Sargon of Akkad

This article is about the Akkadian king. For the Assyrian kings, see Sargon I and Sargon II. For the YouTuber, see Carl Benjamin. For other uses, see Sargon.

Sargon of Akkad
𒊬𒊒𒄀
Sargon of Akkad on his victory stele, with inscription "King Sargon" (𒊬𒊒𒄀 𒈗 Šar-ru-gi lugal) vertically inscribed in front of him.
King of the Akkadian Empire
Reignc. 2334–2279 BC (MC)[2]
SuccessorRimush
SpouseTashlultum
IssueManishtushu, Rimush, Enheduanna, Ibarum, Abaish-Takal
DynastyAkkadian (Sargonic)
FatherLa'ibum
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Sargon of Akkad (/ˈsɑːrɡɒn/; Akkadian: 𒊬𒊒𒄀, romanized: Šarrugi),[3] also known as Sargon the Great,[4] was the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire, known for his conquests of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th to 23rd centuries BC.[2] He is sometimes identified as the first person in recorded history to rule over an empire.

He was the founder of the "Sargonic" or "Old Akkadian" dynasty, which ruled for about a century after his death until the Gutian conquest of Sumer.[5] The Sumerian King List makes him the cup-bearer to King Ur-Zababa of Kish.[6]

His empire, which he ruled from his archaeologically as yet unidentified capital, Akkad, is thought to have included most of Mesopotamia and parts of the Levant, Hurrian and Elamite territory.

Sargon appears as a legendary figure in Neo-Assyrian literature of the 8th to 7th centuries BC. Tablets with fragments of a Sargon Birth Legend were found in the Library of Ashurbanipal.[7][8]

  1. ^ "King of Akkad, Kish, and Sumer" is a translation of the Akkadian phrase "LUGAL Ag-ga-dèKI, LUGAL KIŠ, LUGAL KALAM.MAKI". See Peter Panitschek, Lugal – šarru – βασιλεύς: Formen der Monarchie im Alten Vorderasien von der Uruk-Zeik bis zum Hellenismus (2008), p. 138. KALAM.MA, meaning "land, country", is the old Sumerian name of the cultivated part of Mesopotamia (Sumer). See Esther Flückiger-Hawker, Urnamma of Ur in Sumerian Literary Tradition (1999), p. 138.
  2. ^ a b The date of the reign of Sargon is highly uncertain, depending entirely on the (conflicting) regnal years given in the various copies of the Sumerian King List, specifically the uncertain duration of the Gutian dynasty. The added regnal years of the Sargonic and the Gutian dynasties have to be subtracted from the accession of Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which is variously dated to either 2047 BC (Short Chronology) or 2112 BC (Middle Chronology). An accession date of Sargon of 2334 BC assumes: (1) a Sargonic dynasty of 180 years (fall of Akkad 2154 BC), (2) a Gutian interregnum of 42 years and (3) the Middle Chronology accession year of Ur-Nammu (2112 BC).
  3. ^ "Sargon inscriptions". cdli.ucla.edu.
  4. ^ also "Sargon the Elder", and in older literature Shargani-shar-ali and Shargina-Sharrukin. Gaston Maspero (ed. A. H. Sayce, trans. M. L. McClure), History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria (1906?), p. 90.
  5. ^ Van de Mieroop, Marc. A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000–323 BC. Blackwell, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4051-4911-2. p. 63.
  6. ^ Bauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393070897 – via Google Książki.
  7. ^ Westenholz, Joan Goodnick (January 1984). "Review of The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero Who Was Exposed at Birth. By Brian Lewis". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 43 (1): 73–79. doi:10.1086/373065. JSTOR 545065.
  8. ^ King, L. W. (1907). Chronicles concerning early Babylonian kings. London, Luzac and co. pp. 87–96.