A little over five thousand years ago, an unprecedented revolution took place in southern Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq: the birth of urban civilization. The formerly known as the country of Sumer, a region of the lower courses of the Euphrates and the Tigris in which desert areas alternated with swampy plains, was the scene of the first great urban settlement. Its name: Unu for the Sumerians, Uruk for the later Akkadians, Erech according to the Bible and Warka in its current name (taken from the nearest modern city).
In Uruk, an urban, complex and state-based society appeared, which raised a splendid architecture, predominantly of a religious nature. As if this were not enough, it was the place where writing arose.
British amateur naturalist and archaeologist William Kennett Loftus discovered its remains in the mid-19th century and undertook a brief survey of the site. But the real excavations did not begin until 1912 by the German Oriental Society. This archaeological organization was then directed by Robert Koldewey, the architect of the excavations in Babylonia and Asur during the previous decade.
The entry of the Germans into Mesopotamian archeology from the 20th century would have a major impact. In fact, it marked the beginning of a new era in this discipline, with the introduction of rigorous and meticulous methods that completely ruled out haste and chance, and which would henceforth be adopted by other specialists.
The exploration of Uruk was entrusted to two of Koldewey’s disciples, first Julius Jordan and, from the 1930s, Arnold Nöldeke. The only thing that was known about the city with certainty was its location. His story, on the other hand, was still shrouded in myth. And the myth assures that Uruk was founded by the monarch Enmerkar, to whom a reign of more than four hundred years is attributed.
Apart from the Bible, the most important references to the place came from the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem starring this mythical ruler of Uruk.
Jordan and Nöldeke put aside the legends and promoted a patient and methodical archaeological activity. His work continued until the outbreak of World War II, unearthing impressive ruins of temples and palaces, as well as other finds that would make Uruk one of the most outstanding discoveries of the 20th century.
The long period of Neolithic cultures in the Near East came to an end in the 4th millennium BC. C., when demographic growth became notable and the population tended to concentrate in ever larger nuclei. These changes were driven by the boom in agricultural production, thanks to the development of irrigation systems and the introduction of animal-drawn plows using clay sickles. In addition, they contributed to the appearance of new social structures: political-religious leaders and population groups specialized in labor.
That was not only the beginning of social stratification. Some economic, religious and architectural transformations were also gestated that would evolve over the centuries and would extend beyond the borders of Mesopotamia, even reaching the West.
In Uruk, for example, a ziggurat was erected for the first time, a platform designed as a stepped pyramid, at the top of which was the temple dedicated to a divinity. A construction that would become the model of religious architecture par excellence in Mesopotamia.
Excavations have provided evidence of a growing concentration of population in Uruk between 3500 and 3200 BC. C., when the site occupied just under 1 km2. In that period, the town began its transition to a city, which culminated around 3000 BC. c.
In reality, Uruk arose from the union of two ancient settlements, Eanna (to the east) and Kullaba (to the west). In the area of ??the former, remains of constructions from the end of the 4th millennium BC have appeared. C., although many of them were demolished and replaced a thousand years later by temples. This is the case of an impressive ziggurat dedicated to the goddess Innana that was built between 2112 and 2004 BC. C., at the time of the III Sumerian dynasty of Ur.
This area is considered the most important of all, since the most monumental architecture has been discovered there, as well as the first written texts of history. Archeology has shown that, in addition to being a religious center, Eanna was the political, administrative and economic core of the city.
Despite the fact that neighboring Kullaba also hosted these functions, it never became as important: the number of buildings housed in this settlement was fewer, and the architecture of its temples less spectacular. Some of its vestiges accumulate more years of history than those of Eanna, despite the fact that the area was also the object of intense construction during the III Sumerian dynasty of Ur.
There is hardly any information available from the rest of the city, due to the few surveys carried out. However, it seems certain that the population was concentrated there, grouped into neighborhoods according to the profession of its inhabitants. Different studies indicate that, at the end of the IV millennium a. C., Uruk already reached an area of ??5.5 km2 and sheltered nearly forty thousand people. Among them, members of the royal family, the large body of priests and scribes, military units, artisans, merchants and a good number of slaves.
The enclosure was surrounded by a 9.5 km long wall. According to legend, it had 900 bastions 12 m high and Gilgamesh was the one who ordered it to be built. The truth is that this defensive element indicates the existence of conflicts with neighboring territories.
Uruk witnessed many other innovations with an impact still visible to this day. An economic system was developed that favored the appearance of a trade based on the barter of products –local or imported– based on a scale of values. We know that 300 liters of barley was equivalent to 15 grams of silver or 12 liters of sesame oil. And that these, in turn, were exchanged for 5 kilos of wool or 1.5 of copper. The administration was able to feed a growing population and control the water supply.
With all these advances, it is not surprising that the first form of writing arose in Uruk. The German archaeologists who discovered it in the early 1930s were stunned. They had before them a set of clay tablets with a pictographic type of writing engraved with a reed.
Its antiquity went back in some cases to 3200 a. C. and in others to between 3100 and 3000 a. C. There was a slight evolution between one and the other, but there was no doubt that they were all the result of the urban revolution that took place in Uruk and, specifically, of the administration’s need to efficiently carry out accounting records.
The pictograms of the so-called archaic Uruk texts represent objects, numbers, proper names, titles… Some of the nearly seven hundred identified are easily recognizable, such as bull heads or ears of barley; others, on the other hand, still involve a great complexity of interpretation, in the case of combinations of signs. Over time, this pictographic writing would give rise to the typical cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia.
The specialists also found a system of recording clay beads of different shapes (cones, cylinders…) and sizes, used to represent a wide range of products and quantities.
The foundations of Sumerian scientific splendor were laid in Uruk. Not surprisingly, the sexagesimal system was conceived there, which greatly facilitated the calculation of food rations, working hours, the division of crop plots… Without forgetting that a solar calendar was established in which a year added 360 days and was divided into 12 months of 30 days each.
The location was losing population from the 3rd millennium BC. C., but maintained its religious relevance. Proof of this is that monarchs of successive Mesopotamian kingdoms not only dedicated themselves to rehabilitating, expanding and beautifying the sanctuaries, but also added their own constructions. In addition, the city was the largest in Mesopotamia for two thousand years, surpassed in size only by the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar II in the sixth century BC. c.
In Uruk, archaeologists have had to contend with one of the longest-occupied sites: the oldest remains date from the el-Ubaid period (5000-3800 BC) and the most recent from the Parthian period. (3rd century AD). The high number of population and construction strata has made excavations difficult. The Anu ziggurat, for example, was built above a series of temples between 3,200 and 3,000 BC. C. (in the so-called late Uruk period), which, in turn, were built on a previous ziggurat.
This circumstance, added to the fact that, to date, the work has been concentrated in the sacred area of ??the city, partly explains why after a century of excavations and forty archaeological campaigns, only 5% has come to light. of the deposit. The gaze of the specialists focuses on the periphery of Uruk and on the conservation and presentation of what has already been discovered.
This text is part of an article published in number 545 of the Historia y Vida magazine. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
