State · c. 3500–3100 BCE
Uruk, the first great city
Uruk (Warka), southern Iraq
In the Late Uruk period, Uruk grew to some 250 hectares and perhaps 25,000–50,000 people, with tens of thousands more in its surrounding territory, the largest urban area in the world at the time. Its walled Eanna temple district had monumental temples, administrators using cylinder seals and tablets, and mass-produced ration bowls, and Uruk-style outposts spread from western Iran to south-eastern Anatolia.
Why it mattered
Uruk is the earliest clear example of a city-state, with social classes, full-time specialists, temples and bureaucrats, a pattern of urban life soon repeated across Mesopotamia.
Related
- The world in 3000 BCE: The First Kings chapter
- Writing is invented previous moment · c. 3400–3200 BCE
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