History
Sargon of Akkad
The king who brought the Sumerian cities under one rule, founding the first empire of the region. His capital has never been found.
Illustration of The Akkadian empire, not a likeness of any person on this page.
- Standing:
- A real person. Objects, inscriptions or archives made in their own lifetime carry their name.
- Reigned:
- c. 2334 to 2279 BCE
- Period:
- The Akkadian empire · c. 2334 to 2154 BCE
What they did
united the cities of Sumer under Akkad; installed his daughter Enheduanna as high priestess at Ur; made Akkadian an administrative language written in the same cuneiform signs Sumerian used.
Where the evidence stops
Agade, his capital, is unlocated to this day, which is why this row carries no city. The famous story of his birth — set adrift in a reed basket — survives only in copies made more than a thousand years later.
Sources
The references this entry is drawn from. ETCSL is the scholarly edition for the Sumerian texts; the rest are general references for the archaeology and the dates.
In the same period
Others our chronology places in The Akkadian empire.
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