The Ancients - Uruk: The First Cities

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

A Mesopotamian metropolis that thrived for millennia, Uruk is even claimed by some to have been the first true city in history.Located in modern day Iraq, Uruk was certainly among the oldest urban settlements of the ancient world, and has been a treasure trove of archaeological finds. But was it really the first ever city? And what do we actually know about Uruk's inhabitants?In this episode, Tristan is rejoined by Dr Paul Collins from the British Museum. Together, they explore Uruk's monumental building programs, pioneering irrigation systems, and the recent archaeological findings to answer the question - was Uruk one of the first cities?For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, we're going back to ancient Mesopotamia. We're talking all about the first cities, a place which is often associated with being the first city. But as you're going to hear in this podcast episode, that association isn't quite correct. Nevertheless, its significance in ancient Mesopotamia, and indeed in ancient history, is seismic. We are, of course, talking about the city of Uruk.

Now, in today's podcast episode, we're going to be going through Uruk's ancient history with a man who's already been on the podcast once before. And let's just say his previous episode proved incredibly popular. I went to the British Museum a few days ago to interview Dr. Paul Collins. That name may well ring a bell because Paul was on the podcast a few months back to talk all about the Sumerians. That podcast has proven incredibly popular. In podcast terms, it went viral. And so we've got the return of Paul today to talk all about Uruk's ancient history. What archaeology has been done at this ancient city? What does it tell us about how this city interacted with other city-states in ancient

Mesopotamia? We're going to be talking about other important places like Tel Brach and a few others too. And of course, we're also going to mention, we're going to flutter around another topic that is 100% worthy of its own podcast at a future date, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and how that relates to a story of this heroic king who once supposedly ruled Uruk. So without further ado, here's Paul. Paul, it is wonderful to have you back on the podcast. Delighted to be back here, thank you. You're more than welcome. After the incredible popularity of our last episode, All on the Sumerians, and we're doing it again in person, this time in your brilliant, quite empty at the

moment, new office at the British Museum, your new job, it's very, very exciting, to talk about Uruk. Now, Uruk, there's a lot of fame around the name being the first city, but how true really is that? Well, in a way, it depends how you define city. We think of it today, of course, as a collection of thousands of people coming together, living together. And that's certainly true for Uruk by the end of the fourth millennium BC. And I suppose for many years, archaeologists didn't have anything to compare it with. But we now know that there are other sites around the ancient Middle East, which were, if not comparable in scale at the late fourth millennium, were beginning

to build large numbers of people much earlier. Well, you mentioned early fourth millennium BC. So as we start into this whole huge topic, I mean, how far back can we go in time when looking at people inhabiting this area of the Rukh? The earliest evidence I think we have for people living in what is southern Mesopotamia, so southern Iraq essentially today, is probably the 7th millennia BC, so 6500 BC. So much earlier actually than archaeologists imagined for many years. So we're now beginning to get a better sense of the region as populated, small villages, scattered communities in that region, exploiting the landscape at a very, very early period. And you mentioned southern Mesopotamia. So whereabouts in the world are we talking with southern Mesopotamia when we are thinking of

Uruk's place in the ancient world? So we're talking about the Middle East, and in modern political terms, the country of Iraq. So essentially, what we often describe as Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. And Uruk is located in the southern region of Iraq, in what was originally dense marshlands and agricultural world. So in regards to its location, so the surrounding landscape of Uruk looked in antiquity very different to how it looks today. Is that fair to say? Very fair to say. If you go to Uruk today, the remains of Uruk lie in the desert. It's a hot, dusty world. And the remains of decaying mud brick is all you will see,

although on an incredibly impressive scale. But in antiquity, Uruk was a bustling city surrounded by rich agricultural land, palm groves, and reed marshes in abundance. So it's a rich agricultural land. Rich agricultural land. So it seems a very ideal place for those wanting to settle and then convene and create this urban centre. And for learning more about the story of Uruk, for figures like yourself and other Middle Eastern archaeologists delving this far back in time, what sorts of source material do you have available? What we don't have at Uruk is really the evidence for the very earliest period. Archaeologists simply haven't dug deep enough in that respect. But we have evidence from surrounding regions which suggests that small settlements were emerging in this very watery world,

but rich agriculturally, as I say, from the mid-7th millennium BC. And these small communities were also centres for trade and connections, easy movement up and down the rivers. So Uruk clearly placed strategically to benefit from connections both up and down the rivers, from the agricultural lands to the north in modern-day Syria and northern Iraq, but also, of course, connections with the Persian Gulf to the south. And it's clearly an area of relatively dry land, which enabled then the small settlement to expand. And in regards to alongside this archaeology, and trying to learn more about that and the story of how Uruk gets bigger and bigger in its story in itself, what sorts of literature, I just want to keep focusing on the source material we have,

