About 4,500 years ago, Sargon of Akkad forged what may be the world’s first empire. This domain was built from a collection of cities that had grown to prominence in the productive bread basket between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the Middle East.
The Akkadian Empire only lasted for a short dynasty — at least, depending on how you read the history. But Sargon and his descendants created a blueprint that conquering rulers would follow for millennia, whether consciously or unconsciously, across the world.
“I would happily call it the first empire,” says Dan Lawrence, an associate professor at Durham University in the United Kingdom who studies the ancient Akkadians. “Definitely it’s the first thing of its kind.”
