Gates Charles. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome
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CHAPTER 3
Mesopotamian cities in the late
third and second millennia BC
In this chapter our examination of Mesopotamian cities reaches into the late third and second
millennia BC. This is a period of important political change, when the traditional Sumerian con-
cept of the city-state is challenged by state builders, even empire builders, resulting in the larger,
more comprehensive political units of the Akkadians and the Third Dynasty of Ur. With these
political changes come new emphases in architecture and royal imagery, always important ele-
ments of the ideology of cities and their rulers. Most attention will be given to the Sumerian city
of Ur, already introduced in Chapter 2, and to Mari, famous for its monumental palace, a city
created by one of the non-Sumerian Semitic peoples of central and northern Mesopotamia who
would dominate the region for many centuries to come.
THE AKKADIANS
The first era of independent Sumerian city-states in southern Mesopotamia was shattered
by Sargon, King of Akkad (reigned ca. 2370–2315 BC), who conquered the entire region
ca. 2350 BC. This great king’s likeness may survive in a life-size (30cm high) cast copper
head found out of context in a much later Neo-Assyrian temple at Nineveh in northern Iraq
(Figure 3.1). With the elaborately braided hair tied in the back, the curled beard, and the
placid smile, this head is elegant and serene. Only the damaged eyes and ears, perhaps
intentional mutilations by the ruler’s enemies to destroy the spirit present in the statue, mar its
tranquility.
The Akkadians: ca. 2350–2150 BC
The Gutians: ca. 2150–2000
BC
The Sumerians (second period of domination):
Neo-Sumerian period: ca. 2125–2000
BC
Gudea of Lagash
Ur III period (= Third Dynasty of Ur): ca. 2100–2000
BC
Old Babylonian period: ca. 2000–1530 BC
Isin-Larsa period: ca. 2000–1760 BC
First Dynasty of Babylon: ca. 1830–1531 BC
Hammurabi of Babylon: ca. 1728–1686 BC
The Kassites: ca. 1530–1150 BC
MESOPOTAMIAN CITIES 53
The Akkadian state is generally considered the first
empire in south-west Asia. The heart of Sargon’s king-
dom was central Mesopotamia, in the region of Babylon
and modern Baghdad. He established a new capital city,
Agade (Akkad), thus breaking with traditional Sumerian
seats of power. To the chagrin of archaeologists, Agade
has not yet been identified, and so we have no Akkadian
city to describe.
Sargon’s activities, however, and those of his succes-
sors are amply reported in the cuneiform tablets. Once
he had conquered the Sumerian cities, Sargon turned
his attention to the east, to Elam (south-west Iran), and
then northwards up the Tigris and westwards up the
Euphrates into central Anatolia. If the ancient accounts
are to be believed, he ventured even as far as the south-
ern edge of the Arabian peninsula and into the Medi-
terranean to Cyprus and Crete. Only parts of this vast
area could be firmly maintained under his authority. But
these campaigns must have had the effect of stimulat-
ing commercial contacts between Akkad and distant
suppliers of timber, metals, and other raw materials.
Sargon was a Semite, not a Sumerian. The language he
spoke, Akkadian, written in a modified cuneiform script
based on the Sumerian, would remain the lingua franca
of the Near East for some 2,000 years until gradually it
ceded its place to Aramaic. The evidence of names of
people and places in the Sumerian tablets indicates that a substantial contingent of Semites lived
in ED Sumer. The further north one went within Mesopotamia, the greater their numbers. Their
origins are uncertain, as is true for the Sumerians themselves. Despite different speech, these
peoples shared the same cultural patterns, the same religious beliefs. For example, Enheduanna, a
daughter of Sargon, became a priestess of Nanna, the moon god of Sumerian Ur. The Akkadian
rulers, however, contributed a new concept of kingship to ancient Mesopotamia, the elevation of
the mortal rulers to the position of ultimate authority in the state, in place of the gods.
The Stele of Naram-Sin
The Stele of Naram-Sin is a parabolic-shape slab of pink sandstone, almost 2m tall, decorated
on one side with relief sculpture that commemorates an Akkadian victory over the Lullubi, a
mountain people living in what is today western Iran (Figure 3.2). The victorious king, here cel-
ebrated by his dominant place in the relief, is Naram-Sin, the grandson of Sargon. During a later,
twelfth-century
BC Elamite invasion of Mesopotamia, the stele was seized as booty and taken to
Susa, the Elamite capital – where the French archaeologist Jacques de Morgan uncovered it in
the late nineteenth century.
