page_title: Sargon of Akkad
section_title: Chronicle of Early Kings
hierarchical_section_title: Sargon of Akkad / Historiography / Chronicle of Early Kings
caption_attribution_description: General viewEnglish: Prisoner exiting a cage, on an Akkadian Empire victory stele circa 2300 BCE, Louvre Museum
context_page_description: Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great, was the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire, known for his conquests of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th to 23rd centuries BC. 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.
  The Sumerian king list makes him the cup-bearer to king Ur-Zababa of Kish. He is not to be confused with Sargon I, a later king of the Old Assyrian period.
  His empire is thought to have included most of Mesopotamia, parts of the Levant, besides incursions into Hurrite and Elamite territory, ruling from his capital, Akkad.
  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.
context_section_description: Shortly after securing Sumer, Sargon embarked on a series of campaigns to subjugate the entire Fertile Crescent. According to the Chronicle of Early Kings, a later Babylonian historiographical text:
  [Sargon] had neither rival nor equal. His splendor, over the lands it diffused. He crossed the sea in the east. In the eleventh year he conquered the western land to its farthest point. He brought it under one authority. He set up his statues there and ferried the west's booty across on barges. He stationed his court officials at intervals of five double hours and ruled in unity the tribes of the lands. He marched to Kazallu and turned Kazallu into a ruin heap, so that there was not even a perch for a bird left.
  In the east, Sargon defeated four leaders of Elam, led by the king of Awan. Their cities were sacked; the governors, viceroys, and kings of Susa, Waraḫše, and neighboring districts became vassals of Akkad.
caption: Prisoner in a cage, probably king Lugalzagesi of Uruk, being hit on the head with a mace by Sargon of Akkad.[59] Akkadian Empire victory stele circa 2300 BCE. Louvre Museum.
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