What is…
Accad and Akkadian

also known as: Akkad (simply a different spelling)

Meaning: the high land or mountains

This was the name of a city in the land of Shinar. Its exact location is still uncertain to archaeologists.

It was one of the cities of Nimrod’s kingdom (Genesis 10:10). It was near to the Euphrates, opposite Sippara. (See SEPHARVAIM.)

Accad (Akkad) is also the name of the country of which this city was the capital, namely, northern or upper Babylonia.

The Accadians (Akkadians) who came from the “mountains of the east,” where the ark rested, attained to a high degree of civilization.

In theBabylonian inscriptions they are called “the black heads” and “the black faces,” in contrast to “the white race” of Semitic descent.

Akkadian language

Akkadian was written in cuneiform (wedge-shaped characters) impressed into clay tablets with a wedge-shaped stylus.

The Akkads (Accads) invented the form of writing in pictorial hieroglyphics, and also the cuneiform system, in which they wrote many books partly on papyrus and partly on clay. The Semitic Babylonians (“the white race”), or, as some scholars think, first the Cushites, and afterwards, as a second immigration, the Semites, invaded and conquered this country; and then the Accadian language ceased to be a spoken language, although for the sake of its literary treasures it continued to be studied by the educated classes of Babylonia.

A large portion of the Ninevite tablets brought to light by Oriental research consists of interlinear or parallel translations from Accadian into Assyrian; and thus that long-forgotten language has been recovered by scholars. It belongs to the class of languages called agglutinative, common to the Tauranian race; i.e., it consists of words “glued together,” without declension or conjugation.

These tablets in a remarkable manner illustrate ancient history. Among other notable records, they contain an account of the Creation which closely resembles that given in the book of Genesis, of the Sabbath as a day of rest, and of the Deluge and its cause.

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Article Version: July 14, 2021