Akkad

Akkadian Empire in time of Sargon I

Akkadian victorypropaganda.TheLouvreMuseum,Paris

Akkador theAkkadian Empire(Sumerian:Agade,Bible:Accad) is the oldestempirein history.It was located inMesopotamia.The Akkadian empire reached its peak during the rule ofSargon of Akkadin the 24th and 22nd centuries BCE, and it eventually collapsed in 2154 BCE. Theruinshave not been found, but it is believed to be on the RiverEuphrates.The empire comes after a long relationship withSumer,and before the ethnic Akkadian empires ofBabyloniaandAssyria.

According to the Sumerian king list, Akkad (Agade) was built bySargon of Akkad,23th century BC, and is often called the first empire in history.Even so, it is known from oldercuneiformwritings that the city was already there before Sargon, in the time of the kings ofUruk.According to theBible(Genesis10:10), it was one of the cities started byNimrod.Also, in the earliest records, when Mesopotamian kings started calling themselves "lord of the four quarters" around Sumer, these were listed as: Martu, Shubar,Elam,and Uri-ki.

As thecapital cityof the Akkadian Empire beginning with Sargon, the city ruled from around 2300 to 2215 BC, when it was destroyed by theGutianswho invaded from the mountains.

Sargon

Sargon conquered many of the surrounding regions. He created an empire which reached as far as theMediterranean SeaandAnatolia,and extended his rule toElam,and as far south asOman.He ruled over this area for 56 years. Trade extended from thesilvermines of Anatolia to thelapis lazulimines inAfghanistan,thecedarsofLebanonand thecopperof Oman. This consolidation of the city-states of Sumer and Akkad reflected the growing economic and political power of Mesopotamia. The empire's breadbasket was the rain-fed agricultural system of northern Mesopotamia and a chain of fortresses was built to control the imperial wheat production.

Images of Sargon were erected on the shores of the Mediterranean, in token of his victories, and cities and palaces were built at home with the spoils of the conquered lands. Elam and the northern part of Mesopotamia (Subartu) were also subjugated and rebellions in Sumer were put down.Contracttablets have been found dated in the years of the campaigns against Canaan and against Sarlak, king ofGutium.

Akkadian language

TheAkkadian languagewas one of theSemitic languages,and at the time of the Akkadian Empire it was made official in both Mesopotamia and Elam. Akkadian remained the main diplomatic language of Mesopotamia for centuries.

During the3rd millennium BC,an intimate culturalsymbiosisdeveloped between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespreadbilingualism.Akkadiangradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language ofMesopotamiasomewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the1st century AD.

Collapse of the Empire

The fall of the empire established by Sargon seems to have been as sudden as its rise, and little is known about the Gutian period. From the fall of Akkad ca. 2083 BC until the Sumerian renaissance ca. 2050 BC, there is much that is still dark. It has recently been suggested that the regional decline at the end of the Akkadian period (and also in theAncient EgyptianOld Kingdom) was associated with rapidly increasing aridity, and failing rainfall in the region of the Ancient Near East.