Aliana's+Essay

__Aliana's Essay__

__**Essay By:Aliana Mandol Mentor: Marika Kungla**__

The Akkadian Empire has truly left an imprint on what we can presently call ‘great empires.’ There are many lessons to be learned from the Akkadians, but most of all we can learn from their mistakes and the theories behind what brought this great empire to its downfall. The first theory that I will tell you about is that the Akkadians were overwhelmed by a 300 year drought, which will be followed by the collapse being attributed to human factors, and finally the theory of invaders taking over. All of the theories prove that we can avoid making the mistakes that the Akkadians made, proving that: __We can benefit from the mistakes that the Akkadians made.__ The Akkadian Empire is said have been beset by a 300 year drought. ( [|http://geology. geoscienceworld.org/cgi/ content/abstract/28/4/379] )  Although the area around Akkad was fertile and grew many successful crops, in the end there was an unexpected drought that led to the possible fall of the empire. Nobody knew the reality of the situation until it hit. We can take away from this that the Earth is valuable and to try and eliminate global warming and green house gases all together, before we mess up the Earth to the point where it will not be able to turn back. The Akkadians downfall (if this was indeed the cause of their downfall) shows that we should be prepared now and take precautions to keeping our Earth healthy while we still can and save it before it’s to late. We can learn from their unfortunate setback because we see the effects of global warming already and can start to make the change before it is too late, proving that __we can benefit from the mistakes that the Akkadians made.__   Another theory for the downfall of the Akkadian Empire is that the collapse was attributed to human factors including invaders and political disintegration. ( http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/379) They may even in fact, have been the first examples of social collapse related to external or internal social factors. After the rise of the empire (Sargon’s rule) the Akkadian empire started to decline. But even though Naram-Sin put down multitudes of revolts like the "Elamite Uprising," the empire still suffered from waves of revolts that could not be prevented. We could learn from the mistakes that later rulers made by voting in strong, promising candidates into office so that we do not have political disintegration like the Akkadians, proving that __We can benefit from the mistakes that the Akkadians made.__

One of the possible reasons for Akkadia’s collapse is that invaders took over Akkad. (http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol10/number3/pdf/jwsr-v10n3-thompson.pdf) Sargon, being very successful with his empire took over many lands. Maybe Sargon went too far in taking over as much land as he could and this is the reason for the invaders and the decline of the empire. If this is so, then we can learn from this mistake. We should not try to take over land that is not ours (especially with nuclear weapons in today’s world), proving that __We can benefit from the mistakes that the Akkadians made.__ The Akkadian being the first empire taught us many important things about ruling empires. But in my opinion, the most important thing that they have taught us is to not follow in their footsteps when it came to the decline of the empire. This proves that __we can benefit from the mistakes that the Akkadians made.__



