During Naram-Sin’s reign he became known by the title “King of the Four Corners of the Earth” making him the first ruler in history to take such a title.1 This identification could present a strong argument for Nimrod who was similarly a unifier of the earth in his days, and if Naram-Sin was the first king with that title he probably is the closest thing to a Nimrod we have seen thus far.
Due to the shaky foundation upon which Sargon built the empire, Naram-Sin is faced with the so called “Great Revolt” which sees a number of city-states revolting against his reign: Kish, Nippur, Kutha, Sippar, Uruk, Subartu, Ebla, Elam and so forth.2 Reportedly he ventured as far as Magan to assert this authority where he “marched against Magan and personally caught Mandannu, its king” implying he actually physically took the journey to the far corner of Arabia where he leaves garrisons to protect the trade roads out of Magan.
On the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin we learn of another campaign against his rival Lullubi led by a king Satuni. This campaign was not an ordinary campaign and there seemed to be some extremely bad blood between the two enemies. Depicted on the stele we actually see Naram-Sin in godlike attire, a notable horned helmet and the face of a lion, or bull which to Mesopotamia viewers was an obvious nod to his deification and status as a god. There are those that suggest the stele contains the first depiction of a battle standard as well as the first instance of plate armor, although it is highly probable these developments had predated their actual inclusion in art.3
The stele clearly depicts some quite gruesome imagery with Naram-Sin mercilessly stepping on top of a mound of corpses, while some even plead for their life only to be struck down. We also see Naram-Sin kicking a body off the side of a mountain, with him stabbing another directly in the neck with a spear, certainly a memory that would have a lasting effect on the local populace. Also settled in the Zagros mountains near the Lullubi were the later ascendant Gutians who potentially as a result of their memory of Akkad made the decisive blow to wipe out their empire.
Naram-Sin even undertook campaigns far into Anatolia, and Cilicia4, where Hittite sources claim he battled Hittite and Hurrian kings Pamba of Hatti, Zipani of Kanesh, and 15 other kings showing his complete decimation of anyone willing to oppose his rule.
Separate fragments of a different alabaster stele showing captives being led by Akkadian soldiers is considered considerably artistically advanced of the his predecessors Sargon, Rimush, and Manishtushu conveying not just a violent military leader but also one concerned with technological development.5 He advanced the usage of cuneiform, executed numerous building projects such as a major renovation of the Ekur, and oversaw what was a modestly prosperous reign due to his management of the agricultural land through a new series of weights and measures instituted by his Shaperum (Steward of the Court) and managed by Ensis. Tablets were even required to leave enough room for auditors to make their own changes to them, showing what was effectively quite a controlled economy compared to decades of the past.
An important reaction to the aftermath of Naram-Sin’s campaigns was his own deification, as well as the posthumous deification of Sargon and father Manishtushu - but not uncle Rimush.6 This deification process would serve as the critical link for the biblical perspective on Naram-Sin as a “sinful” ruler who led the “four corners of the earth” to idolatry through worshiping living men. Many of Naram-Sin’s children actually were priestesses, with one of his daughters named Tuṭṭanabšum, high priestess of Enlil at Nippur7 - the most important religious position in the empire - being deified herself as the only female and non-king of such importance.8
Previous eras saw rulers like Gilgamesh become divine gods after their death, but Akkadian kings from Naram-Sin onward, we often considered literal gods in their lifetimes similar to how we envision the Pharaohs. An important context for this is the enlargement of their physical stature on many portraits depicting them as more than mere mortal, and greater than their retainers.9 This is very much like the belief earlier rulers were “giants”, and might actually place the era of Sargon and his dynasty in the period of the Nephilim!
Much of the mysterious nature of the important Akkadian empire stems from their treatment across much of the near eastern world. The Sumerians obviously hated the Akkadians by this point due to the numerous genocidal campaigns undertaken by the Sargonids, even by ancient standards. The Elamites, already unwilling to let any outsiders rule them for very long, were not happy, nor their neighbors in the Zagros such as the Lullubi and Gutians. Despite the far off ascendancy of the Hittites, the memory of Akkad clearly even lasts into their times showing how pissed off everyone really was at either Sargon, or Naram-Sin.
