Royal Inscriptions of Naram-Sin
A king who crushed a coordinated rebellion of every major city he inherited argues that his victory proves more than political survival, it proves his own divinity, and he has himself written into official titulary as a god.
- self-deification during the king's own lifetime
- suppression of the Great Revolt
- the Victory Stele's iconography of divine kingship
- expansion of the title King of the Four Quarters
Naram-Sin's inscriptions, best known from his Victory Stele (carried to Susa as war booty by Elamite raiders in the 12th century BC, alongside the later Code of Hammurabi and the Manishtushu Obelisk) and the Bassetki Inscription, record his suppression of the 'Great Revolt,' a coordinated uprising of Akkadian cities that briefly threatened to unravel the empire his grandfather Sargon built. Victory over the revolt and a subsequent campaign against the Lullubi in the Zagros mountains prompted an unprecedented claim: Naram-Sin adopted the title 'god of Akkad' and had his name written with the divine determinative, making him one of the only Mesopotamian kings deified during his own lifetime rather than after death. His stele shows him larger than his soldiers, wearing the horned crown normally reserved for gods, trampling defeated enemies underfoot.
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