Eridu was a Sumerian city located at Tell Abu Shahrain, also Abu Shahrein or Tell Abu Shahrayn, an archaeological site in Lower Mesopotamia. It is located in Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, near the modern city of Basra. Eridu is traditionally considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia based on the Sumerian King List. Located 24 kilometers south-southwest of the ancient site of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew around temples, almost in sight of one another. The city gods of Eridu were Enki and his consort Damkina. Enki, later known as Ea, was considered to have founded the city. His temple was called E-Abzu, as Enki was believed to live in Abzu, an aquifer from which all life was thought to stem. According to Sumerian temple hymns, another name for the temple of Ea/Enki was called Esira (Esirra).
"... The temple is constructed with gold and lapis lazuli, Its foundation on the nether-sea (apsu) is filled in. By the river of Sippar (Euphrates) it stands. O Apsu pure place of propriety, Esira, may thy king stand within thee. ..."
Sumer is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Like nearby Elam, it is one of the cradles of civilization, along with Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Erligang culture of the Yellow River valley, Caral-Supe, and Mesoamerica. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, a surplus which enabled them to form urban settlements. The world's earliest known texts come from the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between c. 3350 – c. 2500 BC, following a period of proto-writing c. 4000 – c. 2500 BC.
Uruk, known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river. The site lies 93 kilometers northwest of ancient Ur, 108 kilometers southeast of ancient Nippur, and 24 kilometers southeast of ancient Larsa. It is 30 km (19 mi) east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.
The Kassites were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from c. 1531 BC until c. 1155 BC.
Ancient art refers to the many types of art produced by the advanced cultures of ancient societies with different forms of writing, such as those of ancient China, India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The art of pre-literate societies is normally referred to as prehistoric art and is not covered here. Although some pre-Columbian cultures developed writing during the centuries before the arrival of Europeans, on grounds of dating these are covered at pre-Columbian art and articles such as Maya art, Aztec art, and Olmec art.
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions which form their signs. Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia.
Adab was an ancient Sumerian city between Girsu and Nippur, lying about 35 kilometers southeast of the latter. It was located at the site of modern Bismaya or Bismya in the Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate of Iraq. The site was occupied at least as early as the 3rd Millenium BC, through the Early Dynastic, Akkadian Empire, and Ur III empire periods, into the Kassite period in the mid-2nd millennium BC. It is known that there were temples of Ninhursag/Digirmah, Iskur, Asgi, Inanna and Enki at Adab and that the city-god of Adab was Parag'ellilegarra (Panigingarra) "The Sovereign Appointed by Ellil".
Ur-Nanshe also Ur-Nina, was the first king of the First Dynasty of Lagash in the Sumerian Early Dynastic Period III. He is known through inscriptions to have commissioned many building projects, including canals and temples, in the state of Lagash, and defending Lagash from its rival state Umma. He was probably not from royal lineage, being the son of Gunidu who was recorded without an accompanying royal title. He was the father of Akurgal, who succeeded him, and grandfather of Eannatum. Eannatum expanded the kingdom of Lagash by defeating Umma as illustrated in the Stele of the Vultures and continued the building and renovation of Ur-Nanshe's original buildings.
Shulgi of Ur was the second king of the Third Dynasty of Ur. He reigned for 48 years, from c. 2094 – c. 2046 BC. His accomplishments include the completion of construction of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, begun by his father Ur-Nammu. On his inscriptions, he took the titles "King of Ur", "King of Sumer and Akkad", adding "King of the four corners of the universe" in the second half of his reign. He used the symbol for divinity before his name, marking his apotheosis, from at least the 21st year of his reign and was worshipped in the Ekhursag palace he built. Shulgi was the son of Ur-Nammu king of Ur and his queen consort Watartum.
Bad-tibira, "Wall of the Copper Worker(s)", or "Fortress of the Smiths", identified as modern Tell al-Madineh, between Ash Shatrah and Tell as-Senkereh and 33 kilometers northeast of ancient Girsu in southern Iraq, was an ancient Sumerian city on the Iturungal canal, which appears among antediluvian cities in the Sumerian King List. Its Akkadian name was Dûr-gurgurri. It was also called Παντιβίβλος (Pantibiblos) by Greek authors such as Berossus, transmitted by Abydenus and Apollodorus. This may reflect another version of the city's name, Patibira, "Canal of the Smiths".
A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch in width, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. According to some sources, cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary sites of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia and slightly later at Susa in south-western Iran during the Proto-Elamite period, and they follow the development of stamp seals in the Halaf culture or slightly earlier. They are linked to the invention of the latter's cuneiform writing on clay tablets. Other sources, however, date the earliest cylinder seals to a much earlier time, to the Late Neolithic period in Syria, hundreds of years before the invention of writing.
