#ancient archaeology
- Akkad — A proper noun designating a legendary ancient city-state and its surrounding region in central Mesopotamia (located north of Sumer, in modern-day Iraq), which became the political center of the first centralized multiethnic empire in human history, founded by the legendary king Sargon the Great in the 24th century BC; by extension, the flourishing Semitic civilization that developed within this geographical space. This structural hub of antiquity imposed the Akkadian language as a global diplomatic vehicle and redefined military architecture, although the exact location of its imperial capital, Agade, remains to this day one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of Oriental archaeology.