The Horned Crown: From Akkad to Rome and the Apocalypse of Babylon

When the genealogies of Genesis are placed alongside the chronology of Akkad, a striking convergence appears. According to the Masoretic Text, the Flood occurred around 2348 BCE (Ussher) or sometime between 2500–2300 BCE. In this framework, Nimrod, grandson of Ham through Cush, would rise only a few generations later, placing his career in the 2300–2200 BCE window. This is precisely the period in which Naram-Sin of Akkad reigned (c. 2254–2218 BCE). By contrast, if one follows the Septuagint’s longer chronology, the Flood is centuries earlier (often 3200–3000 BCE), which would make Nimrod much earlier than Akkad. Yet archaeology is clear: Akkad’s golden age; Sargon, Rimush, Manishtushu, and especially Naram-Sin—falls in the 23rd century BCE, aligning most naturally with the Masoretic timeline and thus with Nimrod’s memory as the first post-Flood empire-builder.

Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2250 BCE), crowned with the horned helmet of divinity, ascends the mountain beneath the sun and stars. The stele records his claim to be ‘god of Akkad’—a mortal king crossing the boundary into the realm of the divine, an archetype of the giant-kings remembered in the LXX as Titans.

The parallels are too close to miss. Nimrod is described as “the first mighty man on earth” after the Flood, whose kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Akkad (Gen 10:10). Naram-Sin was the first king to claim divinity in life, styling himself “the god of Akkad,” crowned with the horned helmet reserved for the gods, and titled “King of the Four Quarters” to assert world dominion. Nimrod began to be a mighty one; born human but crossing into the realm of the Nephilim by arrogating divine power to himself. Likewise, Naram-Sin was born the grandson of Sargon, a mere man, but through conquest, ritual petition to the pantheon (Ishtar/Venus, Enlil, Dagan/Saturn/Osiris, Shamash, Nergal, Sîn), and cultic enthronement, he became a god in the eyes of his city. Both embody the same arc: human → conqueror → deified king.

Nergal-god of war and pestilence

Here we see the seed-pattern of the serpent at work. Men, once human, enthroned themselves with the symbols and regalia of heaven’s fallen powers, aligning with the rebellious pantheon of gods that Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82 portray as corrupt “angels of God.” In Naram-Sin’s inscriptions, victory is credited to “the weapons of Dagan and Nergal.” In other words, Naram-Sin’s triumphs were not framed as gifts from heaven but as victories empowered by the gods of the grave; Dagan the enthroner of dead kings and Nergal the lord of war and pestilence. His empire was built not on the blessing of life but on the weapons of the underworld. On his stele, he ascends a mountain with divine stars above, trampling nations as he claims the crown of horns. This is the same grammar Genesis preserves in Nimrod’s story: a man who “began to be” like the Nephilim, who sought to reign not merely by human strength but by blending his throne with the powers of heaven in rebellion against the Most High.

Thus, Nimrod and Naram-Sin converge as archetypes. They are not born divine; they become gods through violence, cult, and alliance with the fallen host. In this way, they stand as prototypes of the Rephaim, the Titans, and every later empire-builder; from Pharaohs and Alexanders to Caesars; who claim more-than-human authority by weaving human might with spiritual rebellion. The pattern is consistent: human rulers cross the boundary, exalt themselves as divine, and embody the seed of the serpent.

What emerges from this pattern is the consistent testimony that men, though born mortal, engineered their own divinity by tapping into the rebel powers that Scripture calls the angels of God or fallen elohim. Nimrod begins as “a man” but begins to be something else; a mighty one of the same order as the Nephilim. Naram-Sin likewise begins as the grandson of Sargon, an ordinary heir, but elevates himself through symbols, cult, and conquest until he is proclaimed “the god of Akkad.” In both, humanity’s ambition is not satisfied with mortality; it aspires to cross back into the pre-Flood hybrid status that provoked judgment.

This explains why the biblical record presents two faces of the Rephaim: on the one hand, giant nations on the earth (Og of Bashan, the Anakim in Hebron); on the other, shades in the underworld, summoned in Ugaritic ritual as divine royal ancestors. These are not two separate traditions but two sides of the same coin: men who once lived as kings become remembered, even worshiped, as gods after death.

Wait a second—who exactly are those figures Catholics kneel before in the sunburst monstrance? The shining faces of Christ… or a lineup of old popes and dead men still holding court from the underworld?

The LXX translators, working in a Greek idiom, bridged these concepts by calling them Gigantes and even Titans; language that carried connotations of primeval rebellion against heaven. In this way the story of Akkad’s “god-king” and Israel’s memory of the Anakim and Rephaim converge: both preserve the archetype of men who were not born divine but became gods by alliance with the powers of the deep.

The imagery of horned warriors ties the visual thread together. From Naram-Sin’s horned crown to the Sherden raiders carved on Egyptian reliefs, to Sardinian bronzetti and later Norse myth, horns signal a boundary-crossing presence; human yet more-than-human, terrible to behold. This continuity shows how an iconographic code outlives the specific dynasties: the crown of horns is shorthand for divine status assumed by men.

Yet the stories also preserve a counter-theme: judgment. Just as Babel’s tower ends in scattering, so Akkad’s empire ends in famine and collapse, remembered in the Curse of Akkad as punishment for Naram-Sin’s arrogance. Later traditions recall Nimrod as the archetypal rebel, while Naram-Sin is cursed in omen texts as one who offended the gods. The cycle repeats: men ascend by violence and ritual, ally themselves with the pantheon of fallen powers, and for a moment stand as giants and gods—only to fall.