The martial theme is already familiar from earlier Near Eastern art, but the composition of
the scene differs from Sumerian examples. Naram-Sin stands high on a steep forested hillside.
He wears a horned helmet, the symbol of divinity, and carries a bow. A representative col-
lection of defeated enemies lies wounded or dead at his feet. In the middle of the stele one
Figure 3.1 Bronze head, Akkadian
period, from Nineveh. Iraq Museum,
Baghdad
54 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
victim plunges head first into the ravine. Below
the king, his own soldiers stride up the hill, or
turn to gaze upwards (those on the right side
of the scene). The sun and the moon (the two
rosette disks in the sky), divinities here, look
down on Naram-Sin and on what may be a
conical mountain – or perhaps a parabola-
shaped commemorative stele.
The relief serves the same propaganda pur-
pose as, for example, the earlier Stele of the
Vultures: the exaltation of the king and his
great victory. On the Stele of the Vultures
(Figure 2.11), the identity of the king Ean-
natum among the warriors is never in doubt,
for he is shown larger than life. But the god
Ningirsu, larger still, very much takes part in
the battle; victory is in fact won because of the
favorable intervention of the god. The Stele
of Naram-Sin builds on this ideological and
visual foundation, but the pictorial expres-
sion of the ruler and indeed the very concept
of kingship have moved in a new direction.
No longer confined to the narrow horizon-
tal bands of Sumerian art, the Akkadian ruler
is displayed in a single grand image. Assisted
by the diagonal lines of the hillside and the
soldiers’ faces turned upwards, the eye of the
viewer focuses immediately on the king. Not
only is he much larger than the other men,
he is also virtually the sole figure in the entire
upper half of the scene. Most important, as
his horned helmet signifies, he has himself become a god. In confirmation of the image, texts tell
us that Naram-Sin was addressed as a god during his lifetime, the first Mesopotamian ruler to be
accorded this distinction. In this way, the king could claim a share of the prestige and possessions
attributed to the deities.
Assertions of might and divinity did not suffice to protect Naram-Sin and his son Shar-kali-
sharri. The Akkadian dynasty established by Sargon, now over-extended and weakened, was
brought to an end by the Gutians, another mountain people from western Iran, neighbors of
the Lullubi. A Sumerian poet writing several centuries later attributed the disaster to an act of
sacrilege committed by Naram-Sin. According to this poet, Naram-Sin sacked the holy city of
Nippur and defiled the Ekur, the sanctuary to the god Enlil. In revenge, Enlil sent the Gutians
on a rampage. To spare the other cities of Sumer, eight major gods agreed that Agade must suffer
the same fate she inflicted on Nippur:
City, you who dared assault the Ekur, who [defied] Enlil,
May your groves be heaped up like dust . . .
May your canalboat towpaths grow nothing but weeds,
Figure 3.2 Stele of Naram-Sin, from Susa. Louvre
Museum, Paris
MESOPOTAMIAN CITIES 55
Moreover, on your canalboat towpaths and landings,
May no human being walk because of the wild goats, vermin (?), snakes, and mountain
scorpions,
Agade, instead of your sweet-flowing water, may bitter water flow.
(from “The Curse of Agade: the Ekur Avenged,” in Kramer 1963: 65)
And indeed, that seems to be exactly what happened to this proud city.
THE NEO-SUMERIAN REVIVAL: HISTORICAL SUMMARY
The Gutians, the conquerors of the Akkadians, controlled Mesopotamia for less than a century,
leaving few traces in the material record. Gradually the Sumerian cities reasserted themselves,
first, Lagash, notably under the reign of Gudea, and later Uruk, leader of a wide-spread revolt
against the Gutians ca. 2120 BC. Gutian domination was finally ended by Ur-Nammu, king of
Ur. For the next century, Ur-Nammu and his four successors ruled over a united central and
southern Mesopotamia. This great period in the history of Ur is known as the Ur III period, or
the Third Dynasty of Ur. Although Sumerian was restored as the official administrative language,
in other respects the Ur III kingdom took its inspiration from the state of Akkad. Administra-
tion was centralized, from taxation and weights and measures to religious and military matters.
Moreover, Shulgi, the second of the Ur III kings, followed the precedent set by Naram-Sin and
declared himself a god.