what sorts of literature do you also have available? I think you know where I'm going with this, to also learn more about the people who would have lived in this ancient city. So we have to, of course, wait a long time before we get any of this written evidence. any of this written evidence. And Uruk, in many ways, is perhaps most famous because it is the place where, as far as we can tell, the earliest writing, or at least the origins of writing, begin. And that happens around 3400, 3300 BC, when administrators in the city, which is by this date a large, bustling community with perhaps 10,000 people, need to find ways to manage these numbers of people, but also, of course, all the activities that they're doing. And they start to use the local resources, clay to make little tablets, and then sharpened reeds to draw information in that clay.

And that's the origin of writing. Very, very interesting. And I'm presuming that writing, it will evolve, as I know that we'll talk about in more detail later in this podcast episode, it will evolve over the following centuries and millennia that Uruk is inhabited. So the early writing is literally just recording data, but then that script emerges, which begins to record spoken languages. And so by 2800 BC, so some 500 years perhaps after those first scratches were made in those clay tablets, we start to be able to read some of the Sumerian words of the local language. And that, of course, then starts to illuminate populations, individuals, names, and famous people. Famous people, heroic kings, shall we say, as well, which we will certainly delve into,

won't we? But okay, one last thing really on the background of this whole Uruk chat before we delve into the chronology itself and the archaeology is you mentioned excavations that they haven't been able to dig deep enough to get to the earliest layers yet. So how much archaeological work has been done at Uruk over the past, I guess, 100, 200 years? Well, the excavations at Uruk began in a rather sort of tentative way in the middle of the 19th century with a few exploratory digs. But really, the major excavations took place at the start of the 20th century, led by German archaeologists. But their interests were very much on the monumental architecture at the centre of the settlement. And Uruk, the remains of Uruk,

is a vast area. So it's around choices, inevitably, of where to dig and what to look for. And so a great deal of information is known about the big monuments at the heart of Uruk, but virtually nothing about the lives of ordinary people in the houses that must lay around outside the monumental area. So the houses of the everyday Sumerians or however these people were living at Uruk thousands of years ago, because that was going to be one of my questions a bit later, we don't actually know much about their mud brick houses or whatever their houses were made of because the excavations haven't yet focused on those areas of the site. That's right at Uruk, but of course we have excavations at other sites which allow us to suggest what the houses may have looked like at Uruk. So it's again taking the pieces of that

jigsaw puzzle scattered with large gaps between it and trying to work out a collective picture from them. From the archaeology that has been done so far, if we go into the early history of Uruk, and I know, as you said, they haven't got down to the earliest layers yet, has the archaeology revealed anything about when urbanism starts to emerge at Uruk or when it seems like lots of people start to congregate in this area of Mesopotamia at this particular site. The German excavations in the early 20th century, as I said, focused on the monumental buildings of the late fourth millennium BC, so 3200 BC. And that suggested an extraordinary city with

buildings created by perhaps thousands of people coming together. So this was an image of a major city at this time. And it really implanted in people's mind the idea of Uruk as being the first city, one among several that would emerge, of course, on the flat alluvial plains of southern Iraq. But Uruk seemed to be the preeminent site in terms of scale, but also, of course, because it produced writing. We now know, however, in the decades of archaeological work since those early excavations, that there were other settlements across the wider Middle East that were also growing in scale in the late fifth, early fourth millennium BC. So actually earlier than the excavations at Uruk had revealed.

Sites, for example, in North Syria, like Tel Brak, where over the last few decades, archaeologists have understood a settlement that had emerged at that site around 4200 BC, so a thousand years earlier than those excavations that the Germans had undertaken at Uruk, where we see Tel Brak growing exponentially as populations move to the centre, move to the settlement, and start building monumental architecture, and actually start to develop technologies in recording and sealing, which again have their origins much, much earlier than had previously been thought. That is so interesting, and I love that you mentioned Tel Brak there, because we're definitely going to come back to that with the connections to Uruk.

