Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are turning
back the clock. And I don't mean to the 80s or
the Victorian era. We were going way, way back.
Way, way back. We're talking about a figure who
is, and this isn't an exaggeration, literally
the prototype for every conqueror, every emperor
who came after him. I mean, if you think about
human history as a series of operating systems,
this guy is version 1 .0 of the concept of empire.
That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. It's
a fundamental paradigm shift in, you know, how
human beings organize themselves. Right. Before
this point, you had city -states. You had powerful
cities. Sure, Uruk, Ur, Kish. But they were generally
self -contained bubbles. They stayed in their
own lane, so to speak. Exactly. They might fight
over a border or, you know, a water right, but
that was about it. Then this man comes along.
And suddenly the whole map changes. You have
a central government controlling a massive multi
-ethnic territory. And we are talking about Sargon
of Akkad, Sargon the Great. The stack of research
we have on him is just fascinating because it's
this mix of, you know, hard archaeological evidence.
Like actual cuneiform inscriptions. Yeah, actual
stone tablets and these incredible myths that
were written down centuries later. But here's
the hook that really got me. Sargon is often
identified as the first person in recorded history
to rule over an empire. The first emperor. Right.
But there is a massive mystery right at the center
of his story. There is. And it's a paradox that,
I mean, it still frustrates archaeologists to
this day. Sargon is the king of Akkad. Akkad
was his capital, the center of this new universe.
He claimed to rule. The capital of the world.
The capital of his world, for sure. We have texts
describing ships docking there from distant lands.
We have tributes flowing into it. We have administrative
records. But to this day, the city of Akkad has
never been archaeologically identified. You're
kidding. No, we literally do not know where the
most important city of the 24th century B .C.
was located. That's wild. It's like knowing all
about George Washington, but not being able to
find Washington, D .C. It's very much like that.
It's a huge blank spot on the map. So our mission
today is to unpack this legend. We're going to
look at how a man of, well, supposedly humble
origins, the son of a gardener, rose up to become
the king of the universe, founded a dynasty that
lasted a century, and became the legendary figure
that Mesopotamian kings modeled themselves after
for 2 ,000 years. And to do that... were drawing
from a really diverse set of sources. We have
his own historical inscriptions, or at least,
you know, later copies of them. We have the Sumerian
king list, later Babylonian chronicles, and even
these legendary texts found in the library of
Ashurbanipal that read more like literature than
straight history. Okay, so let's start at the
very beginning. Let's talk about the name Sargon.
It just sounds strong, doesn't it? It sounds
like a conqueror. But when you translate it,
it feels like he's trying to tell us something
specific. Or maybe convince us of something.
The name Sargon is actually the biblical or Hebrew
form. The original Akkadian is Aruukin. Okay.
Or Arukan. And if we break that down, Sharu means
king, and the second part, kinum or yukin, means
to confirm or to establish or to be true. So,
the king is true. Effectively, yes. The king
is established or the legitimate king. The legitimate
king. Okay, let's unpack that. Because if you
have to walk around calling yourself the legitimate
king, doesn't that sort of imply that maybe you
aren't? Precisely. It is the classic irony of
the usurper. Right. A king who inherits the throne
by blood, he usually has a name that honors a
god or an ancestor. But a man who takes the throne
by force, he needs a regnal name that serves
as propaganda. Ah. So it's a title he gives himself.
It's his brand. He's asserting his legitimacy
every single time someone says his name. It's
a constant reminder to his subjects, I am supposed
to be here. It's like a politician's slogan,
but it's his actual name. Exactly. And it's worth
noting that etymological connection, the name
Sargon, appears once in the Bible. in Isaiah
20 .1. That reference is actually to the much
later Assyrian king, Sargon II, who took the
name in honor of our guy, Sargon of Akkad. But
the root is the same. It's about established,
unquestionable authority. So he's got the propaganda
name. But what about his backstory? Because the
sources we have paint a picture that sounds...
I don't know, suspiciously familiar to anyone
who knows their Sunday school stories or Greek
mythology. This is where we get into the Sargon
birth legend. Okay. And we have to be careful
with the timeline here. This specific text is
Neo -Assyrian from the 7th century BC. So long
after he lived. Very long after. But it purports
to be his autobiography. It starts with Sargon
saying, quote, My mother was a high priestess.
My father I knew not. A high priestess mother
and an unknown father. That's already a bit scandalous
for the time. It is. The text says she bore him
in secret. And because she couldn't keep him,
perhaps because of her vows as a priestess, she
placed him in a basket of rushes, sealed the
lid with batumen to make it water -truth, and
cast him into the river. Okay, stop right there.
