He is particularly noted for the significant buildings he erected in Ur, which included a palace, the royal mausoleum and temple. He also built several huge ziggurats rising above their walled temple enclosures with a sanctuary on the summit. One is the great ziggurat at Uruk that was dedicated to him as well as the largest ziggurat in Sumer at Ur. Another was at Borsippa that is thought to be the biblical “tower of Babel”. Ur Nammu was also noted for producing the first ever set of written laws, with a prologue stating his divine right to rule followed by seven laws. However, he died in later battles against the Gutians.

During the Third Dynasty of Ur, pottery was made with a relatively fast wheel using sophisticated burnishing techniques together with ornamentation. Usable loop handles evolved on vessels with pointed bases using fine clay – quite a step from previous techniques. Shapes included carinated profiles. They also made votive offerings such as an earthenware head of a god dated to 2,000 BC found in Girsu, the religious centre of Lagesh.

Mesopotamian plaque and figure, 2,000 BC -
courtesy Ifergan Collection

Foundation and wall cones, Mesopotamia
2,000 BC and Akkadian 2,200 BC - courtesy
Ifergan Collection and source Archaeological
Museum Istanbul

Inscribed wall cones were also found there. It is thought that some of the ceramic technology was brought to Mesopotamia from the north – possibly by the Hurrians – together with warlike techniques such as siege towers.

Several rulers followed Ur Nammu, but after 2,004 BC the region split back into individual city-states. Ur itself fell around 1,950 BC with an invasion by the Elamites after it was weakened by several years of drought, famine and disease. An account of this event in Sumerian referred to as the “Lamentation of Ur” has been found on clay tablets that are now in the British Museum. After the fall of Ur III, two city-states, Isin and Elamite Larsa, vied for control, with Babylon remaining independent. Around 1,766 BC Hammurabi, the king of the Amorites, brought the city of Babylon back into centre stage (described later).

Many of the buildings at Ur, including the palace, were encased in or made of fired bricks, and most have not been looted and re-used, so the remains are some of the best preserved in South Mesopotamia. Of the 25 ziggurats in Mesopotamia and Iran, the one at the highest point of Ur is probably the most complete. It is a three-storey mass of mud bricks faced with fired bricks set in bitumen. It is recorded to have had a shrine and statue of a god at the top, but these are now lost. Ur itself was abandoned around 500 BC as the river changed course.

Towards the middle of the 2^nd millennium BC there was a number of regions with growing strength and prosperity. Control of South Mesopotamia had moved north from Ur to Babylon and Babylonia became the name of this region. The Assyrians started to become powerful further north around Ashur, and even further north in Anatolia the Hittites appeared.

9.32 The Hurrians and Mitanni

The Hurrians were neither Semitic nor Indo-European in origin, and had their own Eastern Caucasian language, so most probably came from north of the Zagros Mountains, perhaps present Armenia or Trans Caucasus. Much of the time they were a widespread minority in various countries in the Middle East, and arrived in Mesopotamia around 3,000 BC.

Khirbet Kerak pottery

They formed a few small city-states such as Yamkhad and Kirkuk and absorbed much culture and technology from neighbours, such as writing from the Sumerians. Not a great deal is known about them apart from their beautifully painted pottery that is found in Mesopotamia and East Syria. Early examples dated to between 2,700 and 2,300 BC found at Khirbet Kerak are named after this Palestinian city. Khirbet Kerak pottery is made as very distinctive jugs and jars, sometimes fluted. It is highly burnished, slipped and decorated with sharply defined zones of red/brown and black, sometimes with triangles and dots. Some of this pottery was imported probably from North East Anatolia as well as being made locally.