The Akkadian state (c. 2350-2100 BCE) and its dynastic rulers, especially Sargon and Naram-Sin, occupied a critical place in later Mesopotamian historical memory. Remembered on the one hand for being the first dynasty to unify the disparate city-states of southern Mesopotamia and on the other hand for its collapse due to the heretical actions of Naram-Sin, the state of Akkad loomed large in later Mesopotamian legends extending over 1500 years. Why and how did this happen? This talk suggests that the immediately subsequent political state, known today as the Third Dynasty of Ur (or Ur III, c. 2100-2000 BCE), under its founding ruler Ur-Namma and his son Shulgi, shaped the legacy of the Akkadian state through two distinct, but complementary and intertwined means: the destruction and rebuilding of major sacred structures, and the curation and display of older Akkadian state monuments.

Contravening the long-standing Mesopotamian tradition of using an older structure as the foundation for a new one, Ur-Namma and Shulgi constructed massive new ziggurat precincts on deep, newly excavated foundations that destroyed earlier architecture. Yet within the courtyards of these new precincts, they assembled statues of their Akkadian predecessors for display and copying purposes. Considering how architectural space shapes collective belonging in ways that are felt by the human body in contrast to representational and inscribed sculpture that demands attention and discursive reading, this talk argues that the Ur III rulers engaged selectively in these practices of forgetting (the prior Akkadian sacred architecture) and remembering (the curated heroic statues of Akkadian rulers) in order to establish their own place in Mesopotamian history, ultimately shaping the legacy of Akkad to this day.

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