GUDEA OF LAGASH
Gudea, a Neo-Sumerian king of the city-state of Lagash, occupies a special position in Mesopo-
tamian archaeology. Tablets discovered during the early
French excavations at Telloh (ancient Girsu) document
his reign exceptionally well. In addition, his image and
that of his son, Ur-Ningirsu, have survived in a strik-
ing series of diorite statues (Figure 3.3). The image of
kingship they present differs markedly from that seen in
the Stele of Naram-Sin. For Gudea, a king best serves
his city not as a warrior, but as a devoted servant of the
gods.
At most half life-size, the statues reflect the predilec-
tion for small-scale figures already seen in the ED figu-
rines of worshippers from Tell Asmar (Figure 2.14). It
is fortunate that inscriptions on the statues themselves
identify the figures as the king, because the features of
face and dress alone do not indicate this. Not true por-
traits, these are standardized, idealized representations
of a king in the position of worshipper. Although occa-
sionally bare-headed and bald, Gudea usually wears a
characteristic headdress, a cap with a broad woven brim.
Whether sitting or standing, he always clasps his hands
Figure 3.3 Gudea, seated statue made
of diorite, from Telloh (Girsu). Louvre
Museum, Paris
56 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
reverently in front of his chest. In one unusual example, a drawing board with the plan of a
temple rests on his knees. The god Ningirsu ordered Gudea, in a dream, to rebuild his temple; the
pious king duly carried out the order, and had the statue made, with an explanatory text carved
on it, to commemorate the deed.
The statues would have been given as gifts to temples. Unfortunately, the exact architectural
context is unknown. While retrieving figures of hard black stone presented no difficulties to the
explorers of Telloh in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, recovering the remains of mud
brick temple walls from a matrix of dirt lay beyond their interest and capabilities.
UR IN THE UR III AND ISIN-LARSA PERIODS
The city of Ur reached its apogee in the late third and early second millennia BC, first as the seat of
the kingdom of Ur-Nammu and his successors. After the demise of the Ur III kingdom, follow-
ing an invasion of Elamites, the city rebounded during the succeeding Isin-Larsa period, enjoying
economic prosperity and continuing as a prestigious religious center. In Chapter 2, we looked
at the Royal Tombs from ED III. More extensive information about the appearance of the city
comes from the later Ur III, Isin-Larsa, and Neo-Babylonian periods and will be examined here:
the fortification walls, the religious center, and the residential neighborhoods (for the city plan,
see Figure 2.15).
At its greatest extent during the Isin-Larsa period, the city measured ca. 60ha, with additional
settlement outside its walls. Population of the city proper may have been approximately 12,000,
using one standard benchmark of 200 persons per hectare, calculated according to an estimated
number of houses per hectare, and of persons per house. But it should be kept in mind that
ancient populations are extremely difficult to determine, and the figures proposed by modern
specialists can vary significantly.
The extant city walls were built in the sixth century BC by Neo-Babylonian monarchs. The
dating of the walls and indeed other construction is much helped by the ancient use of bricks
stamped with the insignia of rulers. Because he did not find in the walls any bricks stamped
with the name of Ur-Nammu, Woolley assumed that the Ur III fortifications were deliber-
ately dismantled by the Elamite conquerors. However, the impressive Neo-Babylonian walls
may well have resembled the Ur III fortifications in both location and appearance. Situated
on a promontory between an arm of the Euphrates and a navigable canal, the city could be
approached by land only from the south. Despite the protection of water on three sides, an
imposing wall 27m thick was built all around. The lower part consisted of a steeply sloping
mud brick rampart, or glacis. This section enclosed and capped the edge of the already existing
mound. On this stood the upper section of baked brick, the wall proper. Defended by water
and such massive walls, the city must have seemed impregnable. But as history has witnessed
time and time again, fortifications and the weapons of war are only as strong as the men and
women who use them.
The religious center of Ur
The religious center, devoted to the cult of Nanna, the moon god and patron deity of Ur, and his
wife, Ningal, was a focus of Woolley’s excavations; as a result, much is known about it (Figure
3.4). This temenos, or sacred area, lay in the north-west, the traditional site of the important build-
ings of a Sumerian city. The propitious north-west sector had the healthiest air, it was believed.
MESOPOTAMIAN CITIES 57
Figure 3.4 Plan, the religious center, Ur
58 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
Such an attitude may lie behind the frequent orientation of buildings throughout the site toward
the cardinal points: one side would normally face the north-west and its soothing breezes.
Its corners oriented toward the cardinal points of the compass, the entire temenos measured
some 400m × 200m. Buildings were preserved in foundations only, the upper parts having been
destroyed during the Elamite invasion at the end of the Ur III period. The precinct contained
temples, courtyards, and rooms to house the religious personnel and store offerings and cult para-
phernalia, and an enormous ziggurat (see below). In ground plan, the area looks quite forbidding,
with its many thick and reduplicated walls protecting courts and labyrinthine buildings such as the
Giparu, a complex of shrines dedicated principally to Ningal and a residence for high priestesses.