But first of all, I'd like to focus in on these monumental buildings at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC. If they've found these monumental buildings, they've done archaeological work on these buildings, what sorts of monumental buildings were discovered at Uruk dating to the 4th millennium BC? Well, they are extraordinary. And I think this is what's excited so many people when this work in the early 20th century began to be published, because they are on a scale that no one could imagine was possible at that date. They're largely mud brick structures, though a few of them do incorporate stone, some with stone foundations, some with stone elements into their walls. But the buildings themselves,

of which there are many in the centre of the city, are on a scale which, well, let me give you an example. One which is known as Temple D. It has to be said, we're not very clear whether these are actually temples or perhaps ceremonial buildings of some sort. That is comparable in scale, its floor plan is comparable in scale to that of the Parthenon in Athens. Separated, of course, by many thousands of years and the Parthenon built from stone, but they're a building of that size made from mud brick, one among many at the centre of this city. Just one of many at that time. One of many. Just to really emphasise, I guess also, once again, it kind of hints from the archaeology, I love looking at this when looking at archaeology, whether it's in Orkney or wherever,

the amount of time and effort by the community at Uruk, we don't know what form that time and effort was, was it people, free time or slavery, I'm guessing, but the amounts of effort put into constructing a mud brick temple like that thousands of years before the rise of Rome or something like that, it's absolutely fascinating, isn't it, when you put that into perspective when looking at ancient history. I think this again was what excited the early archaeologists because they had to consider how you actually create a building on that scale. So you have to start at a rather mundane level, of course, which is with the mud, with the clay. And you need to make thousands of bricks. And so somebody has to dig the soil. Somebody has to put the soil into molds, let that dry. And the majority of these bricks are sun-dried, not too difficult in the heat of southern Iraq.

Then, of course, you need architects to lay out the building and then workers to construct the walls. But at Uruk, these monumental buildings didn't stop there. They were then covered with thick layers of plaster and into that were pushed little clay cones of baked clay. So again, somebody had to make these, roll out a cone of clay by the size of a small cigar, sharp at one end, blunt at the other. The blunt end was dipped into different colored paints, left to dry.

And then the sharp ends pushed into the thick plaster covering these walls. Tens of thousands of these clay cones used to create mosaic patterns across this vast building. And this is one of the defining features of Uruk-style architecture, isn't it? This, is it the cone mosaic, is that the official term for that

decoration? Cone mosaic decoration, yes. It seems to be associated with very special buildings, temple buildings perhaps, or at least associated with the leading authorities of the city. And these buildings are on a scale which can accommodate hundreds of people at a time. So the organisation required to create the buildings and then decorate them in that fashion, in an almost conspicuous use of resources, not really having any practical purpose other than to mark this building as special.

This required hundreds and hundreds of workers. And of course, in order to manage those workers and feed them and organise them, they developed writing. So exactly. So writing at this time, from these early layers, from the 4th millennium BC at Uruk, what sorts of activities does the writing from Uruk record at this time? does the writing from a record at this time? So I say writing, but it is essentially recording in the sense that it is simply taking data, the numbers of people, the numbers of workers, the amounts of resources in the storerooms, and then the movements of some of that material between stores or as rations to the workers. And they used a very straightforward device, a piece of clay shaped into a small tablet which could fit in the palm of the hand,

which was then, with a sharpened reed, divided into a grid. So simple lines scratched in the clay of the tablet and then into each of the cells created by that grid data was dropped. Numbers of people, amounts of goods, objects being moved. It's essentially a spreadsheet capturing data so that the administrators could check their accounts at the end of the week or the end of the month, and then tally them up and make sure the stores had the correct amount left in them. How interesting. So this is a centre of administration, protocuneiform, is that the word for this sort of writing? So this form of recording of course does eventually become more abstract, less pictographic

as they're drawing these things. And they start impressing the reed, sharpened reed at an angle, producing these wedge-shaped signs, cuneiform. So this very early form is indeed proto-cuneiform. It's absolutely incredible. And you mentioned how it records people. Has any other archaeology from the fourth millennium BC or revealed more about the social hierarchy of the people who lived at Uruk at that time? Well, we have a sense of the workers for sure. We see, of course, the great monumental buildings they created, the mud bricks, for sure. We see, of course, the great monumental buildings they created, the mud bricks, the clay cones. We also see them represented in the most mundane type of pottery that survives from this period, the so-called bevel rim bowl. Like the bricks, mass produced, probably with the

help of moulds, very simple crude vessels, which may have been used to produce bread for the workers, but also was used as a standard measure for the rations that were handed to the workers by the administrators. And then at the other end of the scale, we start to see from the late fourth millennium, images of authority, images of power. We see representations of an individual who's often described as the priest king, who is shown with a distinctive outfit, a band around his head. He has a beard and a moustache, very often a net-like skirt. beard but no moustache, very often a net-like skirt. And he is shown undertaking rituals, feeding sacred flocks, but also undertaking hunting, shooting arrows at lions, spearing lions,

