Akkad (; also spelt Accad, Akkade, a-ka₃-de₂^ki or Agade, Akkadian: , also URI^KI in Sumerian during the Ur III period) was the capital of the

Akkadian Empire The Akkadian Empire () was the first known empire, succeeding the long-lived city-states of Sumer. Centered on the city of Akkad (city), Akkad ( or ) and its surrounding region, the empire united Akkadian language, Akkadian and Sumerian languag ...

, which was the dominant political force in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

during a period of about 150 years in the last third of the 3rd millennium BC. Its location is unknown. In the early days of research various unidentified mounds were considered as the location of Akkad. In modern times most of the attention has focused on an area roughly defined by 1) near

Eshnunna Eshnunna (also Esnunak) (modern Tell Asmar in Diyala Governorate, Iraq) was an ancient Sumerian (and later Akkadian) city and city-state in central Mesopotamia 12.6 miles northwest of Tell Agrab and 15 miles northwest of Tell Ishchali. Althou ...

, 2) near

Sippar Sippar (Sumerian language, Sumerian: , Zimbir) (also Sippir or Sippara) was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its ''Tell (archaeology), tell'' is located at the site of modern Tell ...

, 3) not far from

Kish Kish may refer to: Businesses and organisations * KISH, a radio station in Guam * Kish Air, an Iranian airline * Korean International School in Hanoi, Vietnam People * Kish (surname), including a list of people with the name * Kish, a former ...

and

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

, 4) near the Tigris River, and 5) not far from the

Diyala River The Diyala (Arabic: ; ; Farsi: , ) is a river and tributary of the Tigris. It is formed by the confluence of the Sirwan and Tanjaro rivers in Darbandikhan Dam in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate of Northern Iraq. It covers a total distance of . ...

– all within roughly 30 kilometers of modern

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

in central Iraq. There are also location proposals as far afield as the Mosul area in northern Iraq. The main goddess of Akkad was Ishtar-Annunitum or ''‘Aštar-annunîtum'' (Warlike Ishtar), though it may have been a different aspect, Istar- Ulmašītum. Her husband Ilaba was also revered. Ishtar and Ilaba were later worshipped at Girsu and possibly

in the Old Babylonian period.Westenholz, C. F., "The Old Akkadian Period: History and Culture", in Mesopotamien: Akkade-Zeit und Ur III-Zeit (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/3), Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, Freiburg, Schweiz, pp. 11-110, 1999 The city is possibly mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Genesis 10:10) where it is written (''ʾAkkaḏ'', classically transliterated ''Accad''), in a list of the cities of

Nimrod Nimrod is a Hebrew Bible, biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush (Bible), Cush and therefore the great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of Sh ...

in Sumer ( Shinar). In the early days of Assyriology, it was suggested that the name of Agade is not of

Akkadian language Akkadian ( ; )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218–280 was an East Semitic language that is attested ...

origin. Proposals include

Sumerian language Sumerian ) was the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the List of languages by first written account, oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 2900 BC. It is a local language isolate that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the a ...

Hurrian language Hurrian is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language spoken by the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotami ...

or the

Lullubi Lullubi, Lulubi (: ''Lu-lu-bi'', : ''Lu-lu-biki'' "Country of the Lullubi"), more commonly known as Lullu, were a group of Bronze Age tribes of Hurrian and Semitic languages, Semitic origin who existed and disappeared during the 3rd millennium BC ...

an (though that is unattested). The non-Akkadian origin of the city's name would suggest that the site may have been occupied in pre-Sargonic times.

Sources

A year name of En-šakušuana (), named after the king of Uruk and a contemporary of Lugal-zage-si of

Umma Umma () in modern Dhi Qar Province in Iraq, was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site. Traditionally, Umma was identified with Tell Jokha. More recently it has been sugges ...

, was "Year in which En-šakušuana defeated Akkad". This would have been shortly before the rise of the Akkadian Empire and part of his northern campaign that also defeated Kish and Akshak. A number of fragments of royal statues of Manishtushu (–2255 BC), third Akkadian ruler, all bear portions of a "standard inscription". It mentions AgadeEppihimer, Melissa, "Assembling King and State: The Statues of Manishtushu and the Consolidation of Akkadian Kingship", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 114, no. 3, pp. 365–80, 2010in this excerpt: The inscription on the Bassetki Statue records that the inhabitants of Akkad built a temple for Naram-Sin after he had crushed a revolt against his rule. One year name of Naram-Sin reads "The year the wall of Agade as built. Another is "Year in which the temple of Isztar in Agade was built". The location "Dur(BAD₃)-^DA-ga-de₃" (Fortress of Agade) was frequently mentioned in texts of the Ur III period, noting the indication of deification. It is known from textual sources that the late 19th century BC rulers of

performed cultic activities at Akkad. Based on texts found at Mari, the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad (1808–1776 BC), in the final years of his reign, went to the cities of "Rapiqum and Akkad" (they having been captured earlier by his son Yasmah-Adad) as part of one of his military campaigns, in this case against

