When lugal Ibbi-Suen from the Third Dynasty ascended the throne in the capital of the state of Sumer and Akkad, the ancient city of Ur, the New Sumerian empire, revived and exalted by the deeds of his ancestors, was going through hard times. However, no one could imagine how tragic the end would be not only of the ruling house, but of the entire Sumerian statehood.
Barbarians in the service of the empire
The son of the Sumerian king Shu-Suen, the grandson of the great Shulga named Ibbi-Suen came to power around 2028 BC. e. after the death of his father. The pompous name of the legitimate heir to the throne from the Third Dynasty of Ur meant "Chosen (by the moon god) Sin".
Even the father of the new king was forced to resort to the services of mercenaries from the Amorite nomadic tribes. When the native Syrian steppes of the Amorites turned into sun-scorched deserts, scattered tribes and clans tried to escape to the flourishing Mesopotamia. The Amorites wanted to graze their livestock and live as before, not at all intending to come under the rule of the Sumerian officials and bend their backs in agricultural and construction work. The problem was that the nomadic economy was again turning the irrigated land into arid semi-desert. Over time, the Amorites moved further and further, destroying the irrigation and drainage system - the basis of life in Mesopotamia.
Image of nomads-
Ibbi-Suen's father and uncle, fighting in the mountains to the east and on the plains of Elam, were also forced to defend the Great Fertile Crescent from the Amorite invasion. If Amar-Suen, with difficulty, but controlled all the lands from the Lower Sea to the Upper Sea (from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea), then Shu-Suen lost power over the fields from the city of Mari to modern Lebanon. In the middle reaches of the Euphrates, a 220-kilometer wall was hastily erected to protect against the Amorite tribes, and a mercenary army from the Amorites themselves conducted raids against their kinsmen. Amorite mercenaries became an important component of the Sumerian-Akkadian army, and written sources report that they held many high positions at the court of the young king.
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Barbarians invade the empire
Throughout its previous history, Sumer fought only with enemies who were controlled from a single center - it was possible to crush him and win. The strategy of war with hostile states has been worked out for centuries, and the economy, logistics and the military machine of Sumer were subject to its implementation. The Amorites did not have a single center - there were not only ten tribes, but also clans within each of them. This hydra had too many heads for a Sumerian sword to cut them off at once, and chasing individual nomadic clans was often not worth the effort.
The Amorites were moving in all possible directions at once. Many of them did not tempt fate by storming the Sumerian protective wall or trying to bypass it through the waterless deserts in the west. They acted differently: they migrated from west to east of Upper Mesopotamia, crossed the Tigris River, then the Diyala River and ended up in the east of unprotected fields. The Amorites surrounded Sumerian and Akkadian cities and towns, most of which had lost their defensive walls over the years. Further events developed according to the same scenario. Local officials sent desperate messages to the capital asking for help, but did not receive it. After that, the city authorities, cut off from the center, had to either fight with the superior forces of the nomads, or negotiate.
A carved bead dedicated to the god of the moon, King Ibbi-Suen.
Internal problems of the Sumerian state
Under Ibbi-Suen, many important government posts were occupied by the Amorites, and the old court group was removed from the distribution of wealth. At the same time, a conflict persisted between the clergy and the royal government, which placed all the temple lands under its direct control - this undermined the unity of the Sumerian-Akkadian ruling elite.
The centralized royal and temple economy sought to ensure the maximum dependence of both workers and officials, and therefore paid for work and service with food rations. Apparently, since the time of King Shulga, ordinary people have negatively assessed the fairness of the distribution of rations. It is possible that under the conditions of a change in the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates, the productivity of the tsarist economy decreased, and the traditional factor of bureaucratic abuse is not excluded. In addition, among the tsarist workers there were many captives driven from the conquered states. All these factors led to the fact that the tsarist workers and employees were not interested in maintaining the current state of affairs.