but also very rarely shown punishing humans. I'd like to ask about a few more of those things in a bit more detail. The first one is you mentioned sacred flock. Once again, that image of the shepherd and his flock, which we've seen time and time again in the ancient Middle East. It seems it stretches back therefore all the way back to Uruk and the early archaeology which we've got here too. Well, we see on these images, which are preserved, carved in stone on large vessels, which clearly were special objects made perhaps for the temple, we see representations of herds of animals, cattle, flocks of sheep. And these were clearly connected in some way to the landed estates that were being managed by the scribes. And many of these estates may well have been, as it were, temple estates. Why do we think that? Well, because much of this imagery connects these animals with symbols which we know from a later period represent gods. At Uruk, a recurring image,

a recurring symbol, is a tall pillar, a tall pole with a circle at the top and what looks like sort of a hanging at the back. And this symbol we know is the symbol of the goddess Inanna. And Inanna, do we know, does worship of Inanna, do we think that it stretched back therefore to this early time, to the fourth millennium BC? Almost certainly. I mean, this is a recurring theme through the imagery, her symbol reappearing again. And in later history, of course, when the recording is changed into writing and we can read the Sumerian language, we can read about the cult of Inanna, the patron deity of Uruk. As Athena is to Athens, Inanna is for Uruk. So you know who the patron deity of Uruk is thousands of years ago. That's fascinating how many different

aspects into the lives of these ancient Sumerians you can gather from the surviving archaeology, aspects into the lives of these ancient Sumerians you can gather from the surviving archaeology, even if the archaeology is only focused on particular areas of a brook to this day. Yes, we can see Inanna in some form from 3200 BC for the next over 3,000 years as the patron deity of the city. Hi there, I'm Don Wildman, host of the new podcast, American History Hit. Twice a week, I'll be exploring stories from America's past to help us understand the United States of today. Join me as I head back in time to witness Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence, head to the battlefields during the Civil War, visit Chief Poetin as he prepares for

war with English colonists, tour Central Park before it was Central Park, and a city in Tennessee which helped build the atomic bomb. From famous battlefields to secret cities, from familiar names to lesser known events, I'll speak with leading experts from across the United States and beyond to bring American history to life. Join me every Monday and Thursday for American History Hit, a podcast by History Hit. I'd like to ask a bit more, actually, first of all, about that other image which you mentioned, which seems to be of the priest-king of this figure attacking people. Now, my mind instantly goes to, let's say, ancient Egyptian depictions of the pharaoh smiting prisoners, that depiction of him with his weapon that you see time and time again on war reliefs.

Do you think this depiction of this priest, king or whoever attacking these people, is it an implication of warfare, of captives? Do we have any idea what that symbolism, what that imagery might depict? The imagery which shows the punishment of humans is very rare. The priest-king, this image appears really only as an impression from a cylinder seal, in a very fragmentary seal impression. There may well have been, of course, many more in antiquity, but it is not a recurring theme. He's best represented as the figure who feeds the sacred flocks and protects humans from the dangerous forces of the wilderness in the form of the lion.

And of course, what we don't know from this imagery, because the figure of the priest-king is very generic, is whether it's representing a single individual or perhaps a class of individuals who is responsible for ritual activity in Uruk itself. Very difficult to identify as a king in the sense we think of an Egyptian king at the beginning of very much the same period, late 4th millennium BC. Two very distinctive ways of representing authority. One, obviously, couched in power, force of the Egyptian king to defeat his enemies militarily. In Uruk, the imagery is largely around ritual. Very, very interesting indeed. Forgive my ignorance. You mentioned cylinder seals. Now, what are cylinder seals? Another invention of this late fourth millennium. So stamp seals, little pieces of stone carved with the design, had been in use across the Middle East for, well, again, since

7,000 BC. They were used as little amulets, which you could carry with you and perhaps connect yourself and protect yourself with supernatural forces. But you could also take that magical quality and impress it into clay, lumps of clay that were closing baskets, bags, boxes over the knot of a string, which was keeping something closed. And then you would impress your seal into that lump of clay, And then you would impress your seal into that lump of clay, magically securing it. By the later 4th millennium BC, however, all this technology of recording and management needed something a little bit more sophisticated. And so from around 3500 BC, we start to see the development of cylinder seals. see, we start to see the development of cylinder seals, rather than just simply a single piece of stone carved with the design, a cylinder of stone, in which the design then covers the entire surface, means that you can play with greater space and the artist could develop ideas of narrative.

