Agade

Ancient documents describe the city of Agade (also spelt Akkade) as the capital city of King Sargon (about 2334-2279 BC). The site of the ancient city has never been located, although descriptions indicate that it was in the upper part of the southern Mesopotamian plain. One suggestion is that it may have been at Ishan Mizyad, where there is a large unexplored mound. Later references suggest that it lay near the confluence of the Rivers Tigris and Diyala.

Sargon and his dynastic successors conquered much of Mesopotamia, and their capital city probably reflected their wealth and power. Royal inscriptions talk of the quays where boats from as far afield as Magan and Meluhha (possibly Oman and the Indus Valley) docked and unloaded their exotic goods. Agade's patron deity was Ishtar; ancient poems describe how the goddess abandoned her temple, causing the city to be destroyed by invaders. Agade certainly continued to exist as a town even after the collapse of the Akkadian empire around 2100 BC, and was inhabited into the early Hellenistic period (third century BC), though it never again played a prominent political role. However, from the twenty-first to the seventh century BC Sumerian and Babylonian kings continued to use the title 'King of Sumer and Akkad'.