Sargon of Akkad, also called ‘Sargon the Great’, ‘Sarru-Kan’ and ‘Shar-Gani-Sharri’, was the founder and first king of the first age-old Semitic-speaking Empire of Mesopotamia known as the Sargonic dynasty. Sargon ruled Mesopotamia from 2334 to 2279 BCE, while his torch bearers of the Akkadian Empire ruled the region for around a century following his demise until the Gutian dynasty displaced the Sargonic dynasty to rule Mesopotamia in the late 3rd millennium BC. Starting from a humble beginning, being born an illegitimate son of a temple priestess who set him afloat in a basket on the Euphrates River to be discovered by a drawer of water to founding an empire ruling entire Mesopotamia, Sargon is regarded as a legend whose marvellous tales are celebrated and revered across the Persian Empire. He was the first monarch who developed a multi-national empire that remained in its political peak between 24th and 22nd centuries BC after he made conquests of the Sumerian city-states during the 24th and 23rd centuries BC. The Neo-Assyrian literature of the 8th to 7th centuries BC reveres him as a legendary figure while the Library of Ashurbanipal preserved tablets comprising fragments of a Sargon Birth Legend.