Basket of rushes. Sealed with batumen. Floating
down the river. That is literally the story of
Moses. I mean, word for word. It is strikingly
similar. And scholars have pointed this out for
over a century. It's a recurring motif in ancient
literature, a trope that we call the infant birth
exposure. It's a trope. A very common one. You
see it with Moses, obviously. You see it with
the Indian hero Karna and the Mahabharata. You
see it with Oedipus and Greek myth. The child
of special destiny is abandoned to the elements,
usually water, and is rescued by someone of humble
status. So it's a standard hero's journey opening
scene. Essentially, yes. It solves a narrative
problem for a self -made king. It gives him a
mysterious, possibly divine origin, but it also
explains why he grew up among the common people.
So who finds him in this story? In Sargon's case,
he's fished out of the river by a man named Aki.
The text calls him a drawer of water. Like an
irrigator or someone who carries water? Probably.
So Aki takes the baby in, raises him as his own
son, and eventually appoints him as his gardener.
So the future king of the universe starts out
pruning hedges and watering plants. Exactly.
Yeah. But this is part of the mystique. He isn't
born into the palace with a silver spoon. He
works the land. He's one of the people. And the
legend says that while he was a gardener, the
goddess Ishtar granted him her love. Ishtar is
the goddess of love and war. Right. That's a
powerful ally to have. The most powerful. Yeah.
That divine favor. is the spark that launches
his career. It tells the people, I wasn't chosen
by the old corrupt kings. I was chosen by the
goddess herself while I was working in the dirt.
It's a powerful narrative. I love that. But,
okay, let's look at the Sumerian kingless and
the Sumerian Sargon legend because that gives
us a slightly more political stepping stone.
It says he wasn't just a gardener forever. He
became the cupbearer to Urzababa, the king of
Kish. Right. And we really need to clarify the
role of a cupbearer. It sounds like a waiter.
It does. Can you get me a refill? But in the
ancient Near East, it was a position of immense
trust. You were the last line of defense against
poison. Oh, of course. You stood right next to
the king during feasts and councils. You heard
everything. You had the king's ear. It's more
like being the chief of staff or maybe the head
of the secret service. So he's in the inner circle.
He's in the room where it happens. But the relationship
between Sargon and his boss, Urzababa, gets...
Complicated. Very complicated. The text describes
a kind of psychological drama. It starts when
Sargon has a dream. Okay. In this dream, the
goddess Inanna, who is the Sumerian counterpart
to the Akkadian Ishtar, is drowning King Urzababa
in a river of blood. Subtle. Not at all. And
Sargon, perhaps as a bit of a power move or maybe
out of genuine fear, tells the king about this
dream. I can't imagine that went over well. No.
Naturally, Urzababa is terrified. He sees this
as a clear omen that his cupbearer, this guy
standing next to him every day, is going to overthrow
him. So what does he do? He hatches a plot. He
tries to have Sargon killed by the chief smith,
a man named Belistigal. But Inanna, his divine
protector, is watching out for him. So the assassination
fails. It fails. So Urzababa, now getting desperate,
tries a different tactic. This is another classic
literary trope that scholars call the Uriah Letter.
which you see in the Bible with King David or
the Greek story of Bellerophon. How does that
one work? The king sends Sargon on a mission.
He's to deliver a clay tablet to another king,
a very powerful one named Lugolzadze of Uruk.
But the message inscribed on the tablet says,
effectively, kill the bearer of this message.
That is cold. Here, carry your own death warrant.
It's the ultimate test of loyalty and a trap.
The text actually breaks off there, but well,
history tells us the answer. Sargon obviously
survives. He not only survives the trap, but
he eventually challenges Lugolzadzhi directly.
And this is the pivotal moment. Lugolzadzhi wasn't
just some minor player. Not at all. He was a
powerhouse. He had already conquered much of
Sumer and unified several city -states under
his rule. He was the big boss of the entire region.
So this is the heavyweight title fight. Sargon
versus Lugalzadzi, the upstart versus the establishment.
And Sargon doesn't just win. He humiliates him.
The inscriptions are absolutely brutal. Sargon
claims he brought Lugalzadzi in a collar to the
gate of Enlil. He put him in a dog collar. Essentially
a neck stock. He dragged the former most powerful
man in Sumer to the holy gate of the chief god
Enlil in the city of Nippur. Wow. This was incredibly
symbolic. Enlil was the god who granted kingship.