So as long as you had clay, you could roll your image and repeat the same image again and again. As we near, therefore, the third millennium BC, you mentioned that idea of narrative. This also emerges in the field of writing too. Very late, of course, considering where writing begins, but you've got to wait perhaps a thousand years before we start to be able to read in the script that's developed out of those early pictographs till the cuneiform script is fully developed, when we can begin to start to read myth, legend, and hymns, prayers, in all the sorts of diversity you would expect. A little bit of a hint of where we'll be going. But first off, just before we get down to that period, the end of the fourth millennium BC at Uruk, you mentioned earlier Tel Brak,

and talked to me about this. I've got in my notes here, Uruk expansion. What is this, and how does it relate to the connections of Uruk at this time? So during the fourth millennium BC, from around 3500 BC, we start to see the material culture of southern Iraq, the so-called Uruk culture, with its monumental buildings, its clay cones, its bevel rim bowls, and of course its cylinder seals with distinct imagery, we find some of that at sites in the north of Mesopotamia, where it clearly had not originated. And it's found among the local cultures of that region. So northern Mesopotamia developed its own very distinctive culture, distinctive type of architecture, ceramics, and indeed seals. Then from the mid-fourth millennium, this Uruk culture starts to appear among it. And it takes a different form at different sites. So at some sites, clearly, the people from the south had arrived there with their cultural identity and perhaps

settled at one side of a village or town in the north. Perhaps they were trading resources. Perhaps they were manufacturing goods and selling things. Very difficult to tell, but they kept their identity, their southern identity. At other sites, however, in the north, there was clearly some sort of takeover. And this may have been the case at Tel Brak, a major settlement, of course, which had been in existence already for thousands of years by this date. Now we find a level of Tel Brak around 3,200 BC, leveled and an Uruk presence apparent across the entire area of the site. So perhaps people from the south moved north, brought with them their culture, but implanted it at Tel Brak,

building a new temple in classic Uruk style with clay cone mosaics. And this isn't just a normal everyday building. This is therefore a monumental building at the center of this other early first city, which is fascinating in itself. As you say, the implanting of their culture, they're almost a colony in one way. And they have been described as colonies. And how you understand that colony is one that's imperialism, perhaps, or perhaps a much more fluid relationship between different groups and communities. Very hard to be absolutely clear, but a really exciting moment of interaction when we see identity shaped by distinctive elements very clearly visible archaeologically. It's so, so interesting. I've said interesting so many times, but because I love all this stuff

going this far back in the ancient Mesopotamian region. Keeping on tailbrack a bit longer, because you did mention earlier how we don't have a lot of information, archaeological information, from Uruk about the everyday houses of these. Can we call them Sumerians? Hard to know what we should call them at this date, because of course we're not able to read the Sumerian language in the text. They're simply recording data. Okay. These people then, what have archaeological excavations, simply recording data. Okay, these people then, what have archaeological excavations, perhaps at Tel Brac or elsewhere, revealed about, potentially about the houses of these people who lived at that time? So here's a moment during this expansion where we've got this southern presence in the north of Mesopotamia, where we start to see the sorts of buildings that we imagine is probably being constructed at Uruk in the south.

They haven't been excavated there, but in the north, a site on the river Euphrates called Habuba Kabira was excavated, and it's clearly one of these colony sites. It's a site which, quite remarkably, is a large town built from scratch. And all the elements of this town are Uruk in style. The pottery, the seals, forms of recording, they're all Uruk. So the buildings constructed there for ordinary people, a large town, we presume, look much like they would have done back home in Uruk. And what are some key architectural features of these homes? So they retain part of the long-lived tradition of Mesopotamia of having courtyards. But these particular ones are very regularly constructed, again, using very standardized bricks, what the Germans called Riemchen bricks, very standardized, exactly as you would find at Uruk, very different than the local bricks of the northern Mesopotamia.

