Image adapted from Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2021, Map 2.1, at p. 69)  

My additions: text in red and blue  

As Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2021, at p. 44) observed, the creation of the so-called Akkadian or Sargonic Empire by Sargon of Akkad (= Agade or Akkad):

1. “... was a completely novel experiment in the use of political power.”
   

Not least among the novel features of this ‘empire’ were the facts that:

1. ✴the political power in question was passed down by dynastic succession over a period of about a century, from Sargon to his great grandson, Shar-kali-sharri; and
   

2. ✴at the height of their power, these dynastic kings of Akkad controlled the vast territory marked out in the map above.
   

Nevertheless (as the sharp-eyed will have noticed) Sargon’s capital is marked on the map as ‘Akkad ?’, since no archeological remains of this much-documented city have ever been found.  (It is generally agreed that it was on the Tigris, near its confluence with the Diyala river, as in the map above). 

Sargon 

Surviving Epigrahic Evidence 

Sargons Original Inscriptions 

Victory stele of Sargon from Susa (now in the Musée du Louvre ( Sb 1)  

Image from museum website: asterisk marks the figure of Sargon, identified by inscription 

We have little contemporary epigraphic evidence from Sargon’s reign: indeed, only surviving inscription (RIME 2:1:1:10; CDLI, P461936), which is on the now fragmentary stele illustrated above, in which a figure on the reverse is identified as ‘Sargon, the king ....’.  I discuss this stele and a very similar one, both of which were found at the Elamite city of Susa and are now in the Musée du Louvre, in the last section below.

Fragmentary mace head from Ur carrying an inscription (RIME 2:1:1:4; CDLI, P217324) 

now in the Penn Museum (CBS 14396): image from CDLI

The  only other surviving inscription(RIME 2:1:1:4; CDLI, P217324) that is attributed to him (as discussed below) is on the mace head illustrated above, which  was found at Ur and is now in the Penn Museum (CBS 14396): it describes a now-unnamed king as the ‘conqueror of Uruk and U[r]’, can also probably be assigned to Sargon (as discussed below).

Sargon’s Year Names 

We also have four of Sargon’s year names (see this list in the CDLI website), all of which relate to military conquests:

1. ✴two relate to victories that are also recorded in surviving royal inscriptions (see below):
   

2. •the year in which Mari was destroyed; and
   

3. •the year in which Sargob destroyed Elam; and
   

4. ✴the year in which Uru’a (= Arawa, the ‘bolt of Elam’) was destroyed (an event that presumably  pre-dated the conquest of Elam); and
   

5. ✴the year in which Sargon went to  Simurrum (in northeastern Mesopotamia). 
   

As we shall see, all of these conquests almost certainly belong to the later period of Sargon’s career, after his ‘world changing’ conquest of Sumer. 

Other Epigraphic Evidence 

Given this scant original evidence, it is fortuitous that a relatively large number of Sargon’s royal inscriptions survive as copies that were made made in the Old Babylonian period, which where the following analysis begins.   

Sargon’s ‘Victory’ Inscriptions 

Table 1: Sargon’s Victory Inscriptions 

Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 1993, at p. 3) observed that:

1. “The Sargonic period marks the first time the Akkadian language was extensively used for royal inscriptions [in Sumer].  The majority of Sargon’s inscriptions are recorded in that language, [although] a minority are known in bilingual (Sumerian and Akkadian) versions and a handful are in Sumerian alone.” 
   

As Andrea Seri (referenced below, Table 3.2, at p. 90) pointed out the ‘Old Akkadian’ dialect spoken in the reign of Sargon represents the earliest attestation of what we know as the Akkadian language.  This is a Semitic language and, as Andrea Seri pointed out (at p. 87), we know that the ‘East Semitic’ language that was used in texts from Ebla (in modern Syria) prior to Sargon’s reign was written using the same cuneiform script as Sumerian.  Unsurprisingly then, Sumerian cuneiform was also used in Sargon’s Akkadian inscriptions.

Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 1993, at p. 7) observed that, although (as noted above) very few of Sargon’s inscriptions survive in their original form, a number of them are known from later Old Babylonian tablet copies.  In this context, he drew particular attention to two large Sammeltafeln (tablets that each carried copies of a number of inscriptions) from Nippur:

1. ✴one that is now in the Penn Museum  (CBS 13972); and
   

2. ✴another that is now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum (Ni 3200).
   

As Naohiko Kawakami (referenced below, at p. 8) observed:

1. “If these two tablets had not been recovered, we would have virtually no primary evidence for Sargon's military activities.”
   

Douglas Frayne included 11 of these copied texts in RIME 2.1.1: 

1. ✴9 (numbers 1-3; 8-9; 11-12; and 14-15) are included in both of these Sammeltafel;
   

2. ✴number 6 is only included in CBS 13972; and
   

3. ✴number 7 is only included in Ni 3200.
   

Frayne suggested that: 

1. “The originals of these copies may have been inscribed on triumphal steles that once stood in the courtyard of Enlil's Ekur temple at Nippur.” 
   

The titulary given to Sargon in these 11 inscriptions is summarised in the table above, in which the inscriptions are split into three groups, referred  to in what follows as:

1. ✴Group 1, in which he is king of Akkad (tout court);
   

2. ✴Group 2, in which he is king of Akkad, king of Kish, king of the land  (= king of Sumer); and
   

3. ✴Group 3, in which he is king of Kish (tout court), a title that was used by his immediate successors and seems to have meant ‘king of everywhere’.
   

I have tabulated them in this order on the assumption that this reflects how his titulary changes as his ‘empire’ grew over time

Sargon, King of Akkad (Group 1)

Group 1 in the table above contains 2 copied inscriptions:

1. ✴One (RIME 2.1.1.5), which is now in the Penn Museum (N 6266) reads:
   

2. “Sargon, king of Akkad, conqueror of Uruk ...”.
   

3. As discussed above, the inscription  (RIME 2:1:1:4; CDLI, P217324) on the mace head from Ur, which is also now in the Penn Museum (CBS 14396), records that it was dedicated to a now-unknown deity by a now-unnamed king who is described as:
   

4. “... the conqueror of Uruk and U[r]”. 
   

5. In the table above (and following Douglas Frayne, referenced below, 1993, at p. 18), I have assumed that RIME 2.1.1.5  was a copy of RIME 2.1.1.4  and completed it in that basis.
   

6. ✴The other (RIME 2.1.1.7 ), which, as noted above, was on the Sammeltafel CBS 13972 and is thus probably a copy of an inscription on a ‘victory’ monument at Nippur.  The relevant lines (1-15)read:
   

7. “Sargon, [king of Akkad co[nquered the city] of Ur[uk and was victorious in battle].  [Further], he [personally captured [50 ensi and the [king (of Uruk).
   

8. Note that Frayne (at p. 21) completed the underlined italic text above from RIME 2.1.1.3 (see below) and, in the table above, I have also completed it on that basis. 
   

Although this body of evidence is less secure than one would wish, it does seem likely that, at the time of his conquest of Uruk and Ur, Sargon’s official title was simply ‘king of Akkad’.

One of the few things that we know for certain about Sargon’s early career is that he was closely associated with Akkad.   As we have seen, according to the biographical note in the SKL (SKL 269-270), he was credited with having built Akkad.  However, Akkad almost certainly existed before Sargon assumed its kingship because, as Walther Sallaberger and Ingo Schrakamp (referenced below, at p. 41) pointed out, an administrative document at Nippur was dated to: 

1. “The year in which Enshakushana defeated Akkad.”
   

This must refer to King Enshakushana of Uruk, who is known from his own royal inscriptions (see below):

1. ✴Walther Sallaberger and Ingo Schrakamp (referenced below, at p. 93) argued that:
   

2. “Before Sargon, Akkad was not known as a city, so this [year name] can be taken as the first indirect proof for the existence of Sargon as a contemporary of Enshakushana.  Although this document does not bear a direct reference to king Sargon, prosopography demonstrates that Sargon must have ruled at Nippur not too many years later.  This fact supports the impression that the reference to Akkad in the Enshakushana year date, in fact, points to a mighty ruler there, namely Sargon.”
   

3. ✴However, as Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2017, note 487, at p. 190) pointed out:
   

4. “Correctly, all that this [year name] proves is the existence of Akkad at the time of Enshakushana.  While it does not exclude the possibility that Sargon ruled over Akkad [when Enashakushana defeated it], it in no way demonstrates it.”
   

Interestingly (as we shall see), nothing in the surviving inscriptions of Enshakushana allow us to either date his reign or locate his capital.  However, there is no reason to doubt the relative chronology of the SKL, which lists Enshakushana of Uruk  (SKL 186-7) before Lugalzagesi of Uruk (SKL 259-60), after whose reign the kingship was transferred to  Sargon (SKL 266-71).  In other words, we should probably assume that Enshakushana did indeed defeat Akkad and that Sargon subsequently rebuilt it as his capital (or perhaps as one of his capitals). 

Sargon, King of Akkad, King of Kish, King of the Land (Group 2)

Group 2 in the table above contains 3 copied inscriptions: 

1. ✴RIME 2.1.1.1; CDLI, P461926, which is bilingual and appears in both CBS 13972 and Ni 3200;
   

2. ✴RIME 2.1.1.2; CDLI, P461927, which appears in both CBS 13972 and Ni 3200;  and
   

3. ✴RIME 2.1.1.6; CDLI, P461931, which appears in both CBS 13972 
   

They fall into two sub-groups: 

1. ✴the first two texts present very similar accounts of Sargon’s campaign in southern Mesopotamia, which culminated in his annexation of the lands over which Lugalzagesi had previously exercised hegemony, and both record that: 
   

2. “[He] captured Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk, in battle (and) led him off to the gate of the god Enlil in a neck stock”, (RIME 2.1.1.1, lines 23-31 and  RIME 2.1.1.1, lines 25-34);
   

3. ✴and the third:
   

4. • recorded that:
   

5. “Wh[en] the god Enlil rendered a verdict for (Sargon) and he conquer[ed] Uruk, he dedicated (the object carrying the original inscription) to Enlil and purified Nippur for (him)”, (lines 10-29); and
   

6. •reproduced a caption ‘Lugalzagesi, lord of Uruk and king of Ur’, which presumably accompanied an image of the captive king.
   