By dragging the defeated king to Enlil's gate,
Sargon was making a very public statement. The
gods have rejected him. I am the new order. And
then he goes on a demolition spree. He does.
He tears down the great defensive walls of Uruk,
Ur, and Enimar. Why tear down the walls? Is that
just to show off your strength? It's strategic.
It's more than just showing off. In a world of
city -states, The wall is your independence.
It's what allows you to say no to your neighbor.
By tearing down the wall, Sargon renders these
cities completely defenseless. They can no longer
resist him. Exactly. They're now totally dependent
on his central authority for protection. He's
fundamentally changing the power dynamic. And
then he does something that I think is one of
the most cinematic moments in ancient history.
He marches his army. All the way south. All the
way to the Persian Gulf. Which they called the
lower sea. Yes, the lower sea. And then the inscription
says he washed his weapons in the sea. That image
just stays with you. It's like, I have run out
of land to conquer. I'm washing the blood off
in the ocean because I own everything from the
north all the way to the water. That is exactly
the message. He conquered the entire territory
from Lagash to the coast. But he didn't stop
there. This is where the concept of empire really
takes shape. He didn't just want Sumer, the traditional
heartland. He wanted what the texts call the
Four Quarters. The Four Quarters. That sounds
like he's trying to encompass the entire compass.
What does that actually cover in geographical
terms? He claimed dominion from the Upper Sea,
which is the Mediterranean, all the way to the
Lower Sea, the Persian Gulf. He pushed north
into Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant. The inscription
has mentioned specific places like Mori, Yermudi.
and Ebla. And Ebla is way up in modern -day Syria.
That's a huge distance. It's a massive territory.
He pushed as far as the Cedar Forest, which is
likely the Amanis Mountains in what's now Lebanon,
and the Silver Mountain, which might be the Taurus
Mountains in Turkey. Why go that far? Was it
just ego wanting more land? It was economics,
pure and simple. Mesopotamia, Sumer especially,
is rich in mud and grain, but it has almost no
timber and no metal. So you can't build big temples
or forge good weapons. Exactly. To build a monumental
empire, you need cedar for roofs and ships, and
you need silver and copper for weapons and tools
and trade. He wasn't just raiding. He was securing
the supply chain. He was seizing the source of
the materials. And he went east too, right? Into
the area of modern -day Iran. He did. He campaigned
against Elam and Marhashi. These were tough,
mountainous regions that had always been a threat
to the Mesopotamian plains. He even lists the
leaders he defeated, guys with names like Lutwishin
of Elam and Sidgau of Parashum. He styled himself
king of the world and conqueror of Elam. I mean,
the man was fighting on multiple fronts and winning
everywhere. So he's conquered the world, or at
least the world as they knew it. But conquering
is one thing, keeping it as another. How did
he actually run this massive, multi -ethnic,
multilingual territory? You can't just be everywhere
at once. And this is where Sargon really innovates.
You see, you can't run an empire with a temporary
militia of farmers who need to go home for the
harvest. No, the rebellion starts the minute
you turn your back. Right. You need professionals.
The texts give us this one fascinating, very
specific detail. Sargon had a court. or standing
army of 5 ,400 men who ate bread daily before
him. 5 ,400 men eating dinner with the boss every
single night. That's a lot of bread. It's a huge
logistical operation, but it implies they were
fully supported by the state. This is a standing
army, a professionalized military force, loyal
to him personally, always ready to deploy. That's
a massive innovation. It was a massive innovation
for the time. It allowed him to project power
instantly. anywhere in the empire, to crush revolts
before they could even get started. And that
kind of stability must have been great for business.
It was fantastic for business. Once the region
is pacified, trade can flourish. We have records
of ships docking at his capital, Akkad, from
very distant lands. From Dilmun, which we're
pretty sure is modern Bahrain. from Magan, which
is likely Oman famous for its copper, and from
Malooja. And Malooja is the Indus Valley civilization,
right, in modern Pakistan and India. That's the
scholarly consensus, yes. So you have goods,
raw materials, flowing from the Indus Valley
all the way to Akkad in central Mesopotamia.
It was an early form of globalization, all secured
by Sargon's military dominance. Which brings
us back to that mystery city. Akkad. Akkad. We
know he had ship stocking there. We know he had
5 ,400 soldiers eating there. But we still don't
know where it is. Do we have any idea if he built
it from scratch? Well, that's a subject to debate
among scholars. Some later texts, like the Widener
Chronicle, say he built Babylon in front of Akkad
or made a counterpart of Babylon next to a god.
