Alternate Akkadian Empire

So I was wondering what would the affects of a more powerful Akkadian Empire that was able to Conquer Syria and pretty much become the Assyrian Empire?
Well it's so far back the butterflies would change everything but if an Akkadian Empire was able to conquer Syria, Palestine, and early Egypt which would serve as the empire grain source like it did for Rome affect things? For one I think Cuneiform would evolve into the main alphabet and with little development into the Area around the Mesopotamian civilizations once it fell it might end up like Alexanders successor states or after the Fall of the western Roman Empire with numerous people claiming to be the Roman Emperor and Perhaps a unifier later on reconnecting it? Not too sure how advanced egypt was yet but if one of the Kings of Akkad had married into the Royalty in Egypt and inheriting it could be another way it survived or something.

Though what would the POD be? Earlier Iron development? Sargon lives another ten years? Sargon instead of trying to take Syria consolidates his power in Mesopotamia giving the kingdom more strength to take Syria in another reign?
Anyways it would be funny to see people claiming to be the "Sarru Keinnu"

Also as a bonus anyone wanna try to make up or piece together the Gaps in the Story of Sargon?
 
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Well not much replies to this thread but I'll add on more to the first post,
What would the effects of a Cuneiform dominated writing system that would take the place of Greek/Phoenician Alphabets?
Also would early Egypt be able to fight off such a massive empire and how long could it stand before dying off?
 
Well not much replies to this thread but I'll add on more to the first post,
What would the effects of a Cuneiform dominated writing system that would take the place of Greek/Phoenician Alphabets?
Also would early Egypt be able to fight off such a massive empire and how long could it stand before dying off?

I don't know about cuneiform but Akkadian Empire can beat Egypt, depending how strong and stable Egypt is.
 
I'll let aside the question of the survival of Akkad as an empire : it probably fell because of climatic issues, inner troubles, which allowed diverse takeover from highlands neighbours, but let's say we're talking of an eventual Neo-Akkadian Empire raising up shortly after, more or less similar to the Neo-Sumerian Empire but earlier and with a clear continuity.

Assuming this then, a conquest of northern Syrian coast seems plausible : campaigns were done historically on this direction, and Ebla conquest/vassalisation may becomes the key to a broader dominance.

As for becoming as wide as the Persian Empire, that seems hard, if not outright impossible. At this point, while Mesopotamia and Syria "natural state" was a puzzle of city-states, the rest of the Middle-East region was poorly develloped politically : in lack of pre-existing structures, it's hard to create a super-imperial ensemble.

Neo-Akkadian Empire would have to crush the other imperial power in the region, that is Egypt. And that's not going to be easy, especially as Mesopotamian imperiums are mostly a superstructure other vassalized kingdoms and city-states rather than a whole unified entity.

Middle Kingdom, specifically, was quite militarily minded, and not only Neo-Akkadians would have trouble kicking in, but Egyptians would certainly contend their advancy in Syria.
It wouldn't be surprising to see a situation not unlike Egyptians vs. Hittits rising up in this region.

As for civilisational/cultural matters, Akkadian/Neo-Akkadian may have a greater role in Mesopotamia, as a vernacular and scholarly language maybe on par with Sumerian.
 
I'll let aside the question of the survival of Akkad as an empire : it probably fell because of climatic issues, inner troubles, which allowed diverse takeover from highlands neighbours, but let's say we're talking of an eventual Neo-Akkadian Empire raising up shortly after, more or less similar to the Neo-Sumerian Empire but earlier and with a clear continuity.

Assuming this then, a conquest of northern Syrian coast seems plausible : campaigns were done historically on this direction, and Ebla conquest/vassalisation may becomes the key to a broader dominance.

As for becoming as wide as the Persian Empire, that seems hard, if not outright impossible. At this point, while Mesopotamia and Syria "natural state" was a puzzle of city-states, the rest of the Middle-East region was poorly develloped politically : in lack of pre-existing structures, it's hard to create a super-imperial ensemble.

Neo-Akkadian Empire would have to crush the other imperial power in the region, that is Egypt. And that's not going to be easy, especially as Mesopotamian imperiums are mostly a superstructure other vassalized kingdoms and city-states rather than a whole unified entity.