All three originals can therefore be dated to the period immediately following Sargon’s final defeat of Lugalzagesi, at which point, his ‘official title’ became:

1. “... king of Akkad, mashkim priest of lnanna, king of Kish, guda priest of An, lugal kalamma (king of the land) [and] ensi/ensi-gal (governor/mighty governor) of Enlil”, (see, for example, RIME 2.1.1.2; CDLI, P461927, lines 2-11).  Apart from these inscriptions, the earliest surviving reference to Sargon is in the earliest known recension of the so-called Sumerian King List, which dates to the reign of the ‘Ur III’ king Shulgi (hereafter the USKL, transliterated at CDLI: P283804: ca. 2050 BC), which was published by Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2003 - see my page on the USKL): in this inscription, after:
   

2. ✴a list of about 30 Kishite rulers; and
   

3. ✴a lacuna that probably named about 9 rulers of Uruk;
   

we read that: 

1. “Sargon, in Akkad, [ruled for] 40 years”, (reverse col. 1, lines 6’-7’ in the CDLI transliteration). 
   

Unfortunately, because of the preceding lacuna, we do not know how Sargon was introduced in this text (although, as we shall see, he almost certainly followed King Lugalzagesi of Uruk, whom he had defeated in battle).  However, in the later Old Babylonian recensions of the Sumerian King List (hereafter the SKL), which was compiled after the fall of Ur during the period of the Isin kings and was based in part on the USKL, we read that Lugalzagesi was followed by: 

1. “Sargon:
   

2. ✴whose father was a gardener;
   

3. ✴(who was himself) the cupbearer of (king) Ur-Zababa [of Kish];
   

4. ✴the king of Akkad.
   

5. The one who built Akkad was king [there].  He ruled for 56 years”, (SKL 266-271). 
   

This unusual titulary is clearly made up of alternating secular and religious titles. 

In what follows, I am primarily concerned with the secular title lugal kalamma (king of the land) , which (as far as we know) was only given to Sargon in these three inscriptions.  As Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2017, note 337, at p. 126) observed: 

1. “The use of ‘kalam’ as a term for southern [Mesopotamia] is documented first in late ED times, in the title lugal kalamma, which was borne by the Uruk rulers Enshakushana and Lugalzagesi.” 
   

For this reason, I will begin by looking at the titulary of these two Sumerian kings.

Enshakushana 

Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 2008) translated three of Enshakushana’s royal inscriptions:

1. ✴an inscription (RIME 1:14:17:1; CDLI, P431228) that was carried by a number of stone bowls at Nippur that was dedicated at Nippur to ‘Enlil, king of all the lands (lugal kurkurra)’ by:
   

2. “Enshakushana, lord of Sumer (en kiengi) and king of the land (lugal kalamma), ... [who] destroyed Kish and captured Enbi-Ishtar, the king of Kish.   The man of Akshak and the man of Kish, when both cities had been destroyed .... [Enshakusana] dedicated [the spoils that he had taken from Akshak and Kish] ... to [the god] Enlil at Nippur”; 
   

3. ✴a related inscription (RIME 1:14:17: 2; CDLI, P431229), which was carried by three stone bowls dedicated to Enlil at Nippur, recorded that:
   

4. “For the god Enlil, Enshakushana dedicated the property of Kish, which he had destroyed”, ; and 
   

5. ✴ the inscription (RIME 1:14:17: 3; CDLI, P431230) that appears pm a foundation tablet that is now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, which commemorates the building of a now-unknown temple by:
   

6. ... Enshakushana, lord of Sumer (en kiengi) and king of the land (lugal kalamma), son of Elili ...”.
   

Frayne also listed (at p. 429) Enshakashuna’s two surviving year names, both of which which were used on administrative documents from Nippur:

1. ✴“The year in which Enshakushana [variant: the man of Uruk] besieged Kish”; and
   

2. ✴“The year in which Enshakushana defeated Akkad” (also mentioned above).
   

Thus we know that Enshakushana controlled Nippur for at least two years and that he was militarily active to the north of Nippur (at Akshak, Kish and Akkad).   However, as noted above, while we might  reasonably accept the testimony of the SKL, which names him as a king of Uruk whose rule there pre-dated that of Lugalzagesi, we know nothing about the circumstances in which he became lord of Sumer (en kiengi) and king of the land (lugal kalamma). 

Lugalzagesi

Our record of the career of Lugalzagesi begins with an inscription that commemorates his construction of a temple of Dumuzi at Umma, in which his title is:

1. “... ensi of Umma and lumah-priest of Nisaba, son of U-u, ensi of Umma, lumah-priest of Nisaba”, (RIME 1.12.7.1; CDLI, P431198, lines 3-8). 
   

He is also named (as ensi of Umma) in a royal inscription of Urukagina (as lugal of Girsu), in which the latter complains that:

1. “The man of Umma, having sacked Lagash, has committed a sin against Ningirsu, [the city god of Lagash].  The hand that he has raised against [Ningirsu] will be cut off!  [The sacrilege inflicted on Lagash] is not a sin of Urukagina, king of Girsu, [(his title after his expulsion from Lagash)].  May Nisaba, the god of Lugalzagesi, ensi of Umma, make them (the people of Umma) bear this sin on their necks”, (RIME 1.9.9.5; CDLI: P431158,  col. vii, lines 11-12 - col. viii., lines 1-13).
   

The evidence of a large number of documents from the temple of Inanna at Zabala (near Umma) provide further information of this early phase of Lugalzagesi’s career: as Walther Sallaberger and Ingo Schrakamp (referenced below, at p. 37) observed, the year-dates of these documents (where known) fall into a time-span from 6th to the 8th year of the ensi, Lugalzagesi.  As they also noted (at p. 86), these documents recorded land grants, the known recipients of which included:

1. ✴the ensi of Adab;
   

2. ✴the ensi of Nippur; and 
   

3. ✴the lumah-priest of Uruk.
   

Gianni Marchesi (referenced below, 2015, at p. 148) argued that:

1. “At the time that these documents were drawn up, Lugalzagesi was probably still merely ... on the same level as his counterparts at Adab and Nippur.   All three rulers were presumably under the hegemony of the ‘great king’ Enshakushana of Uruk.”
   

Interestingly, two administrative documents from Shuruppak (modern Fara) from the (earlier) ED IIIa (or Fara) period (WF 92; CDLI. P011049 and WF 94; CDLI, P011051) record that military contingents from Uruk, Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Shuruppak and Umma, which mustered at Shuruppak, came from kiengi.  It is therefore possible the Enshakushana’s title ‘en kiengi’ reflected his hegemony over Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Shuruppak and Umma (where Lugalzagesi served as ensi).  

A later phase in Lugalzagesi’s career seems to be reflected in an administrative document from Adab, which is now in the Nies Babylonian Collection at Yale (NBC 5924, BIN 8. 26, CDLI P221549, reverse col. iii, lines 3-7) and is dated to the reigns of Meskigala, ensi of Adab and ‘king Lugalzagesi’: as Walther Sallaberger and Ingo Schrakamp (referenced below, at p. 88) pointed out, this is testimony to the fact that, at the time of this document, Meskigala recognised Lugalzagesi’s hegemony over Adab.  If so, then Lugalzagesi was styled ‘king of Uruk’ by this time, and he might well have also established hegemony of some or all of the cities that had previously recognised the hegemony of Enshakushana. 

Everything we know about the last phase of Lugalzagesi’s career (before his defeat by Sargon) comes from the inscription that was carried by numerous stone bowls at Nippur: Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 2008, at pp. 433-4) listed 98 known fragments.  The inscription that these bowls carried begins by recording that they were dedicated to ‘Enlil, king of all the lands (lugal kurkurra) by:  

1. “... Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk, king of the lands (lugal kalamma), ishib priest of An, lumah priest of Nisaba, son of Bubu, the ensi of Umma, lumah priest of Nisaba ...”, (RIME 1:14:20:1; CDLI, P431232 lines 3-12).
   

It then defined the territory that Enlil had placed under the rule of Lugalzagesi: 

1. “When Enlil, the king of all lands, gave to Lugalzagesi the kingship of the land (nam-lugal kalamma), ... he [= Enlil]:
   

2. ✴made [the lands] ... submit to him, from east to west; [and]
   

3. ✴made the roads passable for him from the Lower Sea, along the Tigris and the Euphrates, to the Upper Sea”, (RIME 1:14:20:1; CDLI, P431232, lines 36-59: see also the translation by Gàbor Zólyomi, referenced below). 
   

Importantly, it then recorded that:

1. “When Enlil made [Lugalzagesi] a man without rival from east to west, ...
   

2. ✴all the altars in Sumer (bara bara kiengi); and
   

3. ✴the rulers of all the lands (ensi kurkurra) in the territory of Uruk;
   

4. determined for [Lugalzagesi] the divine gift of the greatest of exaltation”, (RIME 1:14:20:1; CDLI, P431232, lines 63-9), see also the translation by Jasmina Osterman (referenced below, at p. 54). 
   

This last passage seems to support the view expressed by Aage Westenholz, which was reproduced by Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 2008, at  p. 8): 

1. “The occasion for the dedication of such a large number of cups or vases is likely to have been the coronation in Nippur of L[ugalzagesi] as ‘king of the land’.  Each cup could then represents one of the ensi, who acknowledged his suzerainty (cf. Sargon’s remark [see above] about the 50 ensi allied with L[ugalzagesi]).”  
   

Thia inscription then recorded that, as a consequence of the ‘divine gift’ that Enlil had given to Lugalzagesi:

1. ✴“Uruk passed the days in joy, Ur raised his head high like a bull, [and] Larsa, Utu’s beloved city, made merry”; and
   

2. ✴“Umma, Shara’s beloved city, lifted its great horns, ... the territory of Zabala cried out like a ewe reunited with (its) lamb, [and] Kian raised its neck high”.
   