This kind of suggests he was the founder. But
there was a discovery, an inscription dated to
the first year of a king named Mishakushana,
who almost certainly ruled before Sargon. And
this inscription mentions Akkad. So the city,
or at least the place, might have existed before
Sargon and he just moved in and renovated. It's
very possible. He could have seized a minor town
that was strategically located and then expanded
it into his grand imperial capital. But because
we haven't found the site, we can't see the layers
of occupation to know for sure. It remains one
of archaeology's great holy grails. Man, imagine
finding that. It would be the discovery of the
century. Now let's talk about the dynasty. He
didn't just rule alone. He set up a family business.
He absolutely did. We know his wife's name, Queen
Teshiltim. But the real star of the family, arguably,
is his daughter. And Hedwana. And Hedwana, yes.
You cannot tell the story of Sargon without her.
He appointed her as the high priestess of the
moon god, Nana, in the city of Ur. And this wasn't
just a ceremonial role, was it? This was a power
move. A brilliant political move. Ur was a very
old, very powerful, and very proud conquered
Sumerian city. Placing his Akkadian daughter
as the highest religious authority, there was
a way to fuse the Sumerian religious tradition
with his new Akkadian political power. But Enheduanna
is famous for another, even more incredible reason.
She is the first named author in history. The
first one we know by name, male or female, she's
the first person to sign her work. Correct. We
have her name. She composed these beautiful,
complex ritual hymns, like the Exaltation of
Inanna, that were so powerful they were copied
and used in temples for centuries after her death.
She's a major literary figure. She helped unify
the theology of the empire by, for instance,
blending the Sumerian goddess Inanna with the
Akkadian goddess Ishtar into one coherent figure.
That's amazing. So the father conquers the bodies,
the daughter conquers the minds and souls. a
very effective one -two punch for building an
empire. And the dynasty continued. Sargon was
succeeded by his son Rimush, then his other son
Manistushu, and then came his grandson, Naram
-Sin, who ruled the empire at its absolute height
of power and glory. I want to touch on one technical
thing that I found really interesting in the
notes. The way they tracked time back then. They
didn't use numbers like the year 2330 BC. No,
they used year names. each year was named after
the most significant event that happened. So
you'd have the year in which Sargon went to Samurim.
Or the year in which Mari was destroyed. It's
like checking the news headlines to figure out
what year it is. Oh, is it the year we destroyed
Elam? No, no, that was last year. This is the
year we fixed the big canal. Precisely. And interestingly...
For Sargon's incredibly long reign, we only have
four specific year names that have been preserved.
And they mostly relate to his military campaigns
against Elamare and Samarim. So we've got the
rise, the conquest, the administration, but no
empire lasts forever. And Sargon's later years,
well, they weren't exactly a peaceful retirement,
were they? Not at all. The Chronicle of Early
Kings, which is a later Babylonian text, paints
a really chaotic picture of his twilight years.
It states that in his old age, All the lands
revolted against him, and they besieged him in
Akkad. Wow. They brought the fight right to his
doorstep. After all that, they tried to trap
him in his own capital. They did. But Sargon
was still Sargon. The text says he went onward
to battle, broke the siege, and completely crushed
the rebellion. He destroyed their widespread
host. He wasn't going to go down quietly. But
there's a darker turn in the text, right? A sense
that maybe he crossed a line, that he got too
arrogant. This brings us to the classic theme
of hubris. Later chronicles, written by Babylonians,
attribute his troubles and the eventual fall
of his dynasty to a specific sin he committed.
What did he do? The text says Sargon dug up the
soil of the pit of Babylon to build his own city.
He stole dirt from Babylon. I don't get it. Why
is that such a big deal? Well, the implication
is that he removed soil from the trenches or
the sacred foundations of Babylon to create a
counterpart. A new Babylon in Akkad. He was trying
to physically and maybe magically appropriate
the sacred power of Babylon, an ancient and holy
city, for his own upstart capital. And the god
of Babylon, Marduk, was not happy about this.
Not happy at all. The Chronicle says that because
of this evil which he had committed, the great
god Marduk became angry. And you don't want to
make Marduk angry. Definitely not. The Chronicle
says Marduk destroyed Sargon's people with a
great famine. It says, quote, From the rising
of the sun unto the setting of the sun, they
opposed him and gave him no rest. It suggests
a kind of spiritual rot at the core of the empire
because the king disrespected the traditional
gods in their holy places. It's so interesting
how history gets written by the victors, or at
least by the survivors. Why is there a famine?
