Ancient site · City
Uruk (Eanna and the White Temple)
Also known as Warka, Erech
The great city of southern Iraq that gave its name to the Uruk period. Around 3100 BCE it may have held up to 50,000 people, probably the largest town in the world then.
In the Eanna temple district of the goddess Inanna archaeologists found some of the oldest written tablets; the White Temple, whitewashed and set on a high terrace, stood in the Anu district. Later tradition made Gilgamesh a king of Uruk.
- Dates
- c. 5000 BCE – c. 700 CE; Eanna and White Temple c. 3500–3100 BCE
- Still standing
- Yes
- UNESCO World Heritage
- Yes
- Location
- 31.32° N, 45.64° E
How we know
Uruk is where some of the earliest writing was found, and it is named in thousands of later texts.
Nearby sites
- Ur (ziggurat and Royal Cemetery) c. 3800–500 BCE; Royal Cemetery c. 2600 BCE; ziggurat 21st century BCE
- Eridu c. 5400–600 BCE
- Etemenanki, the ziggurat of Babylon origins perhaps 18th century BCE; rebuilt 7th–6th century BCE; demolished 323 BCE
- Tower of Babel (legend) Legend; no date can be given
- Babylon c. 2300 BCE – c. 1000 CE; first mentioned c. 2200 BCE
- Susa c. 4200 BCE – 1218 CE
Related
- Uruk culture archaeological culture