Mesopotamian kings

Sargon of Akkad is known as Sargon the Great, Shar-Gani-Sharri, and Sarru-Kan, meaning "True King" or "Legitimate King". Sargon is known almost entirely from the legends and tales that followed his reputation through 2,000 years of cuneiform. According to a legend, Sargon was a self-made man. A gardener found him as a baby floating in a basket on the river and brought him in. His mother is said to have been a priestess in a town in the middle Euphrates. According to the cuneiform inscription known as The Legend of Sargon which is his autobiography, he was born the illegitimate son of a "changeling", which could refer to a temple priestess of the goddess Inanna. The event that brought him to supremacy was the defeat of Lugalzaggisi of Uruk. Lugalzaggisi had already united the city-states of Sumer by defeating each of them and claimed to rule the lands not only of the Sumerian city-states but also those as far west as the Mediterranean.Thus, Sargon became king over all of southern Mesopotamia, the first great ruler for whom was in his city. Great kings like Sargon the great are all recorded in the Sumerian kings list. (BE)

Nebuchadnezzar II is known as the greatest king of the Chaldean dynasty of Babylon. He was crowned king in 626 BCE. One reason is that he considered the greatest king of the Chaldean dynasty of Babylon because he conquered Syria and Palestine and made Babylon a splendid city. And he rebuilt the city with massive walls, a huge temple, and a ziggurat, and extended his rule over neighbouring countries. Nebuchadnezzar married Amytis of Media (630-565 BCE) had the Hanging Gardens of Babylon built for her to remind her of her homeland in Persia. Altho is Nebuchadnezzar II is known as greatest kings of Babylon he also destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and started the slavery of the israelites. intends to make an example of or, conversely, the agent of God used as a whip against the faithless followers of Yahweh . He died in the 43rd year of his reign as the most powerful monarch in the Near East in the city he loved. (IP)

Ashurbanipal was the son of another king, Esarhaddon of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Esarhaddon, his father, crowned him prince of Assyria in May 672 BC to avoid a dynastic struggle. His brother, Shamash-shum-ukin, was also crowned prince of Babylonia by his mother,Naqi’a-Zakutu. In his freetime, he was either crushing enemies or hunting lions. If he wasn’t doing that, he was enjoying a scholarly pursuit. He was able to read and write, unlike any other king. He boasted about his abilities and represented himself in his palace reliefs with a stylus in his belt, along with his sword.The pen may be mightier than the sword, but Ashurbanipal was pretty handy with both! Ashurbanipal developed the first library in the world. He wanted a copy of every book that was worth having and sent his people to go get them. Assyrian books were mostly written on clay tablets, not on paper, in a script called cuneiform, which used little wedges to make up symbols. In total he gathered hundreds of thousands of these tablets, around 30,000 of which are now in the British Museum. Ashurbanipal’s life is well documented but his death remains a mystery. Before archaeological discoveries were made in the 19th century, Ashurbanipal was known through later writers as Sardanapalus and was romanticised as the last king of Assyria. One Persian account says that he burnt himself in his palace alongside his concubines, gold and silver, when Nineveh fell under his enemies. (AS)