page_title: Sargon of Akkad
section_title: Birth legend
hierarchical_section_title: Sargon of Akkad / Origin legends / Birth legend
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: storyofgreatestn01elli (find matches) Title: "The Legend of Sargon (The Goddess Ishtar Appears to Sargon, the Gardener's Lad)" By the contempoarary artist, Edwin J. Prittie", The story of the greatest nations Year: 1913 (1910s) Authors: Ellis, Edward Sylvester, 1840-1916 Horne, Charles F. (Charles Francis), 1870-1942 Subjects: World history Publisher: New York&#160;: Niglutsch Contributing Library: University of California Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: MSN View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: THE LEGEND OF SARGON (The Goddess Ishtar Appears to Sargon, the Gardener's Lad) By the contemporary American artist, Edwin J. Prittie Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
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: A Neo-Assyrian text from the 7th century BC purporting to be Sargon's autobiography asserts that the great king was the illegitimate son of a priestess. 
  Only the beginning of the text (the first two columns) is known, from the fragments of three manuscripts. 
  The first fragments were discovered as early as 1850.
  Sargon's birth and his early childhood are described thus: 
  My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and ... years I exercised kingship.
  Similarities between the Sargon Birth Legend and other infant birth exposures in ancient literature, including Moses, Karna, and Oedipus, were noted by psychoanalyst Otto Rank in his 1909 book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. The legend was also studied in detail by Brian Lewis, and compared with many different examples of the infant birth exposure motif found in European and Asian folktales. He discusses a possible archetype form, giving particular attention to the Sargon legend and the account of the birth of Moses. Joseph Campbell has also made such comparisons.
  Sargon is also one of the many suggestions for the identity or inspiration for the biblical Nimrod. Ewing William (1910) suggested Sargon based on his unification of the Babylonians and the Neo-Assyrian birth legend. Yigal Levin (2002) suggested that Nimrod was a recollection of Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin, with the name "Nimrod" derived from the latter.
caption: Illustration of the Assyrian Sargon legend (1913): The young Sargon, working as a gardener, is visited by Ishtar "surrounded by a cloud of doves".
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