From Akkad to Alexander, from Pharaoh to Caesar, the same blueprint can be traced: men claim divine titles, wear divine regalia, wield the mandate of gods, embed their cult in temples, and rewrite memory to cement their place among the mighty dead. In biblical terms, this is the unfolding of the seed of the serpent—human rulers exalting themselves by union with rebellious heavenly powers.

God longs to rescue as many as possible from slavery under the fallen powers before His final judgment falls on those who imprisoned humanity for the sake of their own self-deification.

“Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins and lest you receive of her plagues.”

Revelation 18:4 LXX

So, Dagan magnifies kingship not because he is a metaphor, but because his cult functioned as a cosmic court of validation. To invoke Dagan was to claim not only military success but participation in the order of the "divine" realm.

By tracing him from Akkad to Ebla, Mari, and Ugarit, and then into Philistia, we can see that Dagan never lost this central role. In each cultural frame he embodies the one who enthrones kings: first as high god of the Euphrates, then as ancestral patron of Levantine dynasties, and finally as the god who legitimized the Philistines’ struggle against Israel. This continuity is crucial, because it shows that the same god who empowered Naram-Sin’s horned ascent is remembered in the Bible as the power standing behind the Philistine giants — Samson’s captors and Goliath’s kin. In other words, the seed of the serpent is not a mythic abstraction; it is a real continuity of worship, war, and rebellion that threads across centuries and empires.

“For all the nations have drunk from the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her…”Revelation 18:3 LXX

This continuity is what makes Dagan the perfect bridge builder between the Mesopotamian and biblical worlds. He is both the god of enthroned giant-kings and the god behind their descendants who oppose God’s people. That is why the Septuagint translators reach instinctively for the word Τιτάνες (Titans) to describe the valleys and clans of the Rephaim: to their Greek ears, these ancestral giant-kings and their patron belonged to the same class as the primordial rebels who rose against heaven and were cast down. And by the time of the Greco-Roman world, that archetype; the giant king, horned or crowned, allied with gods, opposing heaven, and destined for ruin — had become one of the most enduring mythic patterns in human memory.

So when you sketch the chain, it runs in a straight line: Naram-Sin enthroned by Dagan → Ugaritic Rephaim feasting with Dagan → Philistine Dagon empowering giant champions → LXX Rephaim recast as Titans/Gigantes → Greco-Roman giant mythology. Dagan sits at the center, the common thread linking empire-builders, deified ancestors, and monstrous foes.

In the Ugaritic texts the rpum are not monsters of stature but shades of royal ancestors invoked in cultic meals. The Hebrew Scriptures preserve both aspects: the Rephaim are peoples of giant size inhabiting Canaan and Transjordan, and they are also the inhabitants of Sheol (Hades) who stir when a new king descends to the grave. When the LXX flattens these traditions into γίγαντες, it ensures that readers will hear “giant rebels” even in passages where the original spoke of the dead. The overlap of giants and shades is not a confusion but a theological point: men who once claimed divinity in life became remembered and even worshiped as gods in death.

Across the Mediterranean, the horned crown became the shorthand for men who had crossed the boundary. Egyptian reliefs show Sherden mercenaries; Sea Peoples with great horns rising from their helmets—fighting as fearsome outsiders. In Sardinia, the Nuragic bronzetti and the massive Monte Prama statues immortalize warriors with horns, solar discs, and animal crests. The Philistines, themselves linked to the Sea Peoples, inherited this iconography when they settled in Canaan. Thus, when Greek readers encountered the LXX’s Titans and Giants, they already had a visual reservoir of horn-helmeted raiders and monstrous warriors from the western seas.

Threaded through this history stands Dagan/Saturn. At Ebla, Mari, and Ugarit he is enthroner of kings, paired with Baal as “Lord of the Land.” In Israel’s memory he is Dagon of the Philistines, the god who received Samson as a trophy but who collapsed before the Ark of Yahweh. The same deity who once empowered Akkadian kings to ascend as gods is remembered as the patron of Israel’s giant enemies. In Ugaritic liturgy the Rephaim feast with Dagan; in Philistia the giants fight in his name. The line of continuity is unbroken.

Empire after empire repeated the pattern. Pharaoh declared himself son of Ra, god on earth. The Caesars were elevated by apotheosis, Julius and Augustus styled as divus to mask their mortality beneath divine honor. Such deification was never a natural birthright but a seizure of status, ratified through cult, propaganda, and the enslavement of peoples. To claim descent from the gods was to justify dominion over men. The same grammar reappears even in modern civil religion: in the dome of the U.S. Capitol the Apotheosis of George Washington enthrones him among the Greco-Roman pantheon, a continuation of the same visual code of self-deification.

The gospel of Christ enters as the great reversal. Where kings and emperors exalted themselves to enslave, the true Son of God humbled himself to liberate. He tore the veil that kept humanity bound beneath self-deified rulers and their illegitimate priesthoods. In him there is no need for intermediaries who call themselves gods, no need for rituals that keep men captive, no prayers to shades masquerading as saints. Revelation unmasks the system for what it is: Babylon trading in “the souls of men,” empire’s religion promising salvation but delivering bondage under the same fallen host.

The contrast could not be starker. The LXX’s Giants and Titans stand as images of human rulers who exalt themselves with horns and crowns, who ally with the rebellious powers, and who enslave the nations for their own glory. Christ, by contrast, is the one who descends in humility, breaks the prison of death, and restores humanity to communion with the Creator. The old pattern of Nimrod, Naram-Sin, Pharaoh, and Caesar continues wherever men enthrone themselves as gods. The new pattern; Christ’s pattern; is the only one that ends the cycle.

Repent, and believe the Gospel of Salvation.