Akkad (Agade)

A region of south Mesopotamia lying between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to the northwest of Sumeria. It was named after the city of Agade and was founded by Sargon of Agade in about 2300 BC, probably near Babylon on the Euphrates. It was the base of Sargon's Akkadian dynasty, which established the first imperial state in world history (c.2330-2193 BC). Under Sargon's grandson Naram-Sin (c.2254-2218 BC), the Akkadian empire dominated Mesopotamia, the northern Levant and possibly southeast Anatolia and western Iran, before collapsing as a result of internal weakness and Amorite and Gutian invasions. The Akkadians made their Semitic dialect the official language and adopted Sumerian cuneiform writing. This formed the basis for later Babylonian and Assyrian writing.