Tohru Maeda (referenced below, at pp. 12-3) observed that the order in which these six city-states are named is significant: they each belonged to one of two ‘co-existing circles’:

1. ✴the ‘Uruk circle’ (Uruk, Ur and Larsa); and
   

2. ✴the ‘Umma circle’ (Umma. Zabala and Kian). 
   

He argued (at p. 13) that:

1. “We could easily imagine these two circles or spheres as forming a single power base of Lugalzagesi. However, I maintain that these two circles formed separate bases of Lugalzagesi's sovereign power.”
   

This might have been true in administrative terms: as Gianni Marchesi (referenced below, 2015, at p. 148) pointed out: 

1. “... once [Lugalzagesi] ascended the throne of Uruk and became ‘king of the [land]’  ...., [he] entrusted the office of [ensi] of Umma to Mese (whom Sargon captured alongside Lugalzagesi, as evidenced, for example, by RIME 2.1.1.1; CDLI, P461926, ‘caption 2’, lines 119’-121’ - see below). 
   

However, the fact that Lugalzagesi named himself as (inter alia) ‘ishib priest of An (the city god of Uruk), lumah priest of Nisaba (the city god of Umma) in his ‘official’ title arguably suggests that he directly ruled all six of these cities as ‘king of Uruk’. 

Significance of the Title ‘King of the Land’ in the Pre-Sargonic Period: Conclusions  

The key point for the present analysis is the significance of the title lugal kalamma (king of the land) in the decades before it was adopted by Sargon:  

1. ✴As we have seen, the stone bowls that Enshakushana dedicated at Nippur after his defeat of Kish carried an inscription in which his title was ‘en kiengi and lugal kalamma’.  I suggested that the title ‘en kiengi’ reflected his hegemony over Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Shuruppak and Umma, which would presumably mean that lugal kalamma referred more generally to all of the territory over which he exercised (or claimed to exercise) hegemony. 
   

2. ✴We have also seen that the putative coronation of Lugalzagesi took place after:  
   

3. “Enlil, the king of all lands, gave to Lugalzagesi the kingship of the land (nam-lugal-kalamma).” 
   

4. I suggested above that Lugalzagesi directly ruled all of Uruk, Ur, Lara, Umma, Zabala and Kian as ‘king of Uruk’, which would again presumably mean that lugal kalamma referred more generally to all of the territory over which he exercised (or claimed to exercise) hegemony. 
   

Nicholas Postgate (referenced below, at p. 171-2) argued that:

1. “... ‘kalam’, though never precisely defined, refers to the alluvial plain, and ‘kingship of the kalam’ implies domination of the whole south Mesopotamian world, thus encompassing both Ur in the south and Kish in the north.  This [was the region that] lay in the gift of Enlil ...”
   

However, although we know that, before Kish was captured by Enshakushana, it had its own king (Enbi-Ishtar, lugal kishki), we do not actually know if either Enshakushana or Lugalzagesi ever:

1. ✴exercised hegemony over Kish (although, as we shall see, Lugalzagesi seems to have been said to have done so in later literary tradition); or
   

2. ✴incorporated lugal kishki in his official titulary.
   

Significance of Sargon’s Title ‘King of the Land’

We can now return to the significance of this title in the context of Sargon’s Group 2 inscriptions, in which Sargon used the title: 

1. “... king of Akkad, mashkim priest of lnanna, king of Kish, guda priest of An, lugal kalamma (king of the land) [and] ensi/ensi-gal (governor/mighty governor) of Enlil”, (see, for example, RIME 2.1.1.2; CDLI, P461927, lines 2-11). 
   

As Tohru Maeda (referenced below, at p. 14) observed, in these inscriptions, Sargon’s religious and secular titles:

1. “... were arranged alternately, one after the other.  There are no other royal inscriptions in the 3rd millennium BC using this arrangement except for the ‘Lugalzagesi inscription’”.
   

He is referring here to the ‘coronation’ inscription of Lugalzagesi discussed above, in which Lugalzagesi is described as:

1. “... king of Uruk, king of the land, ishib priest of An, lumah-priest of Nisaba, son of U-u, ensi of Umma, lumah-priest of Nisaba”, (RIME 1.14.20.1; CDLI, P431232, lines 3-12).
   

Maeda argued (at p. 15) that:

1. “The inscriptions of Sargon and Lugalzagesi are the only ones which use this peculiar style consisting of secular and religious titles.  Based on this observation, we can be certain that Sargon modelled this inscription on Lugalzagesi's.”  
   

This hypothesis is supported by the facts that:

1. ✴Sargon also took Lugalsagesi’s title of ensi/ensi-gal (governor/mighty governor) of Enlil (for its use by Lugalzagesi, see RIME 1:14:20:1; CDLI, P431232 lines 15-6); and
   

2. ✴all three of the Group 2 inscriptions of Sargon record his capture of Lugalzagesi. 
   

Significance of Sargon’s Title ‘King of Kish’ in the Group 2 Inscriptions 

Finally, we should look at Sargon’s use of three secular titles in the Group 2 period:

1. lugal a-ka-deki; lugal Kish; lugal Kalammaki’;
   

which Douglas Frayed (referenced below, 1993, at p. 13) translated as:

1. king of [Akkad], king of the world, [king] of the land. 
   

It seems to me that, even though ‘Kish’ here lacks the determinative ‘ki’ (see below), it cannot mean ‘king of the world’, since, had it done so, then the other two titles would have been otiose.  In other words, in my view, when written as part of Sargon’s Group 2 titulary, it almost certainly reflected Sargon’s actual kingship of Kish (or, perhaps, of the erstwhile territory of Kish). 

As it happens, we know that Sargon actually did control Kish in the Group 2 period, since we read: 

1. “Sargon, lord of the land of Sumer, altered the two sites of Kish: he made the two (parts of Kish) occupy (one) city”, (RIME 2.1.1.1; CDLI, P461926, lines 94-101 and RIME 2.1.1.2; CDLI, P461927, lines 100-8). 
   

This passage presumably refers to his amalgamation of the previously twin cities of Kish itself and nearby Hursagkalama, both of which were clearly under Sargon’s control at this time.  

Sargon’s Secular Titles in his Group 2 Inscriptions: My Conclusions 

As noted in the previous section, at the time of his conquest of Uruk and Ur, Sargon’s official title (as reflected in his Group I inscriptions) was simply ‘king of Akkad’.  I now suggest that he adopted his Group 2 title at Nippur on the occasion of which he celebrated his definitive victory over Lugalzagesi and:

1. “... led him off to the gate of the god Enlil in a neck stock”, (RIME 2.1.1.1, lines 23-31 and  RIME 2.1.1.1, lines 25-34).
   

This event clearly marked a fundamental change in his status, which he marked by adding to Lugalzagesi’ title of lugal kalamma (king of the land of Sumer) to his existing titles of king of Akkad and king of (the territory of) Kish. 

King of Kish (Group 3)

Group 3 in the table above contains 5 copied inscriptions: 

1. ✴The first of them, which appears in both CBS 13972 and Ni 3200, is thus probably a copy of an inscription on a ‘victory’ monument at Nippur.  After noting that Ilaba was Sargon’s personal god, the text records that: 
   

2. “Sargon, lugal kish, with nine contingents from Akkad, conquered the city of Uruk, was victorious in battle, captured 50 ensi and personally captured the king”, (RIME 2.1.1.3; CDLI, P461928, lines 3-20).
   

3. It also records that:
   

4. •on a subsequent occasion, ‘the two of them’ fought each other at Ur and Sargon was again victorious (lines 27-31); and
   

5. •Sargon was also victorious at: Nagurzam (now-unknown); Umma; and Lagash. 
   

6. This is the only known case in which Sargon used the title ‘lugal kish’ (tout court) on an inscription that deals with his victories in Sumer.
   

7. ✴The next two inscriptions deal with Sargon’s campaign in the east against Elam and Parashum (see above):
   

8. •RIME 2.1.1.8; CDLI, P461933, which is only found on CBS 13972; and
   

9. •RIME 2.1.1.9; CDLI, P461935, which is found on both CBS 13972 and Ni 3200. 
   

10. They both characterise  Sargon as ‘lugal kish, conqueror of Elam and Parashum’ and identify various enemy leaders who were presumably depicted as captives on the original victory monuments.  
    

11. ✴The last two inscriptions deal with Sargon’s campaign in the area of the Upper Euphrates and against Ebla (in modern Syria) and are on both CBS 13972 and Ni 3200:
    

12. •RIME 2.1.1.11; CDLI, P461937 (which is bilingual); and
    

13. •RIME 2.1.1.12; CDLI, P461938.
    

14. Although they seem to be duplicates, Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 1993, at p. 30) argued that they probably came from two separate originals, since one would not expect to find an original inscription copied twice on one Sammeltafel.  In the form in which they have come down to us, they both:
    

15. •begin with the information that:
    

16. “Sargon, lugal kish, was victorious (in) 34 battles”; and 
    

17. •record that Sargon:
    

18. “... bowed down to the god Dagan at Tuttul, ... [who] gave to him the Upper Land: Mari (see above), Iarmuti and Ebla as far as the Cedar Forest and the Silver Mountains.”
    

19. Frayne (as above) commented that:
    

20. “It is unclear why captions naming the defeated enemy leaders of Sargon's ... campaign [in Sumer] are listed at the end of [RIME 2.1.1.12].” 
    

Taken together, these inscriptions indicate that, some time after Sargon’s defeat of Lugalzagesi, he dropped the titles ‘king of Akkad’ and ‘king of the land’, styling himself simply as ‘king of Kish’. 