Closely linked to the sacred compound and probably in greater need of the security provided
by the walls was the royal center. The king held audience in the small rooms of the gateway into
the compound for the ziggurat. His palace, the Ehursag, stood close by, just to the east, and
immediately beyond that lay the Royal Cemetery. The tombs of the kings of the Third Dynasty
were not as well hidden as the earlier ED Royal Tombs. Looted in antiquity, only their archi-
tecture has survived, mortuary chapels at ground level with stairs down to vaulted tombs below
– construction on a scale much grander than in the ED tombs.
The best-known building of the temenos is the ziggurat, the best-preserved example in Meso-
potamia (Figure 3.5). Erected under Ur-Nammu and his son Shulgi, the ziggurat was restored by
successive generations of kings in Mesopotamia for 1500 years after its initial construction, and
again in modern times by the Iraqi government.
A ziggurat is a tower built of successively smaller platforms one on top of the other, with
a small shrine on the summit. The name may come from Akkadian words for “summit” or
“mountain top” (ziqquratu) and “to be high” (ziqaru). It serves as an artificial mountain in flat
land, reaching up to heaven and the gods, an elaboration of the tall platform which had held up
the Mesopotamian “high temple” ever since the fifth millennium BC.
The ziggurat at Ur consists of three platforms. The temple on top did not survive, so its appear-
ance is conjectural. The lowest platform measures 61m × 45.7m × 15m. A majestic triple staircase
leads up to it and then on to the upper two stages and the shrine on top. Sun-dried mud bricks and
periodic layers of woven reeds make up the solid core of the structure. The exterior was faced with
a thick (2.4m) layer of more durable baked bricks, set in bitumen. Drainage holes pierced the facade
of the lowest platform, a detail that has intrigued observers. Noting finds of carbonized tree-trunks,
Figure 3.5 Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu (reconstruction), Ur
MESOPOTAMIAN CITIES 59
Woolley proposed that the tops of the terraces
were planted with trees. The holes would have
helped drain the specially watered garden. This
appealing vision of the ziggurat as a forested
mountain peak has not been confirmed else-
where.
The Stele of Ur-Nammu
The building projects of Ur-Nammu in the
temenos at Ur are honored in relief sculpture
on the Stele of Ur-Nammu, a fragmentary
stele discovered during Woolley’s excava-
tions (Figure 3.6). As did other Mesopota-
mian rulers, Ur-Nammu wished to record
his piety in sculptural form. Like the art of
Gudea, the Stele stresses the king’s adora-
tion of the gods rather than his considerable
military achievements. Not only does its mes-
sage about kingship contrast with that of the
Stele of Naram-Sin (Figure 3.2), the composi-
tion of the relief also differs from the earlier
work, divided as it is into horizontal bands
in traditional Sumerian fashion. In the best-
preserved register, the king appears twice, in
audience with two different divinities, a god-
dess (left) and a god (right). In each scene, the
deity, seated on a platform, watches as the king pours a libation into a plant or small tree growing
in a tall conical pot. Behind the king stands a woman, her hands upraised; also a goddess, she
has the responsibility of presenting the king to the seated gods. Lower, damaged zones depict a
good work of the king, the construction of a temple. Ur-Nammu carries builder’s tools, assisted
by a clean-shaven priest. Nanna, wearing the horned hat reserved for gods, accompanies them in
procession to the building site.
Private houses
Woolley excavated several residential neighborhoods within the city. The best examples, found
south-east of the temenos, date to the Isin-Larsa period, in the twentieth century BC. The plan
with its curving streets and massing of houses contrasts with the regular layout of Protoliter-
ate Habuba Kabira of some 1,200 years before. There was no attempt to place straight, wide
streets at regular intervals. The paths granting access to pedestrians and pack animals never
received much consideration from home owners or municipal authorities, and their courses
must have weaved back and forth as the buildings that lined them were demolished and rebuilt.
Further, trash would be randomly discarded into the streets. In the ancient city, as indeed in the
Middle East today, the interior of the home, one’s private space, was the focus of respect and
attention, not the public streets outside. Even so, the need for some regulation of public streets was
recognized, as this omen text indicates:
Figure 3.6 Stele of Ur-Nammu, Ur. University
of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Philadelphia
60 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
If a house blocks the main street in its building, the owner of the house will die; if a house
overshadows (overhangs) or obstructs the side of the main street, the heart of the dweller in
that house will not be glad.
