The First Empire-Builders | Bronze Age Documentary
Channel: Empire-Builders
Date: 2024-02-04

The rise & fall of the Akkadians: history's first empire-builders. Their full story takes us all the way back to Bronze Age Mesopotamia, where the Sumerians invented cities, writing, and civilization.

Chapters:
0:00 - Chapter I: Birth of Civilization
21:53 - Chapter II: Birth of Sargon of Akkad
48:44 - Chapter III: Life in the Akkadian Empire
1:14:37 - Chapter IV: The Fall of the Akkadian Empire

Sources & further reading:
The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber & David Wengrow)
Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City (Gwendolyn Leick)
A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC (Marc Van de Mieroop)
Ancient Iraq: Third Edition (Georges Roux)
Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (A. Leo Oppenheim)
Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Stephanie Dalley)
Pre-Sargonic Period: Early Periods, Volume 1 (2700-2350 BC) (Douglas R. Frayne)
The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia (Benjamin R. Foster)
Akkad, the first world empire: structure, ideology, traditions (Mario Liverani)

Footage/Tracks used:
Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964)
War Gods of Babylon (1962)
Troy (2004)
Sodom and Gomorrah (1962)
The Revolt of the Slaves (1960)
The Slave (1962)