So they're constructed with distinct bricks. And the layout of the buildings is such as that you have a reception room at the front, followed by a courtyard surrounded by smaller rooms beyond. Very, very regular. The houses at Habuba Kabira were built along little lanes, which were themselves led off from major roadways running the length of the settlement. Under the major roads were drains. You had 100 drain to take away water and waste. So again, extraordinary thought about planning a settlement from scratch and laying out all those resources as part of the settlement, and then an organised architecture on the surface. I have a mad obsession with prehistoric drainage systems across the world. Orkney, Skara Brae is a great example. It's a 5,000-year-old

incredible drainage system underneath the settlement. And it seems this was similar in ancient Mesopotamia, probably at a place like Uruk, but I'm guessing other places as well, Tel Brak, and also that place, I'm not going to try and say the name which you mentioned earlier, that place as well. So we're also learning about the sophisticated underworld of these ancient cities too. Absolutely. And I think probably most cities sort of grew organically. So the sorts of drainage systems that one sees at Habuba Kabira wouldn't have been perhaps so apparent to places like Uruk, where they would have needed to find different ways to manage

the flow of water and the removal of drainage. But they had an opportunity at this site, and again, thinking about the administrative control and the management of people that was required to do this, to build it from scratch. And that was therefore the ideal city to have street drainage. And then the settlement itself was surrounded by a massive wall with crenellated towers and a major gateway overlooking the River Euphrates, a major undertaking. A major undertaking. There you go. Super cool prehistoric drainage. One day we'll do a documentary series all about it, I promise. But let's move on for now, Paul, because we've been edging nearer the 3rd millennium BC with the story of Uruk. Now, it seems that around this time, for a short period right at the start of the 3rd millennium BC, great change,

architectural, structural change seems to occur at Uruk. Again, difficult to understand what's going on really at Uruk because only a small part of the city, of course, has been explored. But it is that area at the very buildings of the early period, the late fourth millennium, are leveled. And it looks as if the plan was to construct an even more massive platform on which new buildings would be constructed. But those were either never built or they simply haven't been survived. They haven't survived for the archaeologists to find. But whatever the case, a major change in the layout at the center of the city. And with that came changes in the form of the recording system as the text became increasingly more cuneiform. And we start

move towards a period when Uruk will be surrounded by a massive city wall. I hope you don't mind elaborating as we're getting into this really interesting period now, this whole evolution of writing during this period and the significance of it. Well, writing has its origins as this administrative tool, and it will continue to play that role for many centuries. But it spreads beyond Uruk. So it really does seem as if it's the administrators in this massive urban centre in the late fourth millennium that come up with the idea. But because it's in some way rooted with managing the cult of the gods, it then becomes a tool which can be used by other administrators at other developing cities in the

region. And so with these major transformation of the architecture at Uruk, we also see the spread of the script to other cities across Mesopotamia. And so writing as an administrative tool is then shared beyond Uruk. But of course, you also then need to share the skills and education and teaching to become a scribe that goes with it. And you start to see writing, scribal arts being embedded in the life of settlements across the region. And what does this ultimately result in, in regards to the development of the usage of writing beyond administration? There we see from around 2800 BC, the start of grammatical elements within the script. We can start to be able to identify the Sumerian language, presumably the language of the population, but if not of the wider population,

certainly of administration, what the scribes were learning in order to write. And gradually, by capturing spoken language, they start to use writing to develop and record other ways of thinking. Hymns, prayers, rituals, again, has its origins very much in the cultic centre of these cities. But we start to see life beyond the bureaucrats. And what sorts of hymns and prayers do we have surviving therefore that relate to Uruk in particular, of all of these early Mesopotamian cities? Well, some of the earliest hymns and prayers actually are not necessarily related to Uruk. We find them as fragmentary remains, of course, scattered across these cities. And there are some generic hymns and prayers which are recorded again and again by the scribes as they're learning to write. A canon, if you like, of text emerges.

But for Uruk itself, the texts always refer back to the great goddess Inanna. And what sorts of activities are therefore talked about in relation to Inanna in regards to the great goddess Inanna. And what sorts of activities are therefore talked about in relation to Inanna in regards to the texts we have from her? Because I'm really going to be challenging your mind here to think of some particular examples. Are they related to praying to the mother goddess, the patron deity of the city for a good harvest? Or is it in regards to legal matters? I mean, what sorts of documents, texts survive about this? Mid-third millennium BC, 2500 BC, the texts are largely dedicatory. So they're inscribed on objects being dedicated to the gods, and Nana, of course, is among them, in their great temples at the heart of these cities.