. The prologue of the Laws of Hammurabi (circa 1750 BC) includes the phrase "the one who installs Ištar in the temple Eulmaš inside Akkade city". It also holds a list of cities in order along their watercourse ie "... Tutub, Eshnunna, Agade, Ashur, ..." which would place Akkade off the Tigris between Eshnunna and Ashur. Akkade is given the modifier ribitu which is used for prominent places. Centuries later, an old Babylonian text (purportedly a copy of an original Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC) statue inscription) refers to ships being docked at the quay of Agade, i.e. "Sargon moo edthe ships of Meluhha Magan, and Tilmun] a the quay ofAg de". Agade-ki on a cylinder seal of Shar-Kali-Sharri

Agade-ki on a cylinder seal of Shar-Kali-Sharri

List of slaves from the Old Babylonian city of

include two female slaves who, based on the standard naming scheme, are either from Akkad or were owned by someone from Akkad, ie "Taram-Agade and Taram-Akkadi". The former was also the name of a daughter of Akkadian ruler Naram-Sin several centuries beforehand. According to a purported brick inscription copy made during the reign of the Neo-Babylonian ruler

Nabonidus Nabonidus (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-naʾid'', meaning "May Nabu be exalted" or "Nabu is praised") was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great in 53 ...

(556–539 BC) many centuries later, the Kassite ruler Kurigalzu I (circa 1375 BC) reported rebuilding the Akitu house of Ishtar at Akkade. Another Nabonidus period copy indicates Kurigalzu (unclear if first or second of that name) left an inscription at Akkade recording his fruitless search for the E.ul.mas (temple of Istar-Annunitum). Nabonidus claimed that the Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) had rebuilt the E.ul.mas temple of Istar-Annunitum at Agade. The Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nakhunte (1184 to 1155 BC) conquered part of Mesopotamia, noting that he defeated Sippar. As part of the spoils some millennium-old royal Akkadian statues were taken back to Susa including the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin and a statue of the Akkadian ruler Manishtushu. It is unknown if the statues were taken from Akkad or had been moved to Sippar. Màr-Issâr (Mar-Istar) was assigned by Neo-Assyrian ruler

Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (, also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the S ...

(681–669 BC) to the city of Akkad. In one letter from Màr-Issâr to Esarhaddon in 671 BC he reports that the "substitute king", who was the son of the temple administrator (šatammu) of Akkad, left Nineveh and arrived at the city of Akkad five days later and "sat upon the throne" and was buried there. In another letter he states: In 674 BC Esarhaddon reports returning the gods (cult statues) of the city of Akkad to that city from Elam, possibly taken by Shutruk-Nakhunte five centuries earlier though more likely taken in an Elamite raid that occurred in 675 BC. A slave sale document from the 13th year of the Neo-Babylonian ruler

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

(605–562 BC) it states:

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...

(c. 600–530 BC), after conquering Mesopotamia, wrote

Location

Scholars have worked to identify the location of the city of Akkad since the earliest days of Assyriology. The proposals essentially all fall into two areas 1) near the confluence of the Tigris river and Diayalla river, an area significantly covered by the large modern city of

, and 2) the confluence of the Tigris river and the Adheim river (later known as the Radānu) south of Samarra. Almost all of the proposals for the location of the city of Akkad place it on the Tigris river. A problem is that the Tigris, from

Samarra Samarra (, ') is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, north of Baghdad. The modern city of Samarra was founded in 836 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim as a new administrative capital and mi ...

south, has shifted its banks over time with its historical course being an open question. This complicates locating the city of Akkad and also opens the possibility that its location shifted over time, as sometimes happened when the Tigris or Euphrates river moved. It has been proposed, based on kudurrus from the reigns of Kassite ruler Marduk-nadin-ahhe (1095–1078 BC) and Second Dynasty of Isin ruler

Nebuchadnezzar I Nebuchadnezzar I ( ; Babylonian: md''Nabû-kudurrī-úṣur'' ()''Babylonian King List C'', 4 or md''Nábû-ku-dúr-uṣur'',''Synchronistic King List'', tablet excavation number Ass. 14616c (KAV 216), ii 15. meaning " Nabû, protect my eldest s ...