A substantial body of epigraphic evidence shows that each of Sargon’s sons, Rimush and Manishtushu (who succeeded him in turn) retained ‘king of Kish’ as his ‘official royal title.  However as Nikita Artemov (referenced below, at p. 71) observed, when Naram-Sin succeeded his father, Manishtushu, he dropped this title and instead used the title ‘shar kibratim abra՚im’ (literally, king of the four quarters, apparently meaning ‘king of the world’).  Indeed, as Artemov also pointed out (at p. 73):

1. “After Rimush and Manishtushu, the title ‘king of Kish’ disappears for more than 400 years from written records (at least from those available to us today): the next Mesopotamian ruler for whom it is attested is Ipiq-Adad II of Eshnunna, who ... turned the hitherto small city state into an important regional power ... [As surviving epigraphic evidence] shows, the logograms ‘lugal kish’ stand this time unequivocally for the Akkadian ‘shar kishshatim’ (literally ‘king of totality’).” 
   

This brings us to the question of the significance of the title ‘lugal kish’ at the time of Sargon (in the Group 3 period), Rimush and Manishtushu.  Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2013, at p. 146) argued that:

1. “...  [even] in the ED IIIb period, this title [had] served as a generic designation of a universal ruler, corresponding to the later title ‘shar kishshatim’ ...”
   

He added (at note 51):

1. “That the title meant ‘shar kishshatim’ already in Sargonic times is shown by the fact that, in the same inscriptions:
   

2. ✴lugal kish’ invariably lacks the indicator ‘ki’; whereas
   

3. ✴the toponym ‘Kish’ is always written with it.”
   

Steinkeller’s ‘indicators’ are usually described as ‘determinatives’, which were:

1. ✴attached to nouns to indicate that they belonged to a particular group (as in ki, which indicates that the noun in question is a place); and
   

2. ✴were not pronounced in speech and therefore represented as superscripts in transliterations. 
   

Thus, as mentioned above, in transliterations of RIME 2.1.1.2; CDLI, P461927, we read:

1. ✴lugal akadeki (king of Akkad - lines 2-3);
   

2. ✴lugal kish (king of Kish, not given the determinative ki and usually translated as ‘king of the world’ - line 6); and
   

3. ✴kishki (the city of Kish - line 103).
   

Steinkeller argued that, although the use of determinatives was unusual in the ED I-II period, by the time of Sargon (and indeed from at least the ED III period), if this title had indicated nothing more than the kingship of Kish itself, it would have been written lugal kishki.  He therefore concluded that, at least from the ED IIIb period, this title:

1. “... served as a generic designation of a universal ruler, corresponding to the later title ‘shar kishshatim’ (king of all’).”
   

However, Nikita Artemov (referenced below, at p. 72) argued that:

1. “The popular view that the Old Akkadian title ‘lugal kish’ either:
   

2. ✴is to be read shar kishshatim; or
   

3. ✴while being formally identical with the ED title shar kish, means shar kishshatim on the connotative plane [= by way of a pun];
   

4. is, in fact, neither provable nor plausible.  The earliest attestations for kishshatum (totality) are Old Babylonian; the word occurs neither in Old Akkadian nor (what is more) in Old Assyrian sources.  The main argument brought forward by Piotr Steinkeller [see above] in favour of the reading shar kishshatim for the Old Akkadian lugal Kish is  .... [that], at the end of the ED period, the name of the city of Kish was always written kishki in Sumerian.  However, the absence of the determinative was convincingly explained as a graphic archaism by William Hallo ([referenced below)] who pointed out that lugal kish in the Old Akkadian royal inscriptions reproduced not only the ED II/IIIa writing of the title lugal kish (without determinative) but also its sign forms; thus, [for example], the sign lugal used in the original inscriptions of Rimush;
   

5. ✴resembles strikingly the sign form used in the royal inscriptions of Mesilim, [a well known king of Kish from the ED I-II period - see below]; and
   

6. ✴differs from its more modern version(s) occurring ... in late ED royal inscriptions since the time of [Eanatum, ensi of Lagash, who received nam-lugal kishki (the kingship of the city of Kish) from Inanna]”, (RIME 1.9.3.5, col. vi, line 4).
   

In other words, Artemov argued that Sargon used the title lugal kish (without determinative) in order to present himself as a Kishite king of the stature of the ED I-II kings of Kish (such as Mesilim).  

Significance of Sargon’s Title ‘King of Kish’ in the Group 3 Inscriptions: My Conclusions 

The first question we need to address here is why Sargon ‘dropped’ the titles ‘king of Akkad’ and ‘king of the land of Sumer’ in his Group 3 period.  It seems to me that the most likely reason is that he now claimed hegemony over a huge tract of territory that extended well beyond the traditional borders of Mesopotamia, and his kingships of Akkad and of Sumer lost their particular resonance in this new political environment. 

However, this leaves us with two more difficult related questions:

1. ✴why did Sargon choose the title ‘king of Kish’ in order to express the new political reality of the Group 3 period; and
   

2. ✴why did both Rimush and Manishtushu continue this practice throughout their respective reigns.
   

Clearly, this simple title resonated across what we call the Akkadian empire, but the precise reasons for this are still debated.  At this point, I would merely observe that:

1. ✴while, as far as we know, neither Enshakushana (despite of his having defeated and captured the Kishite king Enbi-Ishtar) nor Lugalzagesi used the title king of Kish; 
   

2. ✴at least four other Sumerian rulers whose capitals were certainly not at Kish did (for whatever reason) claim it as an additional title:
   

3. •Meskalamdu (RIME 1.13.5.1; CDLI, P431203) and his son, Mesanepada (RIME 1.13.5.2; CDLI, P431204), both of whom were kings of Ur;
   

4. •Eanatum, ensi of Lagagash (RIME 1.9.3.5; CDLI, P431079, lines 98-106); and
   

5. •Lugal-kigine-dudu, king of Ur and Lord of Uruk (RIME 1.14.14.2; CDLI, P431217). 
   

Sargon’s ‘Victory’ Inscriptions: My Conclusions 

On the basis of the analysis above, I suggest that Sargon’s titulary evolved over time as follows:

1. ✴he used the title ‘king of Akkad’ in the Group 1 period, when:
   

2. •he controlled both Akkad and Kish and was active in Sumer, but
   

3. •had not yet celebrated his definitive defeat of Lugalzagesi at Nippur; 
   

4. ✴he adopted the more imposing title ‘king of Akkad, king of Kish, king of the land’ immediately thereafter his putative coronation at Nippur; and
   

5. ✴he adopted the title ‘king of Kish’ (tout court) in his subsequent Group  3 period, after conquering a large tract of land outside Mesopotamia in order to express the new ‘imperial’ reality (a practice that was retained by both of his immediate successors).  
   

Sargon’s Early Career

Having established a model for the broad structure of Sargon’s political career, I would now like to look more closely at what can be gleaned about his early career.  On the basis of the evidence discussed so far, all we can really say  is that:

1. ✴he began his career as King of Akkad and (since he is never given a patronymic in his surviving royal inscriptions) it seems likely the he acquired this title by force of arms;
   

2. ✴Kish was already in his control at the time he invaded Sumer, although there is no contemporary evidence that illuminates the circumstances in which had achieved this; and
   

3. ✴he was subsequently able to use what must have been a stable political and military base in the north as a springboard for his spectacular conquest of Sumer. 
   

Legend of the Great Revolt against Naram-Sin  

The only surviving narrative account of Sargon’s conquest of Kish comes in the so-called ‘Legend of the Great Revolt against Naram-Sin’, which is known from two Old Babylonian copies that are discussed and translated by Joan Goodnick Westenholz (referenced below) as:

1. ✴Entry 16A: the Mari version (at  pp. 231-7); and
   

2. ✴Entry 16B: the Geneva version (at  pp. 238=245). 
   

In this passage, Naram-Sin complains that the ungrateful Kishites had rebelled against him, even though: 

1. “... after my (grand)father Sargon conquered the city of Uruk, he established freedom for the Kishite (people): he had their slave marks shaved off and their shackles smashed: he escorted Lugalzagesi, their despoiler to [‘A-ka]-deki’, probably Akkad], (lines 5-8: see also this translation from the website ‘Sources of Early Akkadian Literature’).
   

Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2017, at p. 171, citing Claus Wilcke, referenced below, commentary at p 30 on lines ix 32 - x14 of his transliteration) argued that, although this text belongs to an Old Babylonian version of the legend, this passage within it was, in fact, part of the Old Akkadian original: in the relevant passage (at p. 30) Wilcke had commented that  the text in line 8 of the transliteration above:  

1. “... has preserved the Old Akkadian spelling of the sibilant [sh] in mu-sa-li-il-shu-nu [= despoiler; plunderer]”, my translation).
   

This explains why Steinkeller (in his analysis at p. 183 of the chronological relationship, if any, between King Ur-Zababa of Kish and Sargon - see below) characterised this passage as one of the ‘contemporary historical sources’ for Sargon’s early history which:

1. “... offer no indication that Sargon was in any way connected with Kish prior to his conflict with Lugalzagesi.  According to their [sic] testimony, Kish had been conquered by Lugalzagesi, to be subsequently captured by Sargon as part of his war on Lugalzagesi.  Thus, Naram-Sin reports that his grandfather Sargon freed Kish from Lugalzagesi’s oppression.  That Sargon had no earlier connection with Kish is further indicated by the fact that, as there is every reason to think, he stemmed from Akkad.  For this conclusion, it is important that, in his royal inscriptions, Sargon uses the title of the king of Akkad, never laying claims to the kingship of Kish [sic: he argued in note 472 that, when  Sargon did use the title ‘king of Kish’, it always meant ‘king of the totality/universe.]”
   

This is a strong statement to make based on:

1. ✴a single mention of Lugalzagesi (he is not named in the Geneva version of the legend); and
   

2. ✴Wilcke’s observation (mentioned above) that the word that follows Lugalzagesi (mu-sa-li-il-shu-mu = despoiler) preserves the Old Akkadian spelling. 
   

Moreover, in the previous essay in this book, Steinkeller argued (at p. 122) that:

1. “After he had conquered northern Babylonia together with its traditional political centre Kish, Sargon then confronted Lugalzagesi.” 
   

