[Si]
This is the largest archaeological site in southern Iraq, situated east of the present course of the Euphrates. The Sumerians knew the site as Unu, the Akkadian speakers as Uruk. The Akkadian name appears in the Bible as Erech.The site was first investigated by William Loftus in the mid 19th century ad, but it was not until 1912 that systematic excavations began, albeit sporadically at first, under the direction of Julius Jordan for the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft. As a result of this work it is now known that the site began in the 5th millennium bc, the Ubaid period, growing to urban proportions by the early 4th millennium bc. By the later 4th millennium bc, the late Uruk period, the city covered at least 100ha and was the largest settlement in Sumer: the world's first city and housing the first urban society.In the late 4th millennium bc Uruk encompassed two distinct centres: Eanna and Kullaba. Kullaba was probably dedicated to the sky god An and centred on the so-called White Temple which had gypsum plastered walls and comprised a long central room with an altar and offering table, flanked on both the long sides by smaller rooms. The temple itself stood on a platform or proto-ziggurat 13m high. Some 500m to the east was Eanna, dedicated to the city goddess Inanna. Here again temples and large ceremonial buildings abounded. Around 3000 bc the temples at both Kullaba and Eanna were remodelled, that at Eanna becoming and remaining the focus of Uruk's ritual and civic existence for nearly three millennia. Amongst the debris from the rebuilding of Eanna the excavators found thousands of fragmentary clay tablets bearing pictograms, probably an early form of Sumer. Other rather unusual artefacts include fine sculpture and cylinder seals.The city continued to expand to its maximum of about 400ha in 2900 bc. At this time a massive defensive enclosure 10km in length encircled the settlement. Evidence from surrounding villages suggests that at this time many of the communities previously living in the countryside moved into the town. This was the high point of its existence and it was at this period that rulers such as Gilgamesh, The Epic of governed the city, later to appear in epics as superhuman beings. The ziggurat that dominates the site today was built around 2000 bc by Ur-Nammu, but by that time the site was already in decline. Although Babylonian and Assyrian rulers maintained the Eanna temples down into the 6th century bc or beyond, the city had lost its position. The final occupants of the site were the Parthians who built a small temple to Gareus around ad 100.
[Sum.: R. M. Boehmer, 1991, Uruk 1980–1990: a progress report. Antiquity, 65, 465–78]
