Sargon the Magnificent
by Sydney Bristowe
Category: History

In this book, first published in 1927, British painter and writer Sydney Bristowe describes her Cain-Sargon of Akkad equation theory. She asserts that, by reconstructing the ancient chronology of Mesopotamia based on the Cylinder of Nabonidus, the cylinder dates Naram-Sin, son of Sargon of Accad, 3200 years before Nabonidus, and so Sargon to c. 3800 BC. This contrasts sharply with mainstream scholarship which dates Sargon to the 23rd century BC. Bristowe defends the earlier dating from the cylinder and then argues that Sargon was the Biblical Cain. Her Cain-Sargon theory received support from British Israelites and proponents of Christian, and a sequel titled Cain—An Argument was subsequently published in 1950.