The anguish of the era is perfectly captured in the ancient Curse of Akkad text, which describes a period of turmoil with water and food shortages: … the large arable tracts yielded no grain ...

His name meant “true king,” and Sargon of Akkad (unknown–2279 B.C.) took ... King Sargon ruled for more than half a century and founded a dynasty that held firm through the reign of his ...

The Akkadian Empire was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia, centered around the lost city of Akkad. The reign of ... Sarri of the Akkadian ... More dynasty, from Nippur.

Akkadian is a Semitic language, and it was written in a cuneiform script. As the Akkad dynasty proliferated, Akkadian replaced Sumerian, the world’s oldest-known written language, as the spoken ...