The world's first multi-ethnic empire, forged by Sargon of Akkad; unified Mesopotamia under a single ruler and introduced a template of imperial administration that successors would copy for millennia.
Collapsed c. 2154 BCE following a combination of Gutian invasions from the Zagros Mountains and a severe drought (4.2-kiloyear climate event) that caused crop failures and famine, fragmenting the empire.
Places the Akkadian period in the full sweep of Mesopotamian political and cultural history.
The standard survey of the ancient Near East, situating Sargon's first multi-ethnic empire within the long arc of Mesopotamian state-building it inaugurated.