Before the decipherment of cuneiform in the 19th century, the city was known only from a single reference in where it is written , rendered in the KJV as Accad. The name is given in a list of cities of Nimrod in Sumer. Sallaberger and Westenholz cite the number of 160 known mentions of the city in the extant cuneiform corpus, in sources ranging in date from the Old Akkadian period itself down to the Neo-Babylonian period. The name is spelled logographically as URIKI, or phonetically as a-ga-dèKI, variously transcribed into English as Akkad, Akkade or Agade. The etymology of the name is unclear, but not of Akkadian origin. Various suggestions have proposed Sumerian, Hurrian or Lullubian etymologies. The non-Akkadian origin of the city's name suggests that the site may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times, as also suggested by the mentioning of the city in one pre-Sargonic year-name. , found in Dohuk Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan, dated to the reign of Naram-Sin with an inscription mentioning the construction of a temple in Akkad|alt=Black-and-white photograph of a statue consisting of an inscribed, round pedestal on top of which sits a seated nude male figure of which only the legs and lower torso are preserved. The inscription on the Bassetki Statuerecords that the inhabitants of Akkad built a temple for Naram-Sin after he had crushed a revolt against his rule. The main goddess of Akkad was Ishtar-Astarte, who was called ‘Aštar-annunîtum or "Warlike Ishtar". Her husband Ilaba was also revered in Akkad. Ishtar and Ilaba were later worshipped at Sippar in the Old Babylonian period, possibly because Akkad itself had been destroyed by that time. The city was certainly in ruins by the mid-first millennium BC.
Location
Many older proposals put Akkad on the Euphrates, but more recent discussions conclude that a location on the Tigris is more likely. The identification of Akkad with Sippar ša Annunîtum, along a canal opposite Sippar ša Šamaš was rejected by Unger based on a Neo-Babylonian text that lists Sippar ša Annunîtum and Akkad as separate places. Harvey Weiss proposed Ishan Mizyad, a large site northwest from Kish. Excavations have shown that the remains at Ishan Mizyad date to the Ur III period and not to the Akkadian period. Discussion since the 1990s has focused on sites along or east of the Tigris. Wall-Romana suggested a location near the confluence of the Diyala River with the Tigris, and more specifically Tell Muhammad in the south-eastern suburbs of Baghdad as the likeliest candidate for Akkad, although admitting that no remains datable to the Akkadian period had been found at the site. Sallaberger and Westenholz suggested a location close to the confluence of the ʿAdhaim river east of Samarra. Similarly, Reade suggested a site in this vicinity, by Qādisiyyah, based on a fragment of an Old Akkadian statue found there. This had been suggested much earlier by Lane. Based on an Old Babylonian period itinerary from Mari, Akkad would be on the Tigris just downstream of the current city of Baghdad. Mari documents also indicate that Akkad is sited at a river crossing.
