While we know the name Sargon today thanks to the Hebrew form as written in the biblical record in I Kings (another Sargon, Sargon II), his Akkadian name, Šarru-kēn, how his own people would have referred to him. It was not his birth name, but a name he acquired after taking the throne. It meant “legitimate king” in Semitic. Much like other legends more familiar to us today, like King Arthur or Grimm’s fairy tales, the mythology surrounding Sargon of Akkad grew and changed with the passing of time. The Sumerians themselves would have known a very different man from the legend he would become, for legends usually only contain…