The lands that remained under the control of rural communities were poorer than those that, under one pretext or another, were transferred to the courtyard and temples. At the same time, the community members had to bear the royal duties and die in wars that did not give them anything.
The New Sumerian state rose from the ashes, fighting against foreign invaders. As long as the memory of the devastation of their native lands by the Gutians was still alive, ordinary people appreciated the efforts of the kings of the Third Dynasty to protect Mesopotamia, but by the time of Ibbi-Suen they simply had nothing to compare with. People began to think that the existing world is not worth the effort to preserve it, especially if it gives the blessings of life to only a small stratum of priests, royal servants and foreign mercenaries.
Ur under Ibbi-Suen, modern reconstruction.
Empire's "House of Cards"
The third year of Ibbi-Suen's reign was the beginning of the end - the important city of Eshnunna separated from the empire, where from the time of Shu-Suen a governor named Ituria continued to rule. After serving the kings for many years, Ituria began to rule without looking back at the central government. As in all other cases, we do not know whether he was able to fight off the Amorites on his own or went to any kind of deal with them. Why didn't Ibbi-Suen take control of Eshnunna? The fact is that the king and his army at that time suppressed the uprising of the country of Simurrum (for this, the ruler had to gather a militia from all over the country and take the mercenaries with him). Documents indicate that Ibbi-Suen pacified the rebellion, but after defeating Cimurrum, he lost Eshnunna and did not have the strength to move on to a new campaign. Soon after this, the ruler of the mountainous Elamite kingdom Simashki began a campaign against the flat lands of Elam, which were under the rule of the Sumerians. The highlanders managed to drive out the Sumerian troops from the large cities of Avan, Susa and Adamdun.
In the fifth year of the reign of Ibbi-Suen, his battered army fought against the Elamites and the Amorite allies in the lands of the ancient Sumerian nome of Lagash. Judging by the disappearance of tsarist dates in the Lagash documents, this war was lost, and Lagash came out of the power of Ibbi-Suen.
In order to get a respite and secure at least one of the possible directions of invasion, at the end of the fifth year of his reign, the Sumerian king gives off his sister named Tukin-hatituy-migrisha for the ruler of the revived city-state Zapshali.
However, diplomatic measures could no longer stop the process of disintegration of the kingdom that had begun. In the sixth year of the reign of Ibbi-Suen, connection with the city of Umma is lost. The situation is getting out of control of the governor, but the king cannot send his warriors to the Ummah due to lack of provisions, and the state warehouses in the city are plundered by local residents.
With the loss of Eshnunna, Elam, Lagash and Ummah, food for the capital's nobility and troops ceased to flow to the central warehouses of Ur. In the vicinity of the capital and the sacred city of Nippur still under royal rule, it is impossible to harvest sufficient crops to provide for the people living there. The authorities are channeling their last resources to hastily reinforce the defensive walls of Ur and Nippur. In the ninth year of the reign of Ibbi-Suen, the Amorites already rule in the vicinity of the city of Lars, which is 40 km from the capital of the dying kingdom.
Map of the state of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
Hunger and betrayal
According to archival records, in 2022 BC. e. the inhabitants of Ur and its environs began to experience an acute shortage of food. The share of the harvest due to the capital was not delivered from half of the Sumerian and Akkadian nomes, which constituted the economic and cultural core of the state of the Third Dynasty. Provisions were rapidly depleting and grain prices were rising. To remedy the situation, Ibbi-Suen dispatched a court official named Ishbi-Erra to the western regions of the kingdom, not yet affected by the Amorite invasion. Rural communities in the western lands had grain supplies, and Ishbi-Erra was tasked with purchasing it and delivering it to Ur.
