An Akkadian stone cylinder seal and the picture it prints when rolled out
Cylinder seal, ca. 2350–2150 BCE
Marked Kish

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Sargon of Akkad

Sargon brought the cities of Mesopotamia under one ruler and is often called the first emperor. His dynasty lasted about 180 years, and its capital, Akkad, has still not been found.

Date
About 2334 to 2154 BCIV · First cities and the Bronze Age
Place
Kish · Akkad (unlocated) · SusaThe Middle East
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
5 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. ISargon’s legend
  2. IIOne king for many cities
  3. IIINaram-Sin, “king of the four quarters”
  4. IVThe fall of Akkad
  5. VThe lost capital

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Sargon
  • Naram-Sin
  • Enheduanna

Objects

  • The victory stele of Naram-Sin
  • The bronze head from Nineveh

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

2334 BC to 2154 BC. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?