(Frankfort 1950: 111)
The grandest houses at Ur surpass their
counterparts at Habuba Kabira. They con-
sist of two stories of rooms arranged around
an open air court (Figures 3.7 and 3.8). This
design differs from house plans at Habuba
Kabira, in which a single story and set of
rooms lay at the rear of a court. As typical
in all periods, the walls as seen from the
street are completely unadorned. What lies
inside belongs strictly to the family and their
friends. In addition, the dead were often bur-
ied in the house beneath the ground floor, a
practice reminiscent of Neolithic Çatalhöyük.
But burial practices could vary. Cities would
often have separate areas for cemeteries.
Simpler house plans also exist. These
evidently belonged to shops, distributed
throughout the residential quarters with
heavier concentrations in the southern part
of the city. In addition to houses and shops,
the city plan also contained small shrines,
located at street crossings.
Figure 3.7 House plan, Isin-Larsa period, Ur
Figure 3.8 House interior (reconstruction), Ur
MESOPOTAMIAN CITIES 61
HAMMURABI OF BABYLON AND THE OLD
BABYLONIAN PERIOD
The second period of Sumerian domination in southern Mesopotamia came to an end with the rise
to power of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, in the late eighteenth century BC. Indeed, Babylon, one
of the great cities of the Ancient Near East, first emerged as a major political center at this time.
Hammurabi’s achievements were considerable. Not only did he bring north and south Mesopota-
mia under his control, duplicating the accomplishment of Sargon of Akkad, but he also revamped
the administrative system of the country. Noted particularly for codifying the traditional laws of
Mesopotamia, he had his legal reforms inscribed on a near-cylindrical basalt stele 2.1m high, the
so-called Stele of Hammurabi (Figure 3.9). On the top of the stele is a single scene, a relief sculp-
ture that shows Hammurabi in audience with the seated god Shamash, god of justice. The encoun-
ter of king with god resembles that shown on the Stele of Ur-Nammu. The imagery on the latter
stele stresses the deference of the king to the deities, however, as Ur-Nammu pours a ritual libation
before both god and goddess. In contrast, Hammurabi seems to be consulting directly with the
god, without other deities present. It is almost, but not quite, a relationship of equals.
The era in Mesopotamian history that centers on Hammurabi and the dynasty to which he
belonged is called the Old Babylonian period. With the ascendancy of the Semitic Babylonians,
Sumerian disappeared as a spoken language, replaced by Akkadian. Sumerian did continue as a
written language, however, esteemed as the vehicle of religious and literary values – one reminder
of the enduring strength of Sumerian culture.
MARI: THE PALACE OF ZIMRI-LIM
The key example of an Old Babylonian city is not Hammurabi’s capital at Babylon, where later
constructions of the first millennium BC survive best (see Chapter 10), but Mari, halfway up the
Euphrates in modern Syria close to the Iraqi frontier. The evidence provided by the Palace of
Zimri-Lim, the principal building of eighteenth-century BC Mari, is well complemented by the
important find of over 25,000 clay tablets; together, architecture, art, and texts give us a full
picture of the life of this city. Excavations conducted by French teams since 1933 have barely
touched the town beyond the walls of the palace. Because the palace by itself seems like a town
in miniature, this lack has not drawn much attention until recently.
Already important in the Early Dynastic period, Mari reached its height during the rule of
Zimri-Lim, a regional potentate, ca. 1715–1700 BC. Zimri-Lim and the inhabitants of Mari were
Semites. They wrote in the Akkadian language, but proper names and non-Akkadian words
found in the Mari tablets place them in the north-west Semitic sphere together with such peoples
as the Amorites. Mari grew rich thanks to its advantageous location on the trading routes from
the west and the Mediterranean to both the Assyrian area to the north-east and Babylonia to the
south-east. Taxes were imposed on all goods that passed through. The palace that Zimri-Lim
inherited and remodeled so grandly was destroyed by Hammurabi of Babylon in ca. 1700 BC, but
the substantial remains initially excavated in only five years under the direction of André Parrot
allow a good look both at the architecture and at the workings of society and economy in the
eighteenth century BC.
This palace illustrates an important shift in the government of ancient Mesopotamian cities.
For the early Sumerians, everything belonged ultimately to the gods; human beings merely held
the cities and the land and its fruits in trust for them. During the Protoliterate and Early Dynastic