Sumer to 2040 BC

Sargon’s empire was strong and powerful, but no human kingdom lasts forever. Around 2274 BC, Gutians invaded from the Zagros Mountains to the East. The Gutians shared a language with the Akkadians but not a culture. Unlike many of the other conquerors before them, they had no desire to replace the Akkadian culture with their own, they simply wanted to destroy. They were barbarians in the truest sense of the word. Oftentimes we see people referred to as barbarians, an essentially Greek word that means someone who does not speak Greek. Rarely do we see them live up to the name. Herodotus will call the Persian horde barbarians, but they are as civilized as the Greeks are. The Romans will call the Carthaginians barbarians, but they too had the form of civilization. Only the Germanic tribes much later will seem to fulfill the barbarian name as well as the Gutians.
The Gutians invaded the outskirts of Sargon’s empire first, now controlled by his son. By the time Naram-sin came to the throne, the invasion was well underway and the empire was all but doomed. Naram-sin did not help anything. He expanded the empire to the north along the river valley but left the east undefended and it was quickly overrun by Gutians. They cut the empire in half and invaded nearly every major city in the plain of Shinar. Kish fell, followed by Nippus, Uruk, Lagash, and finally Ur. Anarchy followed. The king lists suggest that no one was able to hold the empire together by asking “Who was king, who was not king?” Sargon’s great empire was gone.
All was not lost. Around before 2280 the city of Lagash gained its freedom from the Gutians. The most famous of these rulers, Gudea, is able to begin trade again. He shows his humility in the statues he has made of himself. Rather than showing himself as a military conqueror, he is dressed in priestly garments with his hands folded.
Following Lagash, a revival of trade and strength flowed from the lower portions of Sumer and spread freedom throughout the plain. Uruk was freed next, followed by Ur and finally Nippur. The king holding most of this newly freed Sumer together was Utuhegal (2280-2277 BC). Utuhegal was not as important as his general and son-in-law, Ur-Nammu whom he left in Ur after driving the Gutians out. Utuhegal went on to continue fighting the Gutians. Ur-Nammu began to consolidate power in Ur and Uruk and amassed his own army. In 2278 he slaughtered his former master and father-in-law and became king of Sumer. He initiated the Third Dynasty of Ur (2278-2170 BC).
The Third Dynasty of Ur was a kind of cultural renaissance for Sumer. Ur-Nammu rebuilt roads and cities and revitalized the land. This renaissance lasted until 2040 BC with the center of influence changing a couple of times. In 2040 BC, the first dynasty of Babylon came to power over Mesopotamia.