Middle Kingdom, specifically, was quite militarily minded, and not only Neo-Akkadians would have trouble kicking in, but Egyptians would certainly contend their advancy in Syria.
It wouldn't be surprising to see a situation not unlike Egyptians vs. Hittits rising up in this region.

As for civilisational/cultural matters, Akkadian/Neo-Akkadian may have a greater role in Mesopotamia, as a vernacular and scholarly language maybe on par with Sumerian.

Well I could see something along the lines of royal marriages with Egypt and the Hittites, maybe if played right could produce Akkadio-egyptian Hittite union? That would pretty much be the same as a Persian Empire I'd say;
Also how would Akkad do against Elam? Historically they had trouble wit it for some reason.
 
Though seems to be borderline implausible, but I think that a variant of Phoenician alphabet would be developed for writing Akkadian, co-existing with cuneiform
 
Though seems to be borderline implausible, but I think that a variant of Phoenician alphabet would be developed for writing Akkadian, co-existing with cuneiform

The consensus is that the alphabets (usually called "proto-Canaanite") from which the Phoenician script emerged were derived from Egyptian hieroglyphic. A clearly related "Cuneiform" set of script varieties existed (Ugaritic) but the most likely explanation is that they were ispired by "Proto-Canaanite" and adapted to clay tablet medium (although as far as I know, evidence is not entirely conclusive). A minority view credits Ugaritic scribes (perhaps a single scribe according to some scholarship) with the invention of the alphabet. But even in this case, there seems to be no direct evidence for derivation from the Mesopotamian cuneiform (that would also requie explaining away the Sinaitic inscriptions, Wadi el-Hol, and other material). Anyway, we are talking second millennium here (roughly 1400-1200 BC for Ugaritic material). The strongest hint toward an ultimate Egyptian origin is, of course, the originally consonantal nature of all early alphabetic scripts of the Levant and their derivates; that would be hard to explain supposing a primarily Mesopotamian origin influence, as Mesopotamian cuneiform and all the derived scripts use a syllabic, not consonantal, phonetic component. This is not conclusive, as the Aegean Linear scripts, who were syllabic, show only minimal resemblance with Cuneiform and may have been loosely inspired by Egyptian script instead (some signs may betray a relationship, although the system as whole does not seem to have been derived from Egypt).
Actual (non-Ugaritic) Cuneiform displays a general trend to emphasise the syllabic component over the logographic one, which may have resulted over time in a syllabary. Historically, however, it appears that true syllabaries are dead end for further "alphabetic" evolution. They are also pretty rare/marginal in use/short lived though (the longest lasting example I know of, discounting Chinese for obvious reasons, would be the Japanese kana, who are largely used in an ancillary function within a wider logosyllabic system - not unlike what was done in Mesopotamia actually).
 
Well I could see something along the lines of royal marriages with Egypt and the Hittites, maybe if played right could produce Akkadio-egyptian Hittite union?
Giving how the only prospect of such union IOTL was met with general hostility, and eventually led to a war...
I don't see this happening, unfortunatly.

Also how would Akkad do against Elam? Historically they had trouble wit it for some reason.
Frankly, at the point we made up a Neo-Akkadian Empire, Elam could be as well dealt with than being a mortal threat : it's up to the devellopment of the TL.
 
Giving how the only prospect of such union IOTL was met with general hostility, and eventually led to a war...
I don't see this happening, unfortunatly.


Frankly, at the point we made up a Neo-Akkadian Empire, Elam could be as well dealt with than being a mortal threat : it's up to the devellopment of the TL.

I suppose you are right,

I could see them slowly conquering Hittite Lands little by little though, and perhaps they could conquer the proto-Phoenicians and have Akkadian influenced Phoenicians colonies all along the tin trade routes. And while a full conquest of egypt is hard to imagine, it's plausible they could take the delta and a chunk of lower egypt (North egypt). There might even be an attempt to build a bronze age Suez canal that would probably end in failure.

I wonder how the conquest of the Proto-Persians would go.

Who knows they might lose interest in the west and decide to say hello to the Indus civilizations and colonize the middle east coast along the Indian ocean and perhaps some trading posts in Africa?
 
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