going to come to power somewhere, right? They'd cancel all debt and be universally loved, except for the traditional ruling classes, who would murder them at any opportunity and write to cousins and in-laws in neighboring cities, demanding they come murder this illegitimate council (or king).

So war is inevitable, but it's traditional elites who pay the soldiers. The only decent weapon the revolutionaries have at hand is revolution. As it ever was. So one side masses lots of little mercenary armies, who are mercenaries because they escaped debt or are hoping to buy their families' freedom. The Mesopotamian ruling classes aren't themselves militarized at this point. The other side hastily trains levée en masse and charges in to cries of "Amagi!"[1]

It could go either way, but obviously if the pretender's revolution isn't put down, it can only snowball. The socioeconomic systems are (well, appear) incompatible. There aren't outside forces able to intervene.

So suppose this movement wins. Someone's at the head of it. Could be named anything, but the traditional ruling class has been decrying his utter illegitimacy for decades by that point, while the other 90%+ of Semitic and Sumerian Mesopotamians view him as perhaps the only legitimate ruler outside legend. Perhaps the most logical assumed name under the circumstances would be along the lines of "Legitimate King". Which is Sharrum-kin, in that era's Mesopotamian Semitic. Which might be elided to something like Sharken over time. Which might end up "Sargon" if Hebrew-speakers were saying it.

So what would happen if Sargon didn't unify Mesopotamia?

Well, then Sargon would unify Mesopotamia.

[1] The first recorded word for "freedom". Like most such terms it was coined as a negation of a term for servitude, rather than being a pre-existing word. Literally "return to the mother", because families forced to give up debt slaves to their creditors perforce started with the youngest so the lost labor would be less likely to create a debt spiral.
 
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What happens if we take this singular individual off the board? Sargon came up in what was already a dynamic and escalating period for Mesopotamian history. Great forces were at work, and would play out dramatically in his absence.

The region was suffering a single environmental crisis that was exacerbating a single horrendous crisis of debt. Already the administrative classes of various cities and two ethnicities seem to have been bleeding into each other at the edges. And obviously the vast majority of people were in similar positions - facing slavery, disintegration of traditional rights and families - as they struggled to survive crop failure with predatory lending their only recourse.

And a reformist solution to the primary crisis had been innovated just decades before Sargon's rise to power. The trouble was that traditional elites hated government mandated debt-cancellation, and turned on the guy who attempted it.

So you had a crippling and almost universally hated regional problem that elites openly recognized as a problem, and had a known solution for, but refused to actually solve outright, because the solution was seen to be too radical. And you had traditional sources of redress (religion) directly complicit in the economic crisis - they were the first major lenders, and probably invented usury. And you had the crisis forcing people off traditional lands (flight creating folk movements; lenders moving their debt slaves around) where they encountered foreigners across the floodplain all facing the same threat, to the point it overshadowed local issues.

A true radical movement was almost inevitably going to come to power somewhere, right? They'd cancel all debt and be universally loved, except for the traditional ruling classes, who would murder them at any opportunity and write to cousins and in-laws in neighboring cities, demanding they come murder this illegitimate council (or king).

So war is inevitable, but it's traditional elites who pay the soldiers. The only decent weapon the revolutionaries have at hand is revolution. As it ever was. So one side masses lots of little mercenary armies, who are mercenaries because they escaped debt or are hoping to buy their families' freedom. The Mesopotamian ruling classes aren't themselves militarized at this point. The other side hastily trains levée en masse and charges in to cries of "Amagi!"[1]

It could go either way, but obviously if the pretender's revolution isn't put down, it can only snowball. The socioeconomic systems are (well, appear) incompatible. There aren't outside forces able to intervene.

So suppose this movement wins. Someone's at the head of it. Could be named anything, but the traditional ruling class has been decrying his utter illegitimacy for decades by that point, while the other 90%+ of Semitic and Sumerian Mesopotamians view him as perhaps the only legitimate ruler outside legend. Perhaps the most logical assumed name under the circumstances would be along the lines of "Legitimate King". Which is Sharrum-kin, in that era's Mesopotamian Semitic. Which might be elided to something like Sharken over time. Which might end up "Sargon" if Hebrew-speakers were saying it.

So what would happen if Sargon didn't unify Mesopotamia?

Well, then Sargon would unify Mesopotamia.

