Welcome to Mesopotamia

The Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon of Akkad around 2334 BCE, is often remembered as one of the world’s first great empires, uniting Sumerian city-states under centralized rule. Its legacy includes military expansion, imperial government, Akkadian language influence, and figures like Enheduanna, the priestess-poet whose writings are among the earliest known works attributed to a named author.

The Sumerian civilization was one of the world’s earliest urban cultures, rising in southern Mesopotamia and creating some of the first cities, temples, laws, and systems of writing. Its legacy lives on through cuneiform tablets, ziggurats, powerful city-states like Ur and Uruk, and the foundations of recorded history.