The royal envoy successfully fulfilled the order of his master, purchasing about 10 million liters of barley at a price much lower than in Ur - 1 shekel (8.3 g) of silver per 1 gur (about 250 l). All the grain and the remaining silver were delivered to the town of Isin, located not far from Nippur. After that, Ishbi-Erra writes to the king a letter that has come down to us as follows:
It follows from the text of the letter that Ibbi-Suen continued his war with Elam, and therefore could not lead an expedition for grain. It is known that Ur did not wait for ships with barley, but in the seventh year of the reign of Ibbi-Suen, the cities of Isin and Nippur recognized Ishbi-Erra as their king. Ibbi-Suen could not punish the traitor himself, so he ordered the governors of the Kazalla and Girkal regions to march and capture Isin. In response, they asked to send tsarist soldiers to help them, received reinforcements, but were in no hurry to fight Ishbi-Erra. The enraged Ibbi-Suen wrote to the governor of Kazall named Puzur-Nimuda:
However, Puzur-Nimuda believed that even after receiving reinforcements, the governors were unable to cope with the power that the king himself put into the hands of the traitor:
Having captured the sacred Nippur, the traitor Ishbi-Erra received the right to the title of Lugal of the Country, that is, the supreme ruler of Sumer and Akkad. The capture of huge temple treasures was a nice "bonus". The traitor now had fertile lands untouched by the Amorite invasion, grain reserves for 15 years, and enough silver to hire and maintain his own army. Having acquired all the attributes and capabilities of a real king, Ishbi-Erra declared himself the ruler of Mesopotamia. In 2018 BC. e. he assumed the full royal title and ordered to keep chronology according to the years of his reign.
King Isina Ishbi-Erra introduces his sick daughter to the goddess Nanae (Inanna).
Recent successes and fall of the Third Dynasty
While the crafty and enterprising Ishbi-Erra was building his kingdom on the ruins of his empire, Ibbi-Suen still ruled in Ur and on the coast of the Persian Gulf. It is difficult even to appreciate the efforts that the rightful ruler made to gather forces for a counterattack in the protracted war with the Elamites. In 2022 BC. e. the Sumerian army again captured Susa, Avan and Adamdun - the captured grain flowed into Ur. The victorious Ibbi-Suen pursued the Elamite king, took him prisoner and brought him to Ur. In 2018 BC. e. The Sumerians had to fight again in Elam - this time the city of Khukhnuri was captured. Despite military victories, Ibbi-Suen did not manage to establish himself in Elam - he simply did not have the strength to leave his garrisons there.
Every year the food situation in the lands controlled by the Uru was getting worse. It is known that in the 2000s BC. e. 1 shekel of silver could buy 60 times less grain than at the beginning of the reign of Ibbi-Suen. Again, clouds thickened on the borders of the country - the new ruler of the Elamite kingdom Simashki agreed with the Amorite leaders that they would join his forces and let the army of the country Subartu pass to Ur. In 2004 BC. e. Ur fell under the blows of the Elamites, Subareans and Amorites. The ancient capital was destroyed and plundered. The Sumerian chronicle "Lament for the death of Ur" narrates:
The defeated Ibbi-Suen was captured by the Elamites and taken by them to his own country, where, most likely, he was executed. According to various sources, the last Sumerian king ruled from 23 to 25 years.
Elamite ziggurat Choga-Zanbil in the city of Dur-Untash (Iran, Khuzestan province), current state.
The Elamites could not establish their power in Mesopotamia - after six years their garrison was driven out of Ur by the Ishbi-Erra mercenaries. He claimed to restore the empire of Sumer and Akkad, but the kingdom he founded became just one of the states of a new period in the history of Mesopotamia - the so-called Amorite period.
With the fall of Ur and the death of the last Sumerian king, the political and ethnic map of Mesopotamia has radically changed. The time of the domination of the Sumerians and Akkadians passed forever, and soon they themselves disappeared among the new settlers. After the Amorites, many peoples came to these lands, and each of them, after a period of troubles, had to restore the irrigation system and establish agriculture - this was the irreplaceable knowledge accumulated by the Sumerians over the millennia. On the banks of the rivers, cities grew again, empires arose and died - a great culture outlived its creators and became the basis for the development of the next civilizations.
Maxim Ferapontov