Amar-Sin, initially misread as Bur-Sin middle chronology, was the third ruler of the Ur III Dynasty. He succeeded his father Shulgi. His name translates to 'bull calf of the moon-god'. The name Amar-Sin was not recorded before his ascension and is a "throne name". His original name, and whether he was actually the son of Shugi, is unknown. It has been proposed that Amar-Sin, Shu-Sin, and Ibbi-Sin were all brothers and sons of Shulgi. Alternatively it has been suggested that Amar-Sin was a nephew of Shulgi, explaining his difficulties at the beginning and ending of his reign.
Entemena, also called Enmetena, lived circa 2400 BC, was a son of Enannatum I who re-established Lagash as a power in Sumer. He defeated Il, king of Umma, in a territorial conflict through an alliance with Lugal-kinishe-dudu of Uruk, successor to Enshakushanna, who is in the king list. The tutelary deity Shul-utula was his personal deity. His reign lasted at least 19 years.
The art of Mesopotamia has survived in the record from early hunter-gatherer societies on to the Bronze Age cultures of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires. These empires were later replaced in the Iron Age by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia brought significant cultural developments, including the oldest examples of writing.
Enlil-bāni, c. 1860–1837 BC (MC), was the 10th king of the 1st Dynasty of Isin and reigned 24 years according to the Ur-Isin kinglist. He is best known for the legendary and perhaps apocryphal manner of his ascendancy.
Sîn-kāšid was the Amorite king of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Uruk during the 18th century BC. No date lists are known nor any year names so his regnal length is uncertain, but it is likely to have been fairly long due to the voluminous building inscriptions extant for which he is best known. He was contemporary with Nur-Adad of Larsa and Enlil-bāni of Isin. His apparent lack of relationship with any of the preceding rulers of Uruk and his omission of mentioning his father in any of his inscriptions has led to the belief that he was the founder of a dynasty. He participated in a diplomatic marriage with Šallurtum, the daughter of Sūmû-la-Il, the second king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, as her name and epithets appear in the seal impressions of three clay bullae recovered from the remains of his palace.
An eduba is a scribal school for the Sumerian language. The eduba was the institution that trained and educated young scribes in ancient Mesopotamia during the late third or early second millennium BCE. Most of the information known about edubas comes from cuneiform texts dating to the Old Babylonian period.
Tell al-'Ubaid also is a low, relatively small ancient Near Eastern archaeological site about six kilometers west of the site of ancient Ur and about 6 kilometers north of ancient Eridu in southern Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Today, Tell al-'Ubaid lies 250 kilometers from the Persian Gulf, but the shoreline lay much closer to the site during the Ubaid and Early Dynastic periods. Most of the remains are from the Chalcolithic Ubaid period, for which Tell al-'Ubaid is the type site, with an Early Dynastic temple and cemetery at the highest point. It was a cult center for the goddess Ninhursag. An inscription found on a foundation tablet in 1919 and on a copper strip in 1923 read "For Nin-hursag: A'annepada, king of Ur, son of Mesannepada, king of Ur, built the temple for Ninhursag". Mesannepada and A'annepada were rulers of the First Dynasty of Ur.
Foundation figures were ritualistic works of art from the Early Dynastic period that were used in the construction of ancient Mesopotamian temples. Foundation pegs first appeared in ancient Sumer around the third millennium BCE. Stylized as anthropomorphic nails, foundation figures were symbolically used to mark the grounds of a temple. These nails/pegs were either hammered around the foundation of the temple, along with an inscribed tablet, or they were buried in clay boxes under the foundation of the temple. Typically, the pegs were created to represent either the deity that the temple was honoring, or the king that orchestrated the construction of the temple. Many of the pegs discovered stand about a foot tall and show a clear attention to detail. It is believed that foundation figures were used for solely ritualistic purposes. This is because they were not meant to be seen by the public, yet still show a high level of detail and aesthetic thought.
The Sukkalmah or Epartid dynasty, was an early dynasty of West Asia in the ancient region of Elam, to the southeast of Babylonia. It corresponds to the third Paleo-Elamite period. The Sukkalmah dynasty followed the Shimashki dynasty. The title of Sukkalmah means "Grand Regent" and was used by some Elamite rulers. Numerous cuneiform documents and inscriptions remain from this period, particularly from the area of Susa, making the Sukkalmah period one of the best documented in Elamite history.
