Ur was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Dhi Qar Governorate, southern Iraq. Although Ur was once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, the coastline has shifted and the city is now well inland, on the south bank of the Euphrates, 16 km (10 mi) from Nasiriyah in modern-day Iraq. The city dates from the Ubaid period c. 3800 BC, and is recorded in written history as a city-state from the 26th century BC, its first recorded king being King Tuttues.
Larsa, also referred to as Larancha/Laranchon by Berossos and connected with the biblical Ellasar, was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu with his temple E-babbar. It lies some 25 km (16 mi) southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.
Sippar was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its tell is located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah near Yusufiyah in Iraq's Baghdad Governorate, some 69 km (43 mi) north of Babylon and 30 km (19 mi) southwest of Baghdad. The city's ancient name, Sippar, could also refer to its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum ; a more specific designation for the city here referred to as Sippar was Sippar-Yahrurum.
Kish is an important archaeological site in Babil Governorate (Iraq), located 80 km (50 mi) south of Baghdad and 12 km (7.5 mi) east of the ancient city of Babylon. The Ubaid period site of Ras al-Amiyah is 8 km (5.0 mi) away. It was occupied from the Ubaid period to the Hellenistic period. In Early Dynastic times the city's patron deity was Ishtar with her consort Ea. Her temple, at Tell Ingharra, was (E)-hursag-kalama. By Old Babylonian times the patron deities had become Zababa, along with his consort, the goddess Bau and Istar. His temple Emeteursag was at Uhaimir.
Dur-Kurigalzu was a city in southern Mesopotamia, near the confluence of the Tigris and Diyala rivers, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of the center of Baghdad. It was founded by a Kassite king of Babylon, Kurigalzu I and was abandoned after the fall of the Kassite dynasty. The city was of such importance that it appeared on toponym lists in the funerary temple of the Egyptian pharaoh, Amenophis III at Kom el-Hettan". The prefix Dur is an Akkadian term meaning "fortress of", while the Kassite royal name Kurigalzu is believed to have meant "shepherd of the Kassites". The tradition of naming new towns Dur dates back to the Old Babylonian period with an example being Dūr-Ammī-ditāna. The city contained a ziggurat and temples dedicated to Mesopotamian gods, as well as a royal palace which covered 420,000 square meters.
Eshnunna was an ancient Sumerian city and city-state in central Mesopotamia 12.6 miles northwest of Tell Agrab and 15 miles northwest of Tell Ishchali. Although situated in the Diyala Valley northwest of Sumer proper, the city nonetheless belonged securely within the Sumerian cultural milieu. It is sometimes, in archaeological papers, called Ashnunnak or Tuplias.
The Laws of Eshnunna are inscribed on two cuneiform tablets discovered in Tell Abū Harmal, Baghdad, Iraq. The Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities headed by Taha Baqir unearthed two parallel sets of tablets in 1945 and 1947. The two tablets are separate copies of an older source and date back to ca. 1930 BC. An additional fragment was later found at Me-Turan. The differences between the Code of Hammurabi and the Laws of Eshnunna significantly contributed to illuminating the development of ancient and cuneiform law.
Tell Ishchali is an archaeological site in Diyala Province (Iraq) a few hundred meters from the Diyala River and 3 miles south by southeast from the ancient city of Khafajah. It is thought to be ancient Nerebtum or Kiti and was part of the city-state of Eshnunna. It is known to have been occupied during the Isin-Larsa period and Old Babylonian period with excavations ending before earlier levels were reached.
Tell Uqair is a tell or settlement mound northeast of Babylon and about 50 miles (80 km) south of Baghdad in modern Babil Governorate, Iraq.
Sippar-Amnanum, modern Tell ed-Der in Baghdad Governorate, Iraq, was an ancient Near Eastern city about 70 kilometers north of Babylon, 6 kilometers northeast of Sippar and about 26 kilometers southwest of modern Baghdad. Occupation dates back to the days of the Akkadian Empire and later the Ur III period but most of the development was during the Old Babylonian period. Early archaeologists referred to the site as "Der" or Dair". In the late 1800s archaeologists proposed that this was the location of the city of Akkad, later disproved.
Me-Turan is an archaeological site in Diyala Governorate Iraq comprising the modern Tell Haddad and the two mounds of Tell al-Sib. In Neo-Assyrian times it was known as Me-Turnat. It was excavated as part of the Hamrin Dam salvage project.
Taha Baqir was an Iraqi Assyriologist, author, cuneiformist, linguist, historian, and former curator of the National Museum of Iraq.
Diniktum, inscribed Di-ni-ik-tumKI, was a still unlocated middle bronze-age town often thought to be located somewhere in the Diyala Governorate of Iraq.
Akkad was the capital of the Akkadian Empire, which was the dominant political force in Mesopotamia during a period of about 150 years in the last third of the 3rd millennium BC.
Dadusha (reigned c. 1800–1779 BC) was one of the kings of the central Mesopotamian city Eshnunna, located in the Diyala Valley. He was the son of the Eshnunna king Ipiq-Adad II. Although previously kings of Eshnunna had referred to themselves as ensi (governor) of the city god Tishpak, in the early 19th century rulers of Eshnunna began referring to themselves as King. Dadusha's father Ipiq-Adad II and his brother Naram-Suen, who ruled Eshnunna before him, both used the title king and Dadusha followed suit.
Bakr Awa is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in Sulaymaniyah Province, Iraq. It is located near Halabja in the Shahrizor Plain in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains not far from the headwaters of the Diyala River. The site is 40 meters high and consists of a central settlement mound surrounded by a lower city measuring 800 by 600 metres. Other sites in the area include Tell Kunara, Tell Bazmusian, and Tell Shemshara.
Tell Khaiber is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in southern Mesopotamia. It is located thirteen kilometers west of the modern city of Nasiriyah, about 19 kilometers northwest of the ancient city of Ur in Dhiq Qar Province and 25 kilometers south of the ancient city of Larsa. In 2012, the site was visited by members of the Ur Region Archaeology Project (URAP), a cooperation between the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the University of Manchester and the Iraqi State Board for Antiquities and Heritage. They found that the site had escaped looting, and applied for an excavation permit.
IM 67118, also known as Db2-146, is an Old Babylonian clay tablet in the collection of the Iraq Museum that contains the solution to a problem in plane geometry concerning a rectangle with given area and diagonal. In the last part of the text, the solution is proved correct using the Pythagorean theorem. The steps of the solution are believed to represent cut-and-paste geometry operations involving a diagram from which, it has been suggested, ancient Mesopotamians might, at an earlier time, have derived the Pythagorean theorem.
Tell al-Dhiba'i, also spelled Tell edh-Dhiba'i, is an archaeological site in Baghdad Governorate (Iraq). It lies within the borders of modern Baghdad near Tell Muhammad and 3 kilometers northeast of Shaduppum, more specifically in the neighborhood of New Baghdad. Uzarzalulu has been proposed as the original name of the city. An alternative proposal is Šadlaš. The city was occupied mainly during the Isin-Larsa period and Old Babylonian period.
Tell Muhammad, is an ancient Near East archaeological site currently in the outskirts of Baghdad, along the Tigris river in the Diyala region. It is a very short distance from the site of Tell Harmal to the north and not far from the site of Tell al-Dhiba'i to the northeast. The ancient name of the site is unknown though Diniktum has been suggested. The lost city of Akkad has also been proposed. Based on a year name found on one of the cuneiform tablets the name Banaia has also been proposed.
