212 cities: The Middle East great antiquity (going back to the fi ft h millennium b.c.e.), its impressive size (3.4 square miles—bigger than Athens in the fift h century b.c.e.), and its provision of a matrix or pattern for future urban development Possessing the earliest, largest, and most numerous monumental buildings in Mesopotamia, dating mostly from the fourth to the first millennium b.c.e., Uruk was the birthplace not only of monumental Sumerian architecture and planning but also of the cuneiform writing system (revealed on clay tablets and cylinder seals, engraved seals used to make impressions on clay) and a government bureaucracy with centralized, theocratic control Representing the first phase of Mesopotamian urbanization, known as the Uruk Period (4000–3100 b.c.e.), Uruk appears to meet the basic criteria for both the first city and the first civilization of the ancient Near East Uruk’s somewhat experimental urbanism is characterized by large, multifunctional buildings with diverse plans, arranged with a concern for open and fluid space and apparently designed for ease of access and circulation Accurate description of individual buildings at any given point in time is complicated, however, by the tendency for later structures to cover over those of the earlier building phases, which were sometimes deliberately preserved or expanded upon The most important structures date from the Uruk Period or later and are concentrated on the two largest mounds: Eanna (precinct of the goddess Inanna), which is the oldest and central part of the ruin, and Kullab (precinct of the sky god An), the western and highest mound, dominated by a towering ziggurat Excavations on the Eanna mound reveal that new materials and building techniques were used beginning with the Middle Uruk Period (ca 3400 b.c.e.), most notably clay cone mosaics for wall decorations and especially imported limestone for foundations and walls, which tended to be both tall and thick—as in the Stone Cone Temple and the somewhat later Limestone Temple of Eanna The most famous Uruk building, the White Temple, stood on a tall, archaic ziggurat—a sort of man-made mountain—towering high above the Kullab mound The ziggurat and White Temple were dedicated to the sky god An, the father of all the gods The temple takes its name from the coating of white gypsum plaster that covered its massive walls Much of Uruk architecture thus conspicuously breaks with the local tradition of building with basic mud-brick that was favored both before and after the Middle Uruk Period At Uruk we find the prototypes for a wide variety of Mesopotamian temple designs The basic plan was roughly symmetrical, consisting of a central rectangular or T-shaped chamber, possibly vaulted, with flanking corridors or attached rooms, some of which also opened to the outside Within this basic formula, there was considerable variation in the layout, apparent function, and dimensions of the structures A notable feature, especially on Eanna, is the tendency to arrange the buildings at different angles around large, open terraces faced with monumental colonnades of massive semicircular, engaged pillars decorated with mosaic patterns The spatial arrangement and structural system used at Uruk thus foreshadow those of the great terraces and temples of ancient Egypt and Greece Despite the archaeological excavations that provide basic information about the site, we actually know very little about life in Uruk For instance, there is no evidence of residential quarters, graves, or commercial buildings or neighborhoods The most important urbanistic episode in the city’s history concerns the construction of its famed ramparts, undertaken during the Early Dynastic Period (fi rst half of the third millennium b.c.e.), when the city was at its height, with a population of about 50,000 The walls extended about miles around the site and stood more than 23 feet tall The tablets of the Gilgamesh epic credit Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, with this undertaking and describe the wall, “the likes of which no one can equal,” as having “a foundation of baked brick” and being “as straight as an architect’s string.” This wall protected not only the sacred precincts of the gods and their pious worshipers but also the growing population of a place described by Mesopotamian poets as a festive city of singing and dancing, with a “population of beautiful and voluptuous women, women with luxuriantly curly hair and available women in general.” The late Babylonian poem Erra, for example, talks about Uruk as a “city of prostitutes, courtesans, and call-girls,” deprived of their husbands by Ishtar, who becomes associated with the rising “mother goddess” of Uruk, Inanna, and a cult of free love that witnessed erotic adventures in the city’s streets and possibly even the institution of “sacred prostitution.” The libidinous energy of Uruk looks forward to the infamous licentiousness of Babylon and the likes of modern Amsterdam AKKAD, UR, AND THE RISE OF MESOPOTAMIAN CAPITAL CITY THE The continuing importance of the cult of the goddess Inanna for the development of Mesopotamian cities is clearly illustrated in a famous literary text, The Curse of Agade, written ca 2000 b.c.e The text deals with the rise of the city of Agade (Akkad) as the center of a successful international trading empire and the great capital of a powerful centralized state founded by the Akkadian king Sargon, who ruled from 2340 to 2284 b.c.e Although the site of the city has not yet been identified, there is ample evidence of its existence and greatness in written documents and cuneiform inscriptions found at other sites and dating back to the third millennium b.c.e The imperial state forged by Sargon during his 56-year regime incorporated all the formerly independent Sumerian city-states, including Uruk, whose impressive walls were no challenge to the military might of the Akkadians Sargon’s Akkad, believed by some experts to lie somewhere beneath modern-day Baghdad or in its vicinity, was the first city in ancient Mesopotamia to function as the true capital of a state and an empire Like Akkad, Ur became the capital of a powerful centralized state with grandiose city walls, rich furnishings,