But really to understand some of the ideas around the goddess herself, we have to look at texts that have survived outside of Uruk itself. And they are stories about the goddess and her relationship with other deities. Some of the most famous ones relate to her relationship with the god of sweet water and wisdom, the god Enki. Wonderful tales preserved by scribal tradition, many of them dating actually the second millennium BC, but clearly harking back to earlier times, which talk about Inanna as being a powerful goddess who claims from this god of wisdom, the so-called may. And the may are the fundamental attributes of the universe that the gods created at the beginning of time.

that the gods created at the beginning of time, and Inanna becomes responsible for them. I love how mythology is so focused in on, at this time, in the writing alongside the administrative purposes. When do we start seeing this writing, this mythology, this, can we say, poetry, also start talking about, I've got on my notes, heroic kings of Uruk alongside the actual deities themselves. You have to really wait until the late third millennium BC for this idea of the heroic kings of Uruk to emerge. And this is tied, of course, to the political situation in Mesopotamia. is tied, of course, to the political situation in Mesopotamia. From the mid-third millennium BC, we see the emergence of powerful political centers across the alluvial plains, and Uruk is one of them. So dynasties of kings at various cities emerged, and they're rivals for access to trade and water and agricultural land, but also they're connected through the

cults of the gods. Movements of people, movements of resources are the result, all recorded in the cuneiform script. They present themselves as heroic kings in their own right, of course, setting up monuments to their great victories in battle. Again, they equate to support from their personal gods. But by the end of the third millennium BC, we're seeing many of these city-states, these independent city-states, being brought together into greater kingdoms and ultimately empires. And it's in that world, the so-called Agade Empire, which unifies much of Mesopotamia, and at the end of the third millennium, the third dynasty of Ur, as it's known, the Ur III period, when the rulers of Uruk and Ur want to present themselves as a long tradition of ruling Mesopotamia. And so stories about earlier heroes connected to these ancient sites, particularly Uruk,

are created perhaps for entertainment at the royal courts themselves. And among them, of course, the most famous hero of Uruk emerges into the light, Gilgamesh. So the Epic of Gilgamesh is, forgive my ignorance, because I don't know much about it. And the Epic of Gilgamesh is a topic absolutely for another podcast or several podcasts. It's an amazing story. But the focus of that, of this hero king, is Uruk itself, the city Uruk. Do we know why, of all cities in Mesopotamia, it's Uruk who, even in this period in ancient history, seemed to have so much prestige in these epic poems? It is difficult to determine why Uruk itself resonates so much within this scholarly scribal tradition in Mesopotamia. It must certainly be to do with this antiquity.

The people of Mesopotamia, the rulers of these great cities and kingdoms, were well aware of their ancient past because their buildings, constructed of mud brick, were rebuilt over generations on top of each other. So they literally had stratigraphy going back through time in the rebuilt buildings. And you would dig into the foundations of an older building and discover foundation deposits inscribed with the names of earlier kings. And so there was a sense of the passage of time. There was a sense of dynasties of kings. And by the late third millennium, these were constructed into great king lists, which connected the rulers of the present day with an ancient world, taking them back to the

beginnings of time. Do these lists, do they reveal that Gilgamesh may well have been a real figure who ruled over Uruk at an earlier time? Well, Gilgamesh is included among the great hero kings of the past. The challenge, of course, is how much does Gilgamesh reflect a real individual or perhaps more of an idea about heroic nature in distant days, in perhaps much the same way as we might think about King Arthur in our more recent histories? How much of a real person was he? But he clearly plays an important role in defining kingship in the third millennium BC. And although he's the name we most associate, therefore, with Uruk, with this early incredible epic poetry, his poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is just one of many which relate to Uruk's heroic kings, therefore.

is just one of many which relate to Uruk's heroic kings, therefore. Gilgamesh certainly became perhaps the most famous popular hero of Uruk, but there are certainly other names which were connected to Uruk. Lugalbanda, for example, another name which became incorporated into the tradition of myth and legend around this great city. This has been absolutely fascinating. As mentioned, the Epic of Gilgamesh, this poetry, would be another podcast episode in its own right. I must move on quickly before we ultimately wrap up. But a last couple of questions from me. You mentioned recently Ur, that incredible place that we talked a lot about in our previous chat, all about the Sumerians. Now, one of the most famous buildings from Ur is the Great Ziggurat.