Interestingly, some 20 years earlier, Aage Westenholz (referenced below, at p. 23) had warned that early legends of this kind should be used with caution:

1. “We should not forget that most of Sargon's or Naram-Sin's subjects only knew about their kings from hearsay, so the idea of the Sargonic kings as ‘living legends’ may not be far out.  ... I think we should accept the [Old Akkadian] tradition, at least in its broad outlines, as the truly popular memory of the Akkadian dynasty, comparable to any other oral saga tradition (nothing less, and nothing more).  Further, it appears to be chiefly a North Babylonian tradition, [in which];
   

2. ✴the Sumerians and their revolts are only there as a distant echo; while
   

3. ✴Lugalzagesi's’ (actually Enshakushana’s) looting of Kish and the Kishites' ingratitude to Sargon's house are vividly remembered [at least in the legend under discussion here].”
   

I have to say that I think that this legend (which might well be relatively early) makes more sense if we assume (with Westenholz) that, in the Mari version, the actions of Enshakushana at Kish had been  attributed to Lugalzagesi (perhaps in order to validate the claim that Sargon had previously liberated the ungrateful Kishites from the tyranny of Uruk). 

Sumerian King Lists (USKL and SKL)

Sargon features in the earliest known recension of the so-called Sumerian King List, which dates to the reign of the ‘Ur III’ king Shulgi (ca. 2050 BC: hereafter the USKL).  This inscription is known from only a single, double-sided tablet of which about half survives.  Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2003) published the surviving part of the inscription and an on-line transliteration is available at CDLI: P283804.  Steinkeller established (at p. 274) that the USKL begins with what was almost certainly an unbroken list of about 30 Kishite rulers.  Gösta Gabrial (referenced below, forthcoming) presents:

1. ✴a list of  the 21 surviving Kishite names (at Table 5.2); and
   

2. ✴a list of 9 kings of Uruk (ending with Lugalzagesi) that he suggests filled the following lacuna (in Section 5.2.2). 
   

Thereafter, we read that: 

1. “Sargon, in Akkad, [ruled for] 40 years”, (reverse col. 1, lines 6’-7’ in the CDLI transliteration). 
   

Unfortunately, because of the preceding lacuna, we do not know how Sargon was introduced in this text (although he almost certainly followed King Lugalzagesi of Uruk, whom he had defeated in battle).   In the later Old Babylonian recensions of the Sumerian King List (hereafter the SKL), which were compiled after the fall of Ur during the period of the Isin kings (based in part on the USKL), Lugalzagesi was followed by: 

1. “Sargon:
   

2. ✴whose father was a gardener;
   

3. ✴(who was himself) the cupbearer of (king) Ur-Zababa [of Kish]; [and]
   

4. ✴the king of Akkad.
   

5. The one who built Akkad was king [there].  He ruled for 56 years”, (SKL 266-271). 
   

As noted above, an administrative document from Nippur was dated to: 

1. “The year in which Enshakushana defeated Akkad.”
   

Since there is no reason to doubt the relative chronology of the SKL, in which Enshakushana (SKL 186-7) ruled at Uruk before Lugalzagesi (SKL 259-60) and thus probably before Sargon, we should probably assume that:

1. ✴Enshakushana did indeed defeat Akkad (although we have no evidence to suggest that he actually  ruled there); and
   

2. ✴Sargon subsequently took control there (in now-unknown circumstances but probably by force) and established it as his capital, possibly becoming the first man to use the title King of Akkad. 
   

King Ur-Zababa of Kish in the Sumerian King Lists 

Rulers of Kish from Queen Ku-Babu until the end of the Kishite list(s) in the USKL and the SKL.

This brings us to the question of whether was should accept the proposition that Sargon started his career as the cup-bearer of King Ur-Zababa of Kish.  Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2017, at p. 183 and note 468) argued that this proposition:

1. “... is invalidated by the SKL’s own evidence, namely the fact that ... [this list names] five additional kings of Kish following Ur-Zababa .”
   

However:

1. ✴as shown in the table above, one of the six names in these recensions was added in the Isin period; and
   

2. ✴as Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2003, at p. 274 and p. 277) pointed out, in the USKL, Shulgi’s scribe probably added Nanne and his son Meshnune to the Kishite list in error by 
   

Nevertheless, the point remains that the USKL names three kings of Kish after Ur-Zababa.

To take this further, we should consider the fact that, as mentioned above, the USKL started with an unbroken list of about 30 kings of Kish,  Having established this fact, Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2003, at p. 282) argued that no Sumerian ruler would have: 

1. “... had any part in a project that assigns much of the past glory to Kish, ... This leaves us with only one possible agency [for the Kishite list]: Sargon [of Akkad and his successors, who would] have had an obvious interest in promoting the idea that Kish remained the seat of kingship from time immemorial down to Sargon’s own day.  In such a scheme of history, Akkad became a natural heir and successor to Kish ...”
   

He suggested that this putative precursor of the USKL was possibly composed during the reign of Sargon’s grandson, Naram-Sin.  Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2017, at p. 40) subsequently returned to this model of evolution, arguing that the putative  Sargonic precursor of the USKL:

1. “... was probably written ... with [the] express objective of demonstrating that ... the Sargonic dynasty was a continuation of the kingdom of Kish.  In other words, this hypothetical [Sargonic version of the king] list was, in its essence, a linear history of the northern Babylonian monarchy.  If so, this ‘history’ would have been part of the ideological innovations that the Sargonic kings introduced to foster the idea of a unified Babylonian state, thus radically differing from the traditional, Sumerian types of historical records.” 
   

Gösta Gabriel (referenced below, 2023 at p. 244) took this proposition further, arguing that this putative ‘Sargonic version’ must have been based on the Kishites’ own historiographical tradition, in which case:

1. “... the first [precursor] of what would become the [USKL and then the SKL] was most likely written in Kish before ca. 2350BC.” 
   

It seems to me that, given the facts that:

1. ✴Nanne and Meshnune were almost certainly added to the Kishite list at the time of the compilation of the USKL; and
   

2. ✴Ushi-water was certainly added to it decades later;
   

we cannot assume that any of the names Zimudar, Ashtar-mutu and Ishme-Shamash were necessarily present in the putative Sargonic king list.  Indeed, I would argue that the biographical note in which Sargon was characterised as the cupbearer of Ur-Zababa must have been written before these names were added (because, if not, then the scribe responsible for the note could just as easily have claimed that Sargon had been the cupbearer of one of the later kings).  This does not mean that:

1. ✴Ur-Zababa was necessarily a historical figure; and 
   

2. ✴(even if he was) that Sargon began his career as Ur-Zababa’s cupbearer.
   

All it actually tells us is that, whether or not Sargon began his career as the cupbearer of Ur-Zababa:

1. ✴the tradition that he did was accepted at the time of the compilation of  a relatively early version of the putative Sargonic king list; and
   

2. ✴some or all of the three names that follow Ur-Zababa in the USKL had been subsequent additions.
   

Sumerian Sargon Legend

The tradition discussed above was amplified in the so-called ‘Sumerian Sargon Legend’, which is known from two surviving fragmentary tablets (one from Uruk and the other from Nippur) that were published in 1983 by Jerrold Cooper and Wolfgang Heimpel (referenced below: see also the on-line translation by ETCSL).  As these authors noted, this text survives in three segments (labelled as segments A-C in ETCSL):

1. ✴‘segment A’ (on the obverse of the Uruk fragment) contains the beginning of the surviving text;
   

2. ✴‘segment B’ (on the Nippur fragment) contains the central part of the legend; and
   

3. ✴‘segment C’ (on the reverse of the Uruk fragment) contains all that we know about its ending. 
   

In this account, Sargon, who is introduced as Ur-Zababa’s cup-bearer in segment B (at line 12), inadvertently becomes the subject of Ur-Zababa’s paranoid conviction that the gods have already chosen him (Sargon) as his successor.  After an unsuccessful attempt to murder Sargon at Kish:

1. “King Ur-Zababa despatched Sargon, the creature of the gods, to Lugalzagesi in Uruk with a message written on clay, which was about murdering Sargon”, (B: 55-6). 
   

Although, in the text (as it now survives), the relationship between Ur-Zababa and Lugalzagesi is not explicitly defined, the nature of the interactions between them arguably suggests that Ur-Zababa was Lugalzagesi’s vassal (see, for example, Nshan Kesecker, referenced below, at p. 87).  Unfortunately, the rest of the surviving text (on segment C) is mostly illegible: according to the interpretation of Jerrold Cooper and Wolfgang Heimpel (see p. 68), in this segment:

1. “Lugalzagesi is questioning a messenger (presumably Ur-Zababa's from Kish) about Sargon's refusal to submit to Lugalzagesi: 
   

2. ✴If the composition ends with that column, there is scarcely room enough to give the messenger's response and then very summarily to relate events back in Kish and Sargon's triumph. 
   

3. ✴If, however, this tablet is only the first half of the composition, the second tablet would [presumably have recounted] the foretold death of Ur-Zababa, the succession of Sargon, and the battle in which Sargon finally defeated Lugalzagesi and established his hegemony over all of [Mesopotamia].” 
   

This possible end to the legend is obviously a matter of speculation: all we know for certain is that, in segment C:

1. ✴Sargon refused to submit to someone (Lugalzagesi ? Ur-Zababa ?); and
   

2. ✴whatever happened next, he survived the envoy’s visit to Lugalzagesi’s court.  
   

This version of the legend probably incorporates the tradition found in the Mari version of the ‘Legend of the Great Revolt against Naram-Sin’ in which Sargon liberated Kish from the tyranny of Lugalzagesi (who, as noted above, is now probably the overlord of King Ur-Zababa). 

Jerrold Cooper and Wolfgang Heimpel (referenced below, at p. 68) observed that the surviving text of the legend: 

1. “... is full of grammatical and syntactic peculiarities that suggest a later Old Babylonian origin. ... But, this may just be a degenerate version of a text composed in the Ur III period; only the future discovery of more literary texts from that period and from other sites will enable us to know for certain.”  
   