[1] The first recorded word for "freedom". Like most such terms it was coined as a negation of a term for servitude, rather than being a pre-existing word. Literally "return to the mother", because families forced to give up debt slaves to their creditors perforce started with the youngest so the lost labor would be less likely to create a debt spiral.

Great post.
 

Jerry Kraus

Banned
Akkad, Sumer and Kish were unified by an ancient Mesopotamian king known as Sargon. This unification crystallized the idea of Mesopotamian unity and identity and was a critical event in early world history.

What if Sargon had been killed or had otherwise not been successful in uniting some of the Mesopotamian city states in the late third millennium BC.

How would no Sargon have affected near eastern, European and world history?

I think these days, most historians reject the "Great Man" explanation for world history. So, the non-existence of any single individuals, historically, simply cannot change historical events a great deal, by definition. Someone else will serve essentially the same function, at approximately the same time, simply because the "Great Men" are just symbols and headers for much broader social dynamics that they have only a rather limited influence upon.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
I think these days, most historians reject the "Great Man" explanation for world history. So, the non-existence of any single individuals, historically, simply cannot change historical events a great deal, by definition. Someone else will serve essentially the same function, at approximately the same time, simply because the "Great Men" are just symbols and headers for much broader social dynamics that they have only a rather limited influence upon.
They do but "great men" still exist by virtue of their skill, personality and success.

Julius Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, among others.

The individual does affect history-not as much as classical historians say but not as little as modern historians of certain schools of historiography say.
 
They do but "great men" still exist by virtue of their skill, personality and success.

Julius Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, among others.

The individual does affect history-not as much as classical historians say but not as little as modern historians of certain schools of historiography say.

A perfect example in my opinion is Philip of Macedon - I've seen no evidence that suggests anyone else was going to reunite and urbanise Macedonia, nor that it was inevitable from a kingdom on the brink - nor were they inevitably going to develop Phalangite warfare.

(sidenote : Philip is so much more important than Alexander IMO)
 
I think these days, most historians reject the "Great Man" explanation for world history. So, the non-existence of any single individuals, historically, simply cannot change historical events a great deal, by definition. Someone else will serve essentially the same function, at approximately the same time, simply because the "Great Men" are just symbols and headers for much broader social dynamics that they have only a rather limited influence upon.

I think there's nuance.

Certain periods in history effectively guarantee there will be a Great Man, sure. I believe the one under discussion to be such a case. But also who the person is, that influences what comes of it.

In this case, "a Sargon" with the personality of Stalin would mean very different things for the future of Mesopotamia than one with the personality of Napoleon, say, or Washington. Or Bolivar. Or a half dozen other obvious examples.

The Sargon of our timeline seems to have been Semitic. A Sumerian Sargon could cause enormous linguistic divergence from OTL.

That sort of thing.
 
I think there's nuance.

Certain periods in history effectively guarantee there will be a Great Man, sure. I believe the one under discussion to be such a case. But also who the person is, that influences what comes of it.

In this case, "a Sargon" with the personality of Stalin would mean very different things for the future of Mesopotamia than one with the personality of Napoleon, say, or Washington. Or Bolivar. Or a half dozen other obvious examples.

The Sargon of our timeline seems to have been Semitic. A Sumerian Sargon could cause enormous linguistic divergence from OTL.

That sort of thing.
Though one could argue that the overall ecological trend was shifting the centre of power within Mesopotamia upstream toward the area of Kish, where Semitic was most likely more widespread anyway - so the ascendance of Akkadian linguistically can be considered a quite safe long term bet regardless of Sargon (the historical one) and the likelyhood is that if a Great Man emerges as you showed he probably would, he'd be more likely to be from the region of Kish. Of course, other things probably would change significantly anyway.
 
Sumerian city states flip the initiative, and subdue Akkad with a light peace. Sumerian culture is adopted by Akkad, and a confederal kingship forms. Initially immigration was welcomed from Elamites, but the Sumerians changed to an aggressive defense against new incursions. Their borders eventually stabilized to include Subartu, Susa, and Dilman. The keys to Sumer’s existence were vigorous investment in hydraulic engineering, a well regulated militia, and the rule of law.

Increased trade from out of Mesopotamia helped stave off the Bronze Age Collapse. If the partners around the Eastern Mediterranean can dodge the inevitable plagues that come with trade networks maybe we can get an earlier growth of philosophy, science, agriculture, and industry. I'd say definitely Moon Hotels by 1999.
 
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