Accad

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

one of the four cities built by Nimrod, the founder of the Assyrian empire. ( See Nimrod . ) "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar,"  Genesis 10:10 . Thus it appears that Accad was contemporary with Babylon, and was one of the first four great cities of the world.

It would scarcely be expected that any thing should now remain to guide us in our search for this ancient city, seeing that Babylon itself, with which it was coeval, is reduced to heaps; and that it is not mentioned under its ancient name by any profane author. But the discoveries of modern travellers may be brought to aid us in our inquiry. At the distance of about six miles from the modern town of Bagdad, is found a mound, surmounted by a tower-shaped ruin, called by the Arabs Tell Nimrood, and by the Turks Nemrood Tepasse; both terms implying the Hill of Nimrod. This gigantic mass rises in an irregularly pyramidal or turreted shape, according to the view in which it is taken, one hundred and twenty-five, or one hundred and thirty feet above the gently inclined elevation on which it stands. Its circumference, at the bottom, is three hundred feet. The mound which constitutes its foundation is composed of a collection of rubbish, formed from the decay of the superstructure; and consists of sandy earth, fragments of burnt brick, pottery, and hard clay, partially vitrified. In the remains of the tower, the different layers of sun-dried brick, of which it is composed, may be traced with great precision. These bricks, cemented together by slime, and divided into courses varying from twelve to twenty feet in height, are separated from one another by a stratum of reeds, similar to those now growing in the marshy parts of the plain, and in a wonderful state of preservation. The resemblance of this mode of building to that in some of the structures at Babylon, cannot escape observation; and we may reasonably conclude it to be the workmanship of the same architects. The solidity and the loftiness of this pile, unfashioned to any other purpose, bespeak it to be one of those enormous pyramidal towers which were consecrated to the Sabian worship; which, as essential to their religious rites, were probably erected in all the early cities of the Cuthites; and, like their prototype at Babylon, answered the double purpose of altars and observatories. Here then was the site of one of these early cities. It was not Babylon; it was not Erech; it was not Calneh. It might be too much to say that therefore it must be Accad; but the inference is at least warrantable; which is farther strengthened by the name of the place, Akarkouff; which bears a greater affinity to that of Accad than many others which are forced into the support of geographical speculations, especially when it is recollected that the Syrian name of the city was Achar.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Genesis 10:10Sepharvaim

It is also the name of the country of which this city was the capital, namely, northern or upper Babylonia. The Accadians who came from the "mountains of the east," where the ark rested, attained to a high degree of civilization. In the Babylonian inscriptions they are called "the black heads" and "the black faces," in contrast to "the white race" of Semitic descent. They 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 of 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. (See Babylon; Chaldea .)

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Nimrod's kingdom embraced Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar.  Genesis 10:10 . The ruins of Accad cannot now be identified with certainty. In the Assyrian inscriptions however a city is named Akkad. which was doubtless the same and there is a remarkable mound some 50 miles N.N.W. of Babylon about 33 25' N, 44 15' E, called Akker-koof, and known to the Arabs as Akker-i-Nimrood or Tell-Nimrood. It is about 400 feet in circumference and 125 feet high, composed of sun-dried bricks, reeds, bitumen etc. Some believe this to have been the ancient Accad; but others think it must have been farther south. "The Accadians had been the inventors of the pictorial hieroglyphics, which afterwards developed into the cuneiform or wedge-shape system of writing. They had founded the great cities of Chaldea and had attained to a high degree of culture and civilisation."- Dr. Sayce. An inscription has been found showing the Accadian transition from the hieroglyphic to the wedge-shape letters; and others with the latter interlined with the Babylonian or Assyrian dialect. The Accadian was the principal dialect spoken by the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia, and in which some of their ancient legends are inscribed. It became eventually the learned language of the kingdom, as Latin became in the West.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