What is clear is that the Sumerian original almost certainly did not pre-date the Ur III period: as Piotr Steinkeller (referenced below, 2017, at p. 46) observed:

1. “As far as we can tell, Sumerian scholars made no effort to deal with history in any serious way until the Ur III period, when the  [USKL]  and ‘The Curse of Akkad’ were composed.”
   

In his description (at p. 182) of the legend under discussion here, Steinkeller pointed to examples of its use of  ‘earlier literary motifs’ from the Ur III ‘Curse of Akkad’ and  the later ‘Lament for Sumer and Ur’ and argued that it was ‘undoubtedly composed in the Old Babylonian period. 

Sargon’s Early Career: Conclusions 

The evidence discussed in this section illustrates how Sargon’s rise to power was remembered in and after the time of his grandson, Naram-Sin, and how the tale was subsequently further elaborated in the Sumerian world during and long after the Ur III period.  However, it adds hardly anything to the hazy picture of Sargon;s rise to power that emerges from his (few and fragmentary) surviving inscriptions and the more extensive surviving Old Babylonian copies of others.  Even if  it could be proved that he actually was the son of a gardener and began his career at the court of Ur-Zababa at Kish, this would add nothing of any particular significance to our knowledge of the circumstances in which he became king of Akkad and then apparently king of Kish.  In short, the real story of how Sargon managed to assemble the men, resources and military skills that allowed him to conquer Summer either died with him or with his sons. 

Sargon’s Conquest of Sumer  

The fullest account of Sargon’s conquests in Sumer is in the Group 2 inscription RIME 2.1.1.2:

1. “[He] was victorious over Uruk in battle: 
   

2. ✴[He] conquered 50 ensi with the mace of the god Ilaba, as well as the city (of Uruk), [and] destroyed its walls.  Further, he captured Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk, in battle (and) led him off to the gate of the god Enlil in a neck stock.
   

3. ✴[He] was victorious over Ur in battle, conquer[ed] the city and destroyed its walls.
   

4. ✴[He conquered Eninmar], destroyed its walls, and conquered its district and Lagash as far as the sea. He washed his weapons in the sea.
   

5. ✴He was victorious over Umma in battle, conquered the city, and destroyed its walls.
   

6. Sargon, Lord of the land [of Sumer], the one to whom the god Enlil gave no rival, he [= Enlil] gave him [= Sargon] the Upper Sea and the Lower Sea.  From the Lower Sea to the Upper Sea, [only] citizens of Akkad held ENSI-ku8-a-a-tim ([= the governorships of the land]”, (RIME 2.1.1.2, CDLI, P461927. lines 12-91). 
   

Thus, by the will of Enlil, Sargon had completely replace d Lugalzagesi as the ruler of all the land between the Upper Sea and the Lower Sea. 

The events described above are generally assumed to have taken place in a single campaign, but this hypothesis is possibly undermined by details found in three other inscriptions:

1. ✴RIME 2.1.1.3 records a series of successive engagements in which Sargon:
   

2. •with 9 contingents from Akkad, conquered Uruk, captured 50 ensi and personally captured the unnamed king (presumably Lugalzagesi); 
   

3. •defeated the (now-unknown place called) Nagurzam;
   

4. •defeated an unnamed ruler of Ur;
   

5. •conquered Umma;
   

6. •conquered Lagash and washed his weapons in the Lower Sea.
   

7. ✴RIME 2.1.1.6 is very lacunose, and all we can read in the main text (after the recitation of Sargon’s titles) is that:
   

8. “Wh[en] the god Enlil rendered a verdict for him and (Sargon) conquer[ed] Uruk ... he [de]dicated (this object) t[o the god] Enlil, and purified Nippur for the god Enlil”, (lines 10-29).
   

9. However, we also learn (from colophon 2 and caption 2) that the inscription on the shoulder of an image of Lugalzagesi named him as en (lord) of Uruk and lugal (king) of Ur (while, in all the other cases in which Lugalzagesi is given a title, this title is simply ‘king of Uruk’).
   

10. ✴RIME 2.1.1.12 (which, as mentioned above, does not describe the events of Sargon’s conquest of Sumer) mentions four Sumerian rulers (copied from a different inscription ?)”: 
    

11. •Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk (Caption 2);
    

12. •Ur-Nanna, king of U[r] (Caption 3);
    

13. •Meszi, ensi of Lagash (Caption 6); and
    

14. •Mese, ensi of Umma (caption 7), whose capture is also recorded in RIME 2.1.1.1, at Caption 2). 
    

Since:

1. ✴in RIME 2.1.1.6 Lugalzagesi has the title ‘lord of Uruk and king of Ur’; and
   

2. ✴in RIME 2.1.1.12, he is named as ‘king of Uruk’ (tout court) and Ur-Nanna is named as king of Ur;
   

Gianni Marchesi (referenced below, 2015, entry A12 at p. 144) argued that: 

1. “Evidently [Ur-Nanna] occupied the vacant throne of Ur after [Sargon] defeated Lugalzagesi.” 
   

In other words, it is possible that an initial attack by Sargon on Lugalzagesi undermined his position in Sumer, allowing Ur-Nanna (and possibly Meszi at Umma and/or Mese at Lagash) to assert their independence before their successive defeats by Sargon.   

Sargon and Adab 

As we have seen, an administrative document from Adab (NBC 5924, BIN 8. 26, CDLI P221549, reverse col. iii, lines 3-7) a man called Meskigala served as ensi of Adab under the hegemony of Lugalzagesi.  Giuseppe Visicato and Aage Westenholz (referenced below, at pp. 31-74), who published 180 (of the known 265) administrative texts from Adab that belong to this period that are now in the Cornell University Collections, and  suggested (at p. 2) that they:

1. “... may have been written over a very short period between Sargon’s war against Lugalzagesi and his subsequent campaign against Mari, Ebla and Iarmuti, [towards the Cedar Forest, described in RIME 2.1.1., inscriptions 11 and 12].” 
   

Interestingly, Meskigala is also known from the inscription on a broken alabaster statue that probably came from Adab, which is now in the Iraq Museum (IM 5572); the inscription reads:

1. “For the god Ninshubur, vizier of the god An, for the life of [Mes]-kigala, ensi of Adab ... from the Cedar Mountains he ... For the lives of his wife and children, he dedicated this (statue) to the god Ninshubur, his [go]d.  Its [the statue’s] name is, ‘Have mercy through (my) prayers!’”, (RIME 1.1.9.2001,P431023). 
   

Thus, it seems that Meskigala actually defected from Lugalzagesi to Sargon and prospered thereafter as Sargon’s ensi of Adab, which would explain why Adab is not mentioned as a conquered city in Sargon.s royal inscriptions..  (It is possible that this Meskigala was (or perhaps was the father of) the Meskigala, ensi of Adab who mounted an unsuccessful rebellion against Sargon’s son, Rimush - see RIME 2.1.2.1, P461947, lines 14-18).   

Stele Sb 1 and Sb 2 from Susa

As discussed above, having completed the conquered of Mesopotamia, Sargon went on to conquer a vast tract of neighbouring lands that included Elam and its capital Susa.  I discuss  his conquest of Elam in the following page, but I want to discuss two inscribed stele from Susa in the present page: 

1. ✴one (exhibit Sb 1) which was mentioned and illustrated at the start of this analysis as carrying the only surviving original inscription that names Sargon; and
   

2. ✴the other (exhibit Sb 2), which is almost certainly attributable to him. 
   

These two stele (which are usually said to be made from diorite, although the museum has apparently identified this rock as gabbro) were found only about 50 meters apart on  the Acropole of Susa.  However, it is possible that this was not their original location: as Douglas Frayne (referenced below, 1993,  at p. 26) observed (in relation to Sb 1) that this stele, which had apparently been been ‘deliberately defaced in antiquity’, may have been:

1. ✴set up in Susa to commemorate Sargon's victory over Elam; or 
   

2. ✴brought here from Babylonia as a piece of booty by ‘the Elamites’.
   

The museum webpages hold to the second hypothesis, naming the Elamite in question as King Shutruk-Nahunte (12th century BC).  It seems to me that it is also possible that Puzur-Inshushinak, the ensi of Susa (who apparently took control of Akkad just before the start of the Ur III period) could have found them at Akkad and brought them back to Susa as booty. 

The stele both carry Old Akkadian inscriptions:

1. ✴those on Sb 1 (RIME 2:1:1:10; CDLI, P461936) read:  
   

2. •Side A (caption): “Sargon, the king”; and
   

3. •side C:” [When Sargon] conquered the place ... [in] battle, ...  may they [= two gods] ...  tear out his foundations and pluck out his seed”; and  
   

4. ✴that on Sb 2 (RIME 2.0.0.1002: see Douglas Frayne, referenced below, 1993, at p. 310) reads:   
   

5. “...  [may the gods ...] and Ilaba [tear out] his foundations.”.
   

The inscriptions on Sb 1 (side C)  and that  Sb 2 will have been part of a curse on anyone violating the stele in question.

Sargon and Ilaba

As we have seen, each of the  stele under discussion here preserve a fragmentary curse: 

1. ✴Sb 1: “... may they [= two gods]...  tear out his foundations and pluck out his seed”; and  
   

2. ✴Sb 2: “... [may the gods ... and] Ilaba [tear out] his foundations”.
   

I suggest below that the two gods mention in each of these curses would have been Ishtar and Ilabba/

Ilaba is also mentioned in two of Sargon’s Group 2 inscriptions:

1. ✴RIME 2.1.1.2; CDLI, P461927 records that, during his conquest of Uruk, Sargon captured 50 ensi with the ‘mace of Ilaba’ (see lines 16-18); and
   

2. ✴in RIME 2.1.1.3; CDLI, P461928
   

3. •records that Ilaba was Sargon’s personal god (see lines 1-2); and
   

4. •contains the following caption (presumably originally under an image of the god):
   

5. “The god Ilaba, mighty one of the gods: the god Enlil gave to him (his) weapon(s)”.
   