(1121–1100 BC), that Akkad had been renamed sometime in the 2nd millennium. The kuduru suggests the new name was Dur-Sharru-Kin, "on the bank of the river Nish-Gatti in the district of Milikku". This is not to be confused with the Dur-Sharukin built by the Neo-Assyrians in the 8th century BC: the most likely site would be Dur-Rimush (a cult center of the god Adad), nine kilometers north of Dur-Sharukin (Tell el-Mjelaat). The area of the

Little Zab The Little Zab or Lower Zab (, ''al-Zāb al-Asfal''; or '; , ''Zâb-e Kuchak''; , ''Zāba Taḥtāya'') is a river that originates in Iran and joins the Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The Little Zab is approximatel ...

river, which originates in Iran and joins the Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, has also been suggested. A proposed location of Agade is Ishan Mizyad (Tell Mizyad), a large (1,000 meters by 600 meters) low site northwest from

and 15 kilometers east-northeast of Babylon. Harvey Weiss, "Kish, Akkad and Agade", Review of "McGuire Gibson, The city and area of Kish", ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', vol. 95, no. 3, pp. 434–53, 1975 Excavations have shown that the remains at Ishan Mizyad date to the Akkadian period (about 200 Old Akkadian administrative texts were found, mainly lists of workers),

Ur III period The Third Dynasty of Ur or Ur III was a Sumerian dynasty based in the city of Ur in the 22nd and 21st centuries BC (middle chronology). For a short period they were the preeminent power in Mesopotamia and their realm is sometimes referred to by ...

, Isin-Larsa period, and Neo-Babylonian period, including an archive of cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period. Until Neo-Babylonian times a canal ran from Kish to Mizyad. On the Kassite Land grant to Marduk-apla-iddina I by Meli-Shipak II (1186–1172 BC) the recipient is given cultivated land in the communal land of the city of Agade located around the settlement of Tamakku adjacent to the Nar Sarri (Canal of the King) in Bīt-Piri’-Amurru, north of the "land of Istar-Agade" and east of Kibati canal.
W. J. Hinke, "A New Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar I from Nippur (BE IV)", University of Philadelphia, 1907 Based on an Old Babylonian period itinerary from Mari which places Akkade between the cities of Sippar (

and Sippar-Amnanum) and

Khafajah Khafajah or Khafaje (), ancient Tutub, is an archaeological site in Diyala Governorate, Iraq east of Baghdad. Khafajah lies on the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris. Occupied from the Uruk period, Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods through the e ...

(Tutub) on a route to

, Akkad would be on the Tigris just downstream of the current city of

, near the crossing of the Tigris and its tributary

. Mari documents also indicate that Akkad is sited at a river crossing. During the reign of Rîm-Anum, ruler of Uruk (c. 1800 BC) prisoners of war from Akkad were grouped with those of Eshnunna and Nērebtum. An Old Babylonian prisoner record from the time of Rīm-Anum of

Uruk Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...

in the 18th century BC implies that Akkad is in the area of

, in the Diyala Valley north-west of Sumer proper. It has also been suggested that Akkad was under the control of Eshnunna in that period. It is also known that the rulers of Eshnunna continued cult activities in the city of Akkad. A text from the reign of

Zimri-Lim __NOTOC__ Zimri-Lim was in the Middle Bronze Age the king of Mari, Syria, Mari (c. 1767–1752 BCE; low chronology). Background Family Zimri-Lim (Akkadian language, Akkadian: ''Zi-im-ri Li-im'') was the son or grandson of king Yahdun-Lim of Ma ...

(c. 1775–1761 BC) also suggests a location not far from Eshnunna. After Eshnunna was conquered by Atamrum of Andarig a songstress, Huššutum, was repatriated by Mari and soon reached Agade. Tell Muhammad (possibly Diniktum) in the south-eastern suburbs of

near the confluence of the

with the Tigris, has been proposed as a candidate for the location of Akkad.Wall-Romana, Christophe "An areal location of Agade", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49.3, pp. 205–245, 1990 No remains datable to the Akkadian Empire period have been found at the site. Excavations found remains dating to the Isin-Larsa, Old Babylonian, and Kassite periods. A site, locally called El Sanam (or Makan el Sanam), near Qādisiyyah (Kudsia), has been suggested based on the base fragment of an Old Akkadian statue (now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

) found there. The statue is of black stone and was originally three meters high and thought to be of ruler Rimush. The upper portion of the statue was reportedly destroyed by a local imam for idolatry. The site in question has been partially eroded away by the Tigris and is located between Samarra and the confluence of the Tigiris and ʿAdhaim rivers. The fragment was first observed and described by Claudius Rich in 1821. This location had been suggested much earlier by Lane. More recently this site has been identified in a regional survey (site N) as lying not far south of the site of

on the Tigris river by an old citadel.Northedge, Alastair, and Robin Falkner, "The 1986 Survey Season at Sāmarrā", Iraq, vol. 49, pp. 143–73, 1987 Màr-Issâr (Mar-Istar), agent of the Neo-Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon in the city of Akkad, was having trouble getting reports to the king. He names some of the post stations between Akkad and Nineveh. None of them are currently known though there have been proposals.

Sources

Location

See also

References

Further reading