essay
The genesis and collapse of the Akkadian empire: the accidental refraction of historical law
akkad : the first world empire : structure, ideology, traditions • 5 • Published In 1993 • Pages: 131-155
By: Weiss, Harvey, Courty, M. A. (Marie-Agnès).
Abstract
A new model of the Akkadian empire results from recent archaeological fieldwork on the Habur Plains. This model situates the Akkadian empire at the end of a lengthy period of southern Mesopotamian state economy, evolution, and experimentation. Based on new archaeological data from Habur Plains, the authors describe how the introduction of a dry-farming method by the Akadian imperial government in the northern agricultural region in an attempt to increase production eventually failed because of a region-wide abrupt climatic change which severely disrupted agriculture, settlement, and politic-economic systems from southeast Europe to the Indus Valley. In this article Weiss and Courty describe in detail the effects of this environmental change on the lives of the people of the region.
- HRAF PubDate
- 2009
- Region
- Middle East
- Sub Region
- Middle East
- Document Type
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Archaeologist
- Document Rating
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- Analyst
- John Beierle; 2008
- Field Date
- no date
- Coverage Date
- 4334-4113 BP (2334-2113 BC)
- Coverage Place
- Akkadian Period, Mesopotamia: Current countries are Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran
- Notes
- Harvey Weiss and Marie-Agnès Courty
- Proceedings of the Conference 'Akkad. Il primo impero universale: strutture, ideologia, tradizioni' held at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza' on December 5th to 7th, 1990
- LCCN
- 95100216
- LCSH
- Akkadians/Iraq History To 634