Acad

Acadia, Acad or Akkadian Land, is in Lower Mesopotamia, between Assyria to the northwest and Sumer to the south, during the period from ancient history before Babylon, where the Akkadian language originated.

Extension of the Akkadian Empire in Sargon times of Acad

Land (in Akkadian, mat) is a term that is equivalent to saying country: thus, the land of Israel, the land of Hatti, the land of Egypt, to refer to the countries of Israel, Hatti or Egypt, for example. A city (see, Agade) was also called Akkad, very important in the region during that period, and of which all this area or region, the land of Acadia, the country of the Akkadians, derived its name. Mesopotamian Acadia should not be confused with the former French colonies on the east coast of Canada which are also called Acadia.

Babylonia, as a region, originated from the combined territories of Akkadia and Sumer. The Akkadian language evolved to form the Babylonian language, while the Sumerian language disappeared. The Akkadians, although they used cuneiform writing, like the Sumerians, translated it into their language.

There are no known documents written in the Akkadian language before the time of Sargon I the Great or Sargon of Akkad. Sargon is traditionally described as the first ruler of a unified empire of Akkadia and Sumer. Before him, Sumer began to expand under the rule of a king named Lugalzagesi of Umma and king of Uruk (the Biblical Erech). However, Sargon carried the process beyond all the attempts of the Sumerian kings before him and conquered many of the surrounding regions to create an empire that reached as far as the Mediterranean Sea and Anatolia.

In late Assyro-Babylonian literature, the name Akkadian appears as part of the royal title in connection with Sumer, i.e., non-Semitic: Lugal Kengi (ki) Uru (ki), which is equivalent to to the Akkadian expression sar mat Sumeri u Akkadi, i.e. "King of Sumer and Akkadia", which seems to have simply meant "King of Babylon", this He is, King of Lower Mesopotamia, the land of Shinar of the ancients, the original Sumerian or else, King of Chaldea (the mat-Kaldu of the ancients).

The Akkadians were Semitic nomads, native peoples of the Arabian peninsula, who began moving into the Fertile Crescent coinciding with the prosperity of the first Mesopotamian city-states.