At Uruk, do we also have a ziggurat? But when does, if we do, which I'm pretty sure we do, when does this ziggurat date to in the whole story of Uruk? Well, ziggurats probably have their origins as great platforms for the most important temples in Mesopotamian cities. And at Uruk, we have platforms that supported cult buildings from the late 4th millennium BC. There's one called the so-called Anu Ziggurat, and another called Ayana. And so these are raised areas in large numbers of sun-dried bricks produced in their thousands to lift the level of the land above the average place you're living. So somewhere special for the gods to dwell. And by the late third millennium, this idea of raising your temple up on a platform had just become even more grand

and literally elevated to put a series of increasingly smaller platforms, one on top of each other, so that the shrine at the summit towered above the city walls, hence your ziggurat. walls. Hence your ziggurat. And at Uruk, just like at Ur in the late third millennium, there was a great ziggurat created, the so-called Eana ziggurat, and of course, dedicated in a space to the great goddess Inanna. Is this therefore a time of almost a renaissance post the Agade Empire, or is this still the time of this great empire which is united Mesopotamia? Is it almost we see Uruk almost return to prominence at this time in the late third millennium BC? What do we know about the surrounding context of the building of this great ziggurat of Uruk? So Uruk in the third millennium was always a major centre. But at the end of that millennium,

it was very closely connected politically with the city of Ur, not too distant from each other along the river Euphrates. So that was the core area of the empire. And while the capital city was really Ur, historically, with its great literary traditions, looking back to heroes like Gilgamesh, Uruk was absolutely fundamental in the idea of the kingdom. And so it too, like other cities across the kingdom, was made special with the creation of a ziggurat tower. So interesting. I said ziggurats, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, would be another podcast in its own right.

But go on then, let's go a bit further on in time, chronologically wise, because what ultimately happens to Uruk in ancient history? Well, Uruk is a settlement that continues to exist for thousands of years. So we think, of course, of this great period of heroic kings like Gilgamesh and the great buildings of the late third millennium, but the city continues to flourish. And that's because, of course, it's sitting on a branch of the river Euphrates, providing the essential water to feed the fields and the date palms that surround it. It would continue to flourish right the way through into the Parthian and Seleucid and Sassanian period. So we're talking now into the early centuries AD of our own time. And it's only

probably in the 6th or 7th century of the Common Era that Uruk is eventually abandoned. And that fundamentally is because the branch of the Euphrates that's feeding those fields shifts in its bed, leaving the ancient settlement high and dry in the desert. So providing us place for archaeologists to dig in the early 20th century. So like the Tiber with Rome, like the Nile with so many of those ancient Egyptian capitals, like the Oxus River and Balkh, the lifeblood of Uruk for centuries is the Euphrates River. And when that lifeblood is taken away, it diminishes, it fades from existence. That's exactly it. You're dependent on water. Always. Absolutely. Well, Paul, this has been an absolutely fascinating chat. Last thoughts from you on all of this. If Uruk is, if it's therefore a bit of a misnomer to say

it's the first city, and especially as you mentioned these North Mesopotamian places, I tell Braque, also fascinating site. What do you think is therefore the real significance of Uruk today when looking at ancient Mesopotamian history, as mentioned at the start, thousands of years, more than a thousand years before the rise of Rome or Athens or any of those civilizations in the central Mediterranean? Well, if it can no longer claim to be the first city, and that's obviously dependent on how you define city, it is still nonetheless a major moment in time in the late fourth millennium, when tens of thousands of people are coming together for really the first time on that sort of scale. So this is a major transformation in global history. And of course, what comes out of that

is writing. What could be more fundamental than that? Absolutely. Very, very true indeed. Well, Paul, this has been great. You have written a book all about Uruk as part of it, but also the wider civilization, which is largely attached to it. Your book, which is called? The Sumerians. There we go. I didn't want to say Sumerians because I wanted to use that in your book plug there. And it just goes to me to say say therefore, Paul, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today. My absolute pleasure. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Paul Collins back on the Ancients podcast following the viral

Sumerians episode with him a few months ago to talk all about Uruk and its association with these other early cities in ancient Mesopotamia I hope you enjoyed the episode it was wonderful to interview Paul again ancient Mesopotamia we're going to be going back there again and again now folks because it is so extraordinary and we sometimes it does feel it is overlooked, but the stories that we have from this area of the ancient world deserve to come to the fore. So just you wait, we're going to be going back and back again to ancient Mesopotamia in due course on the ancients. Now, last thing from me, you know what I'm going to say, but if you want to help us out, if you love the ancients podcast,

if you support what we're doing, well, you can help us in our infinite mission to share these incredible stories from our distant past with you, with as many people as possible, and to give these academics, people such as Paul, much cleverer than myself, to give them the spotlight that they deserve for the years and years of research that they've dedicated, they've put in to certain areas of ancient history. If you want to help us, well, you know what you can do. You can simply go on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts from, and leave us a lovely rating. It really helps us spread the word of the ancients even further. But that's enough from me. I will see you in the next episode.