Akkad is the land of Central Mesopotamia, lying to the north of Sumer. Its inhabitants spoke Akkadian, a Semitic language, completely unrelated to the Sumerian language spoken in the south.
Despite this apparently stark distinction, however, there were strong cultural ties between the two regions and probably considerable intermixing of the two linguistic groups.
Around 2334 BC, the ruler of Akkad, Sharrum-kin (more familiarly known to us as Sargon) began the military take-over of Sumer, a process continued by his sons Rimush and Manishtushu and his grandson Naram-Sin.
By the time of the latter, the empire of this Agade dynasty (Agade, their capital, is still unlocated) stretched from Ebla and parts of Anatolia in the west to central Iran in the east.
A seaborne trade route through the Persian Gulf as far as the Indus superseded the more difficult overland route that had previously operated right across the Iranian plateau, although overland trade continued in the Akkadian-dominated regions of Iran and the west.
By the time of Naram-Sin's son, the empire was under considerable pressure from the nomads on its fringes and by his death in 2193 BC, many of the Sumerian cities had regained their independence.