Well, remember when the king stole that dirt
10 years ago? That's why. That's how the ancient
mind made sense of causality. It was a theological
explanation for political and environmental disaster.
If the king loses the mandate of heaven, nature
itself rebels against him. Despite the famine
and the revolts, the memory of Sargon didn't
fade away. If anything, it got stronger over
time. He became the model king. For 2 ,000 years,
Assyrian and Babylonian kings saw him as the
ultimate ancestor. If you were a king in Mesopotamia,
you wanted to be the next Sargon. We even have
a Neo -Assyrian text where Sargon speaks in the
first person as if from the grave, challenging
future kings. What does he say? He says, let
him rule. The black -headed people. Let him ascend
the upper mountains. It's a challenge. I did
all this, can you? And one king, Nabonidus, took
that really literally. He was actually doing
archaeology, wasn't he? He was. In the 6th century
BC, that's nearly 2 ,000 years after Sargon lived,
the Neo -Babylonian king Nabonidus conducted
excavations specifically to find Sargon's palaces.
He wanted to physically connect himself to that
ancient legacy. It's wild to think of an ancient
king acting as an archaeologist for an even more
ancient king. And Sargon's influence might even
stretch into the Bible. There are scholarly suggestions,
yeah, that the biblical figure of Nimrod might
be inspired by Sargon or perhaps his grandson
Naram -Sin. Nimrod, the mighty hunter before
the Lord. Exactly. He's described as a unifier
of Babylonia, a great builder of cities. The
geographic scope and the legendary status certainly
fit the Sargon archetype. And the legend hasn't
stopped. We see Sargon popping up in pop culture
in some really random places. It's a very eclectic
list. For instance, you have the movie The Scorpion
King, Rise of a Warrior, where Sargon is the
main villain, and he's played by Randy Couture.
The UFC fighter. The very same. He's portrayed
as a villain who wields black magic, historically
accurate, not in the slightest, but it shows
the name still carries this immense weight of
power and conquest. And Star Trek. I couldn't
believe this one. Star Trek, the original series.
There's an episode called Return to Tomorrow
featuring a powerful telepathic alien entity
named Sargon who once ruled a mighty empire millions
of years ago. The writers clearly just grabbed
the name to signify ancient ultimate power. I
also saw that the band They Might Be Giants has
a song called The Mesopotamians. They do. And
they mention Sargon along with Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal,
and Gilgamesh. It's a very catchy way to learn
your ancient history, actually. And for the gamers
out there, he's in Age of Empires II. Yes, in
the Return of Rome expansion pack. You can play
a whole campaign as Sargon of Akkad. It's actually
a pretty decent way to visualize the geography.
of his conquests. And just to be thorough with
our sources, because it comes up, the name Sargon
of Akkad also appears in modern Internet culture.
It was adopted as a pseudonym by Carl Benjamin,
a British political commentator and YouTuber.
Right. And it's just another example that shows
that the name itself, Sargon, has become a brand
of its own, almost separate from the historical
man. It's become a symbol. It is detached from
the history and become a symbol of authority,
antiquity and sometimes just raw world changing
power. So let's bring it all home. What does
this all mean? We started with a gardener and
a basket, and we ended with the king of the universe.
Sargon represents the transition from the local
to the imperial. He set the template. Before
him, you fought for your city. After him, kings
fought for the world. He established the bureaucracy,
the standing army, the dynastic succession, all
the tools that would define the ancient Near
East for the next 15 centuries. He proved that
a central government could control a vast, multi
-ethnic territory. He created the rules of a
game that empires have been playing ever since.
But I have to say, I can't stop thinking about
that Soil of Babylon story. It's the most provocative
detail in the whole legend, isn't it? Yeah. Why
did he do it? The Chronicle says he dug up the
soil of the pit of Babylon to make a counterpart
in a cod. Was it an attempt to, I don't know,
magically transfer the power of an older holy
site to his new capital? Was he trying to clone
the holiness of Babylon? Or was it, as the Babylonian
priests later claimed, just an act of supreme
arrogance? We'll never know for sure. It just
suggests that even the king of the universe couldn't
escape the judgment of history or the gods. You
can conquer the entire world. You can wash your
weapons in the sea. But if you mess with the
wrong Bert, history might just turn against you.
A lesson for emperors of all ages. That's it
for this deep dive into the world's first emperor.
Thanks for listening and we'll catch you on the
next one.