SWMM56

Published: April 2009 Outlook: Extreme As the planet warms, look for more floods where it’s already wet and deeper drought where water is scarce. By Elizabth Kolbert The world's first empire, known as Akkad, was founded some 4,300 years ago, between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. The empire was ruled from a city—also known as Akkad—that is believed to have lain just south of modern-day Baghdad, and its influence extended north into what is now Syria, west into Anatolia, and east into Iran. The Akkadians were well organized and well armed and, as a result, also wealthy: Texts from the time testify to the riches, from rare woods to precious metals, that poured into the capital from faraway lands. Then, about a century after it was founded, the Akkad empire suddenly collapsed. During one three-year period four men in succession briefly claimed to be emperor. "Who was king? Who was not king?" a register known as the Sumerian King List asks. For many ye...