Stefan Nowicki (referenced below, at p. 68) pointed out: 

1. “... Ilaba was an unknown god in earlier times (at least in Mesopotamia) and his worship [there] was established by Sargon:  ... the cult of Ilaba emerged no earlier than Sargon, and it vanished immediately after the Akkadian dynasty had faded away.”
   

The interesting thing that emerges from the caption in RIME 2.1.1.3 is that, soon after his conquest of Sumer, Sargon positioned Ilaba within the Sumerian pantheon under Enlil.

Relief on Stele Sb 1  

Sketches of the reliefs on sides A, B and C of the Stele Sb 1

From Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below: sides A-B from Fig. 8, at p, 92; side C from Fig.12, at p. 97) 

Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below, Table 1, at p. 94) described the scenes originally depicted in the reliefs that survive on three of the four sides of the stele  as follows:

1. ✴in the upper register: 
   

2. •side A (his side B): 7 bound prisoners, marching left, followed by an Akkadian soldier;
   

3. •side B (his side A); 2 pairs of figures marching right, each pair representing an Akkadian soldier manhandling a prisoner (the first of which is kneeling); and 
   

4. •side C: 5 more pairs of figures marching right, each pair representing an Akkadian soldier manhandling a prisoner; and
   

5. ✴in the lower register: 
   

6. •side A (his side B): Sargon (identified by inscription) walking left, followed by a servant holding a parasol and 2 other figures that he characterised as ‘dignitaries’;
   

7. •side B (his side A); 3 more ‘dignitaries’ walking right; and 
   

8. •side C: vultures and dogs attacking enemy corpses.  
   

He noted (at pp. 95) that Sargon wields a mace in his right hand and suggested (at p. 96) that the high rank of the 5 ‘dignitaries’ who follow him is indicated by their  crescent-like axes (the blades of which are tucked under their handles, possibly implying a ceremonial function).

Relief on Stele Sb 2 

Left: Fragment of a diorite stele of a now-unnamed king (probably Sargon) from Susa  

Now in the Musée du Louvre ( Sb 2): image from museum website    

Right: Sketch of the relief from Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below. Fig.1, at p. 86)  

Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below, at p. 85) observed that: 

1. “The unique shape of the surviving fragment Sb 2 suggests that it was the upper register of an ogival stele, [although only] scant traces of a lower register [survive].” 
   

The most complete image (which is on the surviving narrow side of the stele) depicts 7 prisoners (presumably prisoners of war) in a net, with the head of the most senior of them protruding from the left.  Two fragmentary figures flank this motif:  Nigro (as above) identified the standing figure on the left (whose left shoulder and arm survive) as Sargon, who:

1. ✴wears a ‘royal cloak’ over his shoulder;
   

2. ✴originally held the top of the net in his left hand; and
   

3. ✴holds a mace (the mace of Ilaba ?) in his right hand, with its head against the skull of the captured commander.
   

This identification is generally accepted: see, for example: 

1. ✴Nicolò Marchetti (referenced below, at p. 301 and note 50); and 
   

2. ✴Renate van Dijk-Coombes (referenced below, at p. 157, citing Nigro). 
   

Nigro observed (at pp. 90-1) that, since the protruding head of the captured commander is:

1. ✴larger than those of the other captives in the net; and
   

2. ✴similar in iconographic terms to that of Sargon;
   

its owner was probably also ‘a distinguished personage of royal rank’.  Thus, the scene is set after Sargon has defeated this enemy king in a recent battle. 

Identity of the Seated Deity on the Right   

This brings us to the likely identity of full-sized enthroned deity to the right, who would have been looking towards the net of prisoners of war: as Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below, at p. .87) observed, this figure would have dominated this side of the stele.  On the face of it, there is little to go on in relation to the deity’s identity, since only its left hand and part of tits left foot survive.  However, three undulating rays (one of which ends in a mace head) still appear to rise from the now-missing shoulder and Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below, at p. 85) reasonably argued that they allow us to identify this deity as the goddess Ishtar, whom he characterised as the ‘Akkadian dynastic goddess’.  Renate van Dijk-Coombes (referenced below, at p. 157) agreed, observing that:

1. “According to [Gudrun Colbow (referenced below, at p. 107), the relief on Sb 2] is the earliest Akkadian depiction of Ishtar as ... a goddess of war.  This scene recalls motifs found in the textual repertoire: it appears that [Sargon] has ... been victorious in battle with the support of the goddess.”   
   

She also observed (at p. 147) that:  

1. “Inana/Ishtar was the goddess of war, particularly from the Akkadian Period, when she was the imperial goddess of the Akkadian Empire.  During this period, Ishtar in her warlike aspect was known as Ishtar-Annunītum ...”   
   

Left: Impression from a seal depicting Ishtar and the deified Naram-Sin (who is named as ‘god of Akkad’): 

now in private ownership; image from the website of the Morgan Library and Museum   

Right: Statue of Peltikalim (Ishtar) from Susa, commissioned by Puzur-Inshushinak,  

now in the Musée du Louvre ( Sb 54 + Sb 6617): image from the museum website  

Donald Hansen (referenced below, entry 133, at pp. 206-7) discussed a particularly good example of the iconography used for this warlike Ishtar, which is illustrated on the left above: as he pointed out, she is  seated on a lion throne with weapons emerging from her shoulders, her right hand grasping the arm of the deified Naram Sin (Sargon’s grandson) and her left hand holding ropes that are attached to the noses of four of his captives (two of whom seem to be ‘foreign’ gods).  This comparison arguably allows us to assume that, in Sb 2, Ishtar was similarly depicted on a lion throne.

More than a century after Naram-Sin, Puzur-Inshushinak, the ensi of Susa (mentioned above), commissioned a statue (illustrated above on the right) of an enthroned goddess on a lion throne, although her only other surviving attribute is a headdress with horns over the hair.  However, the throne bears a dual inscription:

1. ✴one written in Akkadian (the language of the earlier Akkadian overlords of Susa); and
   

2. ✴the other written in Linear Elamite (LE) script, which (as observed in the Hatamti-Linear Elamite Database):
   

3. “... has so far been used exclusively to record texts in the now-extinct and isolated Elamite (= Hatamtite) language.”  
   

Neither inscription is without its problems:

1. ✴as Javier Álvarez-Mon (referenced below 2018, at p. 181) observed, the Akkadian inscription is now fragmentary, although it does still record the name of ‘Puzur-Inshushinak, the ensi of Susa’; and
   

2. ✴the LE text has yet to be completely deciphered, although, as François Desset (referenced below, 2021, at p. 76) noted, the enthroned goddess, who: 
   

3. “... was previously wrongly identified as [Narundi], was [actually] designated in this inscription as ‘Peltikalim’, a by-name traditionally reserved in Susa for Inanna/Ishtar, ... [This] identification is confirmed by the lions carved on the throne of the goddess and on the platform under her feet”.
   

Javier Álvarez-Mon (referenced below 2020, at p. 150), when considering the relief of the eight-petaled rosette below the feet of this goddess, similarly observed that:

1. “One can hardly overlook the association of rosettes and lions with the [Sumerian/ Akkadian]  Inanna/ Ishtar.”
   

Interestingly, we know from an inscription (RIME 3/2:1:1:29, CDLI, P432139, lines 15’-28’) of King Ur-Namma (the founder of the later Ur III dynasty) that he had ‘liberated’ Akkad from the control of Puzur-Inshushinak (as mentioned above), which would explain why this Elamite ruler would have previously claimed the patronage of Peltikalim/Ishtar. .

Thus, it seems that Sargon considered Ishtar to be the author of his victory over the commander whose head protrudes from the prisoner net.  Actually, this comes as no surprise: as Julia Asher-Greve and Joan Goodnick Westenholz (referenced below, at p. 62) observed: 

1. “In the Old Akkadian period, Ishtar was the titulary goddess of Akkad, ... and her fortunes and characteristics were intimately linked with the political aspirations of the Sargonic rulers.  Sargon and his successors actively encouraged the syncretism between Ishtar of Akkad and Inanna of Uruk in order to make the national Akkadian goddess acceptable to the Sumerians.  It has been suggested that the notoriously warlike character of Ishtar was a specifically Akkadian trait.  However, while it is true that ... Ishtar-Annunītum (Ishtar the skirmisher) was indeed the ‘Mistress of Battle’, the Akkadian Ishtar was a multifaceted deity (like the Sumerian Inana) ... [and] the qualities and functions of these two goddesses are essentially fused in the Old Akkadian period.” 
   

Influence of the Stele of the Vultures from Lagash on Sb 1 and Sb 2 

Reliefs of Sb 1 

Left: Fragment A (‘historical’ side) from the Stele of the Vultures from Lagash 

Now in the Musée du Louvre (AO 50): image from the museum website 

Right (below): relief on the lower register of side C of Sb 1: image from the website of the the Musée du Louvre     

Right (above): sketch of this relief by Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below, Fig.12, at p. 97)   

It is striking that the reliefs of both SB 1 and Sb 2 seem to reference the famous ‘Stelel of the Vultures’ from Girsu (the religious capital of Lagash), which celebrated the victory of Eanatum, ensi of Lagash (who ruled at Lagash about a century before its conquest by Saegon) in a border dispute with neighbouring Umma.  The more direct reference comes in Sb 1: as shown in the illustrations above, there is an obvious iconographical similarity between:

1. ✴the scene on the Lagash stele in which vultures devour the enemy corpses (on Fragment A, on the ‘historical’ side; and 
   

2. ✴the scene depicted in the lower register of side C of Sb 1. 
   