Much of this legacy stems from a single myth called “The Curse of Akkad: The Ekur Avenged” where we are told of the empire of Sargon, and how it eventually fell causing the city of Akkad to be destroyed. It is a later poem attempting to explain the Gutian conquest of Akkad rather than a contemporary document, but does serve to explain the perspective of their neighbors toward Akkad and probably why Akkad as a city was completely lost geographically. According to the poem, Naram-Sin actually angers the chief god Enlil by plundering the Ekur of Nippur which we have extensively mentioned as a home of the gods, and possible origin for Sumerian ancestral deities and human figures. In reaction to this, Enlil brings down the Gutians from their hills east of the Tigirs causing plague, famine, and death throughout Mesopotamia due to the inflation of food prices. The poem even states one lamb would only buy half a sila (about 425 ml or 14.4 US fl oz) of grain and of oil, and half a mina (about 250 g or 8.8 oz) of wool.10 A coalition of eight gods (Inanna, Enki, Sin, Ninurta, Utu, Ishkur, Nusku, Nidaba) decide that the city of Akkad must be destroyed in order to spare the rest of Sumeria, and place a curse upon the city not unlike the events later at Sodom and Gomorrah under Amraphel.
While the story doesn’t accurately record the events, it does again show the treatment of Naram-Sin and the Sargonic dynasty as a series of evil rulers in the eyes of nearly the entire Mesopotamian world. If the Torah had a Nimrod figure, then Naram-Sin certainly fits the bill of a stereotypically genocidal maniac tyrant.
Very little is known about Shar-Kali-Sharri, son of Naram-Sin, but based on the dingir at the start of his name indicating deification, it appears he was also a ‘god-king’.11 Interesting is that previous rulers would install their children as governors of important cities, but we don’t seem to have any mention of this for Shar-Kali-Sharri. Perhaps there was some issue in his ability to have children, or the proper heirs died to early, but it appears the lack of resistance to his reign might indicate many other nations saw the coming end of the empire and didn’t feel the need to assert their power against an already waning Shar-Kali-Sharri. This lack of heir and political weakness might have been the ultimate trigger in the period of the four kings in quick succession that followed his reign.12 With no legitimate son, Shar-Kali-Sharri and the Sargonic dynasty imploded.
The Sumerian King Lists next states “Then who was king? Who was not the king? Igigi, Imi, Nanum, Ilulu: four of them ruled for only 3 years.” There is no evidence for this period at all in the historical record, but it appears the downfall of Akkad had begun as a result of lacking an apparent heir. Eventually the empire was secured by Dudu for a quite long period of 21 years, followed again by his son Shu-turul for another 15 before falling to the Gutian dynasty. Interesting about both of these rulers, unlike their predecessors they are never actually deified, potentially realizing this was a mistake.13
Stiebing, H. William Jr. (2009). Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture. Pearson Longman. p. 74.
Steve Tinney, A New Look at Naram-Sin and the "Great Rebellion", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 47, pp. 1-14, 1995
Van Dijk, Renate Marian, "The standards on the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin", Journal for Semitics 25.1, pp. 33-50, 2016
McKeon, John F. X. (1970). "An Akkadian Victory Stele". Boston Museum Bulletin. 68 (354): 226–243.
Ibid.
William W. Hallo, "Royal Titles from the Mesopotamian Periphery", Anatolian Studies 30, pp. 89–19, 1980
Michalowski, Piotr, "Tudanapšum, Naram-Sin and Nippur", Revue d’Assyriologie et d’archéologie Orientale, vol. 75, no. 2, pp. 173–76, 1981
Kraus, Nicholas Larry, "Tuṭṭanabšum: Princess, Priestess, Goddess", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 85-99, 2020
Leick, Gwendolyn (2001) "Mesopotamia: Invention of the City"
Samuel Noah Kramer (2010-09-17). The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-45238-8.
Steinkeller, Piotr, "The Divine Rulers of Akkade and Ur: Toward a Definition of the Deification of Kings in Babylonia", History, Texts and Art in Early Babylonia: Three Essays, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 107-157, 2017
Kraus, Nicholas, "The Weapon of Blood: Politics and Intrigue at the Decline of Akkad", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 108, no. 1, pp. 1-9, 2018
Steinkeller, Piotr, "The Divine Rulers of Akkade and Ur: Toward a Definition of the Deification of Kings in Babylonia", History, Texts and Art in Early Babylonia: Three Essays, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 107-157, 2017
Very comprehensive.