The Birth Legend of Sargon
Also known as: Legend of Sargon, Sargon Birth Legend, The Legend of Sargon of Akkad
A first-person royal legend in which Sargon of Akkad recounts his humble and secret birth, exposure on a river in a reed basket, rescue and upbringing by a water-drawer, divine favor from Ishtar, and rise to kingship.
Description
In this short Akkadian narrative, Sargon of Akkad recounts his origins: born to a priestess, set adrift in a bitumen-sealed reed basket on the Euphrates, and drawn from the water by Akki, a water-drawer who raised him as a son and made him a gardener. Favored by the goddess Ishtar, Sargon rose from obscurity to kingship, claiming a long reign and victorious rule. The legend functions as royal legitimation, transforming an exposed-foundling motif into a testimony of divine election and destiny. It compresses biography into emblematic scenes—exposure, rescue, adoption, initiation into labor, and investiture—linking the hero’s hidden beginnings to his sanctioned sovereignty.
Historiography
The text survives chiefly in Neo-Assyrian copies from the Library of Ashurbanipal (7th century BCE), though scholars consider its tradition much earlier, possibly rooted in Old Babylonian or late third-millennium royal ideology. Multiple fragments attest to a relatively stable first-person format. The legend was cited in modern scholarship for its exposed-infant motif and compared with later Near Eastern and Mediterranean narratives. Modern editions and translations rely on joined fragments and parallel copies, with minor variations in phrasing and lineation.
Date Notes
Preserved in Neo-Assyrian tablets from Nineveh (Library of Ashurbanipal); composition likely older and drawing on earlier royal traditions.
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Sargon of Akkad
- Ishtar
- Ur-Zababa
- Akki
- Sargon’s Mother
Myths
- Infant Sargon Set Adrift
- Rise of Sargon to Kingship
Facts
- Told in the first person as a royal autobiographical legend attributed to Sargon.
- Mother is identified as a high priestess; the father is not named.
- The infant is placed in a bitumen-sealed reed basket and set on the Euphrates.
- Akki, a water-drawer, rescues and adopts the child, later employing him as a gardener.
- Sargon claims the love and patronage of the goddess Ishtar.
- The narrative links humble origins to divinely sanctioned kingship.
- Neo-Assyrian copies derive from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh.
- The text mentions Azupiranu as Sargon's city of origin on the Euphrates.
- Motifs parallel broader Near Eastern exposed-infant and foundling traditions.
- The legend served as ideological legitimation for royal authority.