Reliefs on Sb 2   

Left: sketch of the reconstructed scene in the upper register (‘mythological’ side) of the Lagashite Stele of the Vultures

with the surviving fragments (A, C, D and E) indicated, by Licia Romano (referenced below, 2007, Figure 1, at p. 21) 

Right: sketch of the surviving relief on Sb 2, by Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below. Fig.1, at p. 86)   

As it happens, the more interesting reference to the Lagashite stele comes in Sb 2: as shown in the illustrations above: 

1. ✴in the relevant scene on the Lagashite stele, a standing male figure holds:
   

2. •a mace in his right hand, with its ‘business end’ touching (and possibly striking) the protruding head of one of the prisoners; and  
   

3. •the fastener of the prisoner net in his left hand; and 
   

4. ✴this motif clearly provided the model for the surviving relief on Sb 2. 
   

Note that:

1. ✴in the case of the Lagashite relief, Sébastien Rey (referenced below, at pp. 247-8) identified:
   

2. •the tall figure at the centre as Ningirsu, the city god of Lagash and Girsu; and
   

3. •the very fragmentary goddess behind Ningirsu (who apparently has maces rising from her shoulders and whom he argued would have been seated) as the goddess Ninhursag, although I argue in my page on Eanatum’s ‘Stele of the Vultures’ that she is more probably Inanna; and
   

4. ✴as discussed above, in the original scene on Sb 2:
   

5. •the standing figure holding the mace in his right hand and the prisoner net in his left hand is almost certainly Sargon; and
   

6. •the full-sized seated goddess looking on from the right is almost certainly Ishtar.  
   

In the case of the Lagashite stele, it is clear from the inscriptions that the men trapped in the prisoner net were men of Umma.  As Sébastien Rey (referenced below, at p. 248) observed, they are depicted as:

1. “... small and naked [figures] with shaved heads and faces, [whose] bodies are twisted and contorted in unnatural positions that emphasise the extreme degradation to which they have been subjected.”
   

The heads of 6 of them survive on Fragment E and Sébastien Rey, in his reconstruction of this part of the relief (see his Figure 92, at p. 244), suggested that the now lost part of the net would have contained about 3 more.   As Lorenzo Nigro (referenced below, at p. 85) observed, the net on Sb 2 (which survives in its entirety) contains 7 prisoners who (as he observed at p. 89), they:

1. “... are not represented as a heaped-up mound of dead corpses [sic], as in the [Lagashite stele], but as regularly seated figures, stretching their right hands towards Sargon in a gesture of submission’”
   

As he pointed out, while Eanatum’s objective had been to bully his neighbours into peaceful co-existence, Sargon:

1. “... does not want to slay those enemies who are ready to accept his sovereignty: [his ‘message is that]  the Akkadian conquest brings order [and hence, peace and prosperity] to defeated peoples.”  
   

Heads of the enemy commander in the Lagashite stele (left) and the stele Sb 2 (right)

Adapted from images in the website of the Musée du Louvre  (AO 50 and  Sb 2 respectively: my additions in white

Comparison of the enemy commanders in these two stele is rather more difficult, given their relatively small sizes.  In the case of the Lagashite stele, Sébastien Rey (referenced below, at p. 248) argued that:

1. “Since the protruding head is [slightly] larger than those of the other captives, it is perhaps intended to be that of their leader.”
   

It seems to me that (since this prisoner receives the direct attention of Ningirsu) he:

1. ✴must have been the ensi of Umma (who, according to the inscription, had been forced to agree a treaty guaranteeing the god’s continuing ownership of the disputed territory); and.
   

2. ✴he must have been granted his life (since, if he was about to be killed, his agreement to the treaty would have been worthless).
   

Furthermore, since he seems to offer his head through the opening in the net without ‘outside assistance’, I suggest that this motif  indicates the ensi’s ‘voluntary’ (if abject) act of submission..

 

Nigro suggested that this enemy king was Lugalzagesi (see, for example, his figures 2 and 7), and this was accepted by both Marchetti and van Dijk- Coombes (as above).  However, it seems to me that, since Sb 1 and Sb 2 might have originated at Susa (as opposed to their having been moved there), this commander could have been ‘Hishibrasini, king of Elam’, who was recorded in an Old Babylonian copy of a Group 3 inscription (RIME, 2:1:1:9: CDLI, P461935) from Nippur (discussed above).  Interestingly, the surviving captions on this and a second Group 3 inscription (RIME, 2:1:1:8: P461933), which is closely related to it, record the names of at least seven enemy commanders: 

Hishibrasini, king of Elam (mentioned above);

Luhishan, son of Hishibrasini, king of Elam;

Sanam-Shimut, ensi of Elam; 

Dagu, brother of the king of Parahshum; and

three generals (shagina) of Parahshum (Ulul, Sidga’u and Sanam-Shimut).

As noted above, it is likely that the originals of these copies such as this had been inscribed on triumphal steles that once stood in the courtyard of Enlil's   temple at Nippur, and the captions would presumably have come from images of these commanders as captives.  I wonder whether ‘Sargon, king of Kish and conqueror of Elam and Parahshum’ had:

brought these commanders to Nippur as prisoners of war and  and presented them (as he had earlier presented Lugalzagesi) at ‘the gate of the god Enlil in a neck stock’.; and

commemorated their humiliating submission  at Nippur   on the stele at Susa. 

Sargon and the Stele of the Vultures 

Given this striking iconographical similarity, we must address the circumstances in which Sargon might have become aware of the reliefs on the Lagashite stele, the surviving fragments of which were all found  on Tell K at Girsu (the site of the Temple of Ningirsu). 

Lugalzagesi and the Ningirsu Temple at Girsu   

Sébastien Rey (referenced below, at p. 285) argued that the stele would originally been prominently displayed in the successive ‘incarnations’ of the Ningirsu temple until the temple itself:

1. “...  it was finally destroyed by Lugalzagesi after his devastating conquest of Lagash”  (my bold italics).  
   

In this context, we should note that the Lagashite stele commemorated Eanatum’s victory over the neighbouring city of Umma, and it is probably no coincidence that, when Lugalzagesi conquered Lagash about a century later, he did so in his capacity as ensi of Umma.  It is worth repeating here the damning message for posterity that the erstwhile ensi of Lagash record in his (apparent;y temporary) refuge at Girsu:

1. “The ensi of Umma, having sacked Lagash, has committed a sin against the god Ningirsu.  The hand that he has raised against [Ningirsu] will be cut off!  It is not a sin of Urukagina, king of Girsu.  May Nisaba, the god of Lugalzagesi, the ensi of Umma, make them [= the people of Umma] bear this sin on their necks!”, (RIME 1.19.9.5; CDLI, P431158, lines 95-9). 
   

We do not know how long Urukagina managed to hold Girsu but, as Sébastien Rey ( referenced below, at p. 301) pointed out, it was surely at this point (or soon thereafter) that:

1. “The sacred complex [at Girsu] was plundered and razed to the ground, creating a destruction horizon across Tell K that contained some of the defaced and shattered fragments of objects that were formerly the supreme emblems of [the] power and prestige [of Girsu and thus of Lagash].  Of paramount importance were the artefacts that celebrated historically important victories that had been inflicted by the rulers of Lagash on the state of Umma, and chief among them was the ‘Stele of the Vultures’.” 
   

Lugalzagesi and the Destruction of the Stele

Break between fragments D and E on the historical side (left) and the mythical side (right) 

Adapted from images in the website of the (Musée du Louvre) 

Sébastien Rey (referenced below, at p. 302) observed that:  

1. “The excavated fragments [of the stele from Girsu] bear witness to the brutal manner in which the [Ningirsu] temple  ...was razed to the ground. ... [The] systematic nature of the damage [done to it] indicates that it was the result of a calculated programme and not just the work of an indiscriminate, rampaging mob.”  
   

Although he acknowledged the difficulties in establishing the precise manner in which the stele had been broken up, he argued that:

1. “... it would seem likely that the [‘mythical’ side] was struck first, and that the initial blow was aimed at the upper right edge, at the top of Ningirsu’s casting net, between the fastener [now in Fragment D] and the netful of captives and corpses below [now in Fragment E].  The fact that this was probably a ... controlled blow can be seen in the clean horizontal break [between fragments D and E (illustrated above on the right), which extends] ... along the handle of the [Ningirsu’s] mace.”
   

He also pointed out (at p. 303) that, in landing this blow, Lugalzagesi had simultaneously:

1. “... delivered the fallen warriors of Umma [on the ‘historical’ side,  along the top of Fragment E] from the marching feet of their [Lagashite] enemies [on Fragment D].  Ningirsu’s control over Umma was thereby terminated, and the citizens of Umma were symbolically emancipated.” 
   

Sargon;s Conquest of Lagash

As we have seen, Sargon recorded in his Group 2 inscriptions that, during his conquest of Sumer, he had destroyed the walls of Uruk, Ur and Umma while treating Lagash somewhat differently:

1. “[Sargon] conquered Eninmar, destroyed its walls, and conquered its district and Lagash, as far as the sea.  He washed his weapons in the sea”, (RIME 2.1.1.2: CDLI, P461927. lines 47-61). 
   

This suggests that, by the time of Sargon’s invasion of Sumer, Lagash had lost its walls and was merely part of the territory of Eninmar [on the Lower Sea ??’].  We find an ensi of Lagash called Meszi on one of Sargon’s Group 3 inscription (RIME 2.01.01.12; P461938), among a group of three presumably captured Sumerian governors, the other two being from Ur and Umma (see lines 46’-54’).  However, it seems to me that, although Sargon clearly took Lagash by force from Lugalzagesi and Meszi, he is unlikely to have mistreated either his new and recently-humiliated Lagashite subjects or their hallowed Ningirsu temple at Girsu.  Indeed, as Sébastien Rey (referenced below, at p. 309) observed: 

1. “... the existence of an Akkad temple [of some kind on the original site] is practically indisputable,  thanks to the British Museum team’s discovery, in a spoil heap to the south of [this site], of an exceptional fragment of a votive bowl that was dedicated to Ningirsu by ... Rimush [Sargon’s son and successor].”  
   

It seems to me Sargon probably displayed the remains of the stele in this new temple, where they may well have remained until the Lagashites made the mistake of rising up against Rimush.