| AKKAD (CITY)
Map of the Near East showing the extent of the Akkadian Empire and the general area in which Akkad was located Akkad (Agade, A-ga-de3ki in Akkadian, also URIKI in Sumerian during the Ur III period) was the name of a Mesopotamian city and its surrounding area. Akkad was the capital of the Akkadian Empire, which was the dominant political force in Mesopotamia during a period of about 150 years in the last third of the 3rd millennium BC.
Its location is unknown, although there are a number of candidate sites, mostly situated east of the Tigris, roughly between the modern cities of Samarra and Baghdad.
Textual sources :
Agade-ki ("Country of Akkad"), on a cylinder seal of Shar-Kali-Sharri Before the decipherment of cuneiform in the 19th century, the city was known only from a single reference in Genesis 10:10 where it is written ( 'Akkad), rendered in the KJV as Accad. The name appears in a list of the cities of Nimrod in Sumer (Shinar).
Sallaberger and Westenholz (1999) cite 160 known mentions of the city in the extant cuneiform corpus, in sources ranging in date from the Old Akkadian period itself down to the Neo-Babylonian period. The name is spelled logographically as URIKI, or phonetically as a-ga-dèKI, variously transcribed into English as Akkad, Akkade or Agade.
The etymology of the name is unclear, but it is not of Akkadian (Semitic) origin. Various suggestions have proposed Sumerian, Hurrian or Lullubian etymologies. The non-Akkadian origin of the city's name suggests that the site may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times, as also suggested by the mention of the city in one pre-Sargonic year-name.
Black-and-white photograph of a statue consisting of an inscribed, round pedestal on top of which sits a seated nude male figure of which only the legs and lower torso are preserved.
The Bassetki Statue, found in Dohuk Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan, dated to the reign of Naram-Sin (c.2254–2218) with an inscription mentioning the construction of a temple in Akkad The inscription on the Bassetki Statue records that the inhabitants of Akkad built a temple for Naram-Sin after he had crushed a revolt against his rule.
The main goddess of Akkad was Ishtar-Astarte (Inanna), who was called ‘Aštar-annunîtum or "Warlike Ishtar". Her husband Ilaba was also revered in Akkad. Ishtar and Ilaba were later worshipped at Sippar in the Old Babylonian period, possibly because Akkad itself had been destroyed by that time. The city was certainly in ruins by the mid-first millennium BC.
Location
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The identification of Akkad with Sippar ša Annunîtum (modern Tell ed-Der), along a canal opposite Sippar ša Šamaš (Sippar, modern Tell Abu Habba) was rejected by Unger (1928) based on a Neo-Babylonian text (6th century BC) that lists Sippar ša Annunîtum and Akkad as separate places.
Harvey Weiss (1975) proposed Ishan Mizyad, a large (1000 meters by 600 meters) low site 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northwest from Kish. Excavations have shown that the remains at Ishan Mizyad date to the Ur III period and not to the Akkadian period, though Akkadian fragements were found in a surface survey.
Discussion since the 1990s has focused on sites along or east of the Tigris. Wall-Romana (1990) suggested a location near the confluence of the Diyala River with the Tigris, and more specifically Tell Muhammad in the south-eastern suburbs of Baghdad as the likeliest candidate for Akkad, although admitting that no remains datable to the Akkadian period had been found at the site.
Sallaberger and Westenholz (1999) suggested a location close to the confluence of the 'Adhaim river east of Samarra (at or near Dhuluiya). Similarly, Reade (2002) suggested a site in this vicinity, by Qadisiyyah, based on a fragment of an Old Akkadian statue (now in the British Museum) found there. This had been suggested much earlier by Lane.
The area of the Little Zab river has also been suggested.
Based on an Old Babylonian period itinerary from Mari, Akkad would be on the Tigris just downstream of the current city of Baghdad. Mari documents also indicate that Akkad is sited at a river crossing.
Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/ |
