Naram-Sin

Naram-Sin (2254-2218 BC Middle Chronology) was the fourth king of the Akkadian Empire, which covered all of Mesopotamia.

Under Naram-Sin, third successor and grandson of Sargon I, the Akkadian empire reached its zenith. He began his reign with a great uprising of more than twenty Mesopotamian kings whom he decisively defeated. From there Naram-Sin would launch into the conquest of the known world, extending his dominions from Elam to the Mediterranean Sea. He conquered Syria, the region of Aleppo and descended to the Sinai, which was taken from Egypt. Such were his triumphs that he ordered the stele of Naram-Sin to be sculpted and proclaimed himself a god.

He was the first Mesopotamian king to proclaim his divinity, and the first to be called "king of the four parts of the world", that is, of the universe:

Naram-Sin, the strong man, the god of Acad, king of the four parts of the world.

He had dealings with the Indus Valley (Meluhha for the Akkadians) and controlled much of the territory of the Persian Gulf. Naram-Sin expanded his empire by defeating the king of Magan and the tribes of the Taurus Mountains. He built the administrative centers of Tell Brak and Nineveh and continued the policy of appointing family members to hold ritual or religious positions in various cities and temples of the empire, or as governors to maintain effective and highly centralized control of the different territories of the empire.

According to Mesopotamian mythology, the goddess Inanna abandoned the city of Agade and caused the fall of Akkad due to the sacrilege committed by Naram-Sin by taking some divine statues from Ekur (i.e., the temple of Enlil in Nippur, the supreme god of the Sumerian pantheon). Enlil drove the Guti out of the mountains like a plague and destroyed the empire of Akkad. It is said that he possessed the largest army yet: 360,000 men under his command.

His only known son, Sharkalisharri, succeeded him.