Fantastic Metropolis

This places a new spin on the idea of the Indus Civilization and its collapse, because just as Sargon I was reaching the heights of his power the traders of Harappa and Mohenjodaro were doing a brisk business with Ur and Memphis: it would have been difficult for him to not have known about them. Inasmuch as Sargon’s empire lasted until a few decades after the death of his grandson Naramsim, and sought to expand (empires are inherently expansionist) it is likely it came into conflict with the Indics. Meanwhile, Sargon spread his native Semitic dialect throughout the region, giving it a status as a “trade tongue” and explaining why it would benefit any conqueror of the region to come after him to practice Semitic dialogue as the language of a new empire: everyone already spoke it. It’s possible to imagine that the growth of Sargon’s empire could well have caused tension for its neighbors to the east, a tension that may even have come out in military conflicts (causing the sudden rise in Harappa and Mohenjodaro of beautifully-crafted weapons), which helped create a culture of panicked militarism among some of the elite of the Indus Civilization. This would be interesting enough if Sargon’s dynasty ended with the fall of his empire and his region to a wave of counter-invasion about 500 years after his death… but it most certainly did not.

Sargon II (Sharru-Kin the Assyrian) also attempted to reconstruct an earler dynasty (that of Sargon of Agade, founder of the Akkadian kingdom of 2300 BCE) by personifying himself as Sargon returned, and constructing a vast new city called Dur-Sharrukin. Sargon constructed the city in a ten-year span, with lavish threats of death for those who worked on it if they failed to construct it in time… and barely lived a year past finishing it. Sargon II took the throne of Assyria in 722 BCE or thereabouts. Very clearly, despite his claims, he was not of the line of the first, by then legendary Sargon, yet by his accomplishments it’s not hard to understand why many came to see him as a second Sargon the Empire-Builder: taking up after the previous dynasty of Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V, the latter of which he deposed, Sargon moved on to conquer Israel and Urartu, overwhelmed Marduk-apal-iddina in Babylon (a Chaldean) after years of total war, overwhelmed the Elamites in turn, conquered the Haldians, and fathered a dynasty that was continued by his son Sennacherib (the infamous Biblical figure). It’s the construction of Dun-Sharrukin that’s the most interesting to me, however. Much of the military and national power of the new Assyria (a nation that, like the Setite kings of Egypt, would often declare victory when it had at best achieved a tie, as in the case of declaring Rusash I of the Haldians dead when the man was in fact still alive) was sunk into Dun-Sharrukin and yet, within a year of Sargon II’s death, the city was quite deserted… much as the Egyptian king Amenhotep IV, who named himself Akhenaton, built himself a grand new city that would soon be deserted after his death. Akhenaton moved his capital from Thebes to Akhenaton, known today as Amarna and just as Sennacherib abandoned Sargon II’s manufactured city, so too did Tutankhamen after his father’s death. Why do I even mention this?

Because it’s interesting to consider that the Semitic-speaking king Sargon I would not only have a successor who would name himself Sargon and attempt to emulate his works, but he would also have a successor named Moses, who would share the same origin with him.