Ancient religious city in Sumeria

Answer 1

By the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into about a dozen independent city-states, whose limits were defined by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly governor (ensi) or by a king (lugal) who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites.

The five "first" cities said to have exercised pre-dynastic kingship:

1. Eridu (Tell Abu Shahrain)
2. Bad-tibira (probably Tell al-Madain)
3. Larsa (Tell as-Senkereh)
4. Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah)
5. Shuruppak (Tell Fara)

Other principal cities:

1. Kish (Tell Uheimir & Ingharra)
2. Uruk (Warka)
3. Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar)
4. Nippur (Afak)
5. Lagash (Tell al-Hiba)
6. Ngirsu (Tello or Telloh)
7. Umma (Tell Jokha)
8. Hamazi 1
9. Adab (Tell Bismaya)
10. Mari (Tell Hariri) 2
11. Akshak 1
12. Akkad 1
13. Isin (Ishan al-Bahriyat)

(1location uncertain)

(2an outlying city in northern Mesopotamia)

Minor cities (from south to north):

1. Kuara (Tell al-Lahm)
2. Zabala (Tell Ibzeikh)
3. Kisurra (Tell Abu Hatab)
4. Marad (Tell Wannat es-Sadum)
5. Dilbat (Tell ed-Duleim)
6. Borsippa (Birs Nimrud)
7. Kutha (Tell Ibrahim)
8. Der (al-Badra)
9. Eshnuna (Tell Asmar)
10. Nagar (Tell Brak) 2

(2an outlying city in northern Mesopotamia)

Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 km northwest of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as having "exercised kingship" in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what are now the Bābil, Diyala, Wāsit, Dhi Qar, Basra, Al-Muthannā and Al-Qādisiyyah governorates of Iraq.