Sargon Of Akkad Research Paper

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A History of Sumer Leading Up to the Rule of Sargon of Akkad and How His Rule Affected the Sumerians

Sargon of Akkad, was a very distinguished king who ruled the Akkadian empire which was at one point in time, was the Sumerian empire. He helped to create one of the first large civilizations in human history which was made up of many individual city states. The name of the Sumerian empire comes from the Akkadian language and it means “the land of the civilized kings”. Before Sargon of Akkad became the king of the Akkadian empire, he was the ruler of the city of Akkad and led his people with an iron fist. Once he captured the bulk of the Sumerian empire, he then continued on to expand the territory of his empire to help Akkad become one of …show more content…

The wheel was an invention which allowed for them to establish trade routes along land and this coupled with the invention of sailboats helped them to establish many trade routes across the fertile crescent. They used writing to keep tally of the goods and services for this trade and with these three inventions Sumerian trade improved dramatically. Although they did not use these three creations to a great extent, they would become extremely helpful when the Sumerians started to establish trade with the Indus Valley and the Ancient Egyptians civilizations. Further inventions include irrigation systems and the idea of cities. These were the main inventions of the Sumerians before the period of time during which it became the Akkadian empire. However, they never utilized their resources and innovations until Sargon of Akkad conquered them. This implies that Sargon of Akkad forced change and as an end result had a positive effect on the Sumerian civilization. Aside from starting trade, Sargon of Akkad joined the empire such that the resources were shared which allowed for them to take more people and use them for labor inside the cities for labor. In turn, the human capital went …show more content…

This was because each Sumerian city state was built in a similar way. This allowed each of the cities, since the design of these cities were based upon how to maximize efficiency, to be successful when harvesting their crop and other resources such as clothing. They were made out of reeds. Based on the excavations of many major Sumerian cities such as Ur, Uruk, and Lagash, they all, the cities were built around a singular temple called a ziggurat. A ziggurat was a type of temple which looked similar to those found in ancient Mayan territories. The ziggurat had stairs leading up to the top of one three dimensional trapezoid. There were multiple box like structures stacked on top of each other and stairs leading up to them. There were also small rectangular prisms which had multiple squares that were evenly spaced at the top. Arches were engraved on all four sides of this prims and there were two of them in the complete temple. Each Ziggurat was devoted to a particular god. The city, which was surrounded by walls, would be ruled by a priest king who lived in the city as well. There were many buildings in the city all connected by an intricate series of pathways. Every building was made out of mud brick since it was the most abundant resource in the area. However, In the roads themselves, there were canals which were found in the city to bring in water for

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