One of the cities in the land of Shinar, with Babel, Erech, and Calneh, the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom ( Genesis 10:10). Jerome (Onomasticon) testifies that the Jews then believed Nisibis was Accad, a city on the river Khabour, in the N.E. of Mesopotamia, midway between Orfa and Nineveh. So the Targum of Jerusalem. Nisibis' ancient name was Acar, which the Syriac Peschito version has here. Akkad was the name of the "great primitive Hamite race who inhabited Babylonia from the earliest time, and who originated the arts and sciences. In the inscriptions of Sargon the name is applied to the Armenian mountains instead of the vernacular Ararat" (Rawlinson, Herodotus, 1:319, note). The form Kinzi Akkad is found in the inscriptions. Agadi was the great city of the earlier Sargon (G. Smith). Bechart fixes on a site nearer the other three cities in the ancient Sittacene: Akker-koof, or Akker-i-Nimrond, a curious pile of ancient buildings. The Babylonian Talmud mentions the site under the name Aggada. A tract N. of Babylon was called Aceere (Knobel).

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

One of the four cities built in the plain of Shinar by Nimrod, founder of the Assyrian empire,  Genesis 10:10 . Its site is identified by some travellers with ruins, which lie from six to nine miles west of Bagdad. There is here a ruinous structure called Tell-i-nimrood, Hill of Nimrod, consisting of a mass of brickwork 400 feet in circumference at the base, and 125 feet high, standing on a mound of rubbish. Most recently, Col. Raw claims that the site of Accad was at a place now called Niffer, amid the marshes of Southern Babylonia.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Accad ( Ăk'Kad ), Fortress, one of the four cities in the kingdom of Nimrod.  Genesis 10:10. It was in the land of Shinar, and George Smith locates it at Agadi, on the Euphrates, north of Babylon. Rawlinson places it at Aker-Kuf, ten miles west by north of Bagdad. Others had regarded it as identical with Clesiphon.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Ac'cad. One of the cities in the land of Shinar.  Genesis 10:10. Its position is quite uncertain.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Genesis 10:10

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Fig. 3—Akker-kuf

Ac´cad, one of the five cities in 'the land of Shinar,' or Babylonia, which are said to have been built by Nimrod, or rather, to have been 'the beginning of his kingdom' ( Genesis 10:10). It seems that several of the ancient translators found in their Hebrew MSS. Achar instead of Achad, and it is probable that this was really the name of the city. Its situation has been much disputed, but in all probability it may be identified with a remarkable pile of ancient buildings called Akker-kúf, in the district of Siticene, where there was a river named Argades. These buildings are called by the Turks Akker-i-Nimrúd and Akker-i-Babil.

Akker-kúf is about nine miles west of the Tigris, at the spot where that river makes its nearest approach to the Euphrates. The heap of ruins to which the name of Nimrod's Hill—Tel-i-Nimrúd, is more especially appropriated, consists of a mound surmounted by a mass of brickwork, which looks like either a tower or an irregular pyramid, according to the point from which it is viewed. It is about 400 feet in circumference at the bottom, and rises to the height of 125 feet above the sloping elevation on which it stands. The mound, which seems to form the foundation of the pile, is a mass of rubbish accumulated by the decay of the super structure. In the ruin itself, the layers of sun-dried bricks, of which it is composed, can be traced very distinctly. They are cemented together by lime or bitumen, and are divided into courses varying from 12 to 20 feet in height, and are separated by layers of reeds, as is usual in the more ancient remains of this primitive region. Travelers have been perplexed to make out the use of this remarkable monument, and various strange conjectures have been hazarded. The embankments of canals and reservoirs, and the remnants of brickwork and pottery occupying the place all around, evince that the Tel stood in an important city; and, as its construction announces it to be a Babylonian relic, the greater probability is that it was one of those pyramidal structures erected upon high places, which were consecrated to the heavenly bodies, and served at once as the temples and the observatories of those remote times. Such buildings were common to all Babylonian towns; and those which remain appear to have been constructed more or less on the model of that in the metropolitan city of Babylon.