Ur

Ur¹, identified with Ur Kasdim (Ur of the Chaldees), and whose remains are called Tell el-Mukayyar, was the capital of the Ur Lugalate during the Third Dynasty of Ur. It was a port, either on the former shore of the Persian Gulf or at the edge of sea-side marshes that extended the gulf. It was from 2030 to 1980 B.C.E. the largest city in the world with an estimated 65 thousand residents in 2000 BCE². It was sacked in 1940 BCE³ by the Elamites and diminished thereafter. In 1800 BCE it was part of the Larsa Lugalate and later was absorbed by Babilu (Babylon). In the 17th century BCE, after the city was nearly destroyed by the Babylonians, Iluma-Ilu of Isin added it to his "Second Babylonian Dynasty" (Dynasty of the Sea Land)"⁴. Its status diminished again under Kassite rule. After the Kassites Ur became again part of Babilu. Ur briefly revived in the sixth century BCE as part of the early Persian Malkate⁵ and gradually fell to ruins during the Syrian Greek period.⁶

External References

Great Ziggurat of Ur, with its reconstructed facade.

Footnotes

1. In Akkadian and Sumerian, the city name was written in Cuneiform. This cannot be rendered in most browsers although unicode for it exists. The written form transliterates as Urim^ki but it was presumably pronounced Ur.
2. "List of cities that can have been the largest", and Tables of the World's Largest Cities, "2000 B.C." table, both in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987).
3. An alternate chronology would put the date at 2004 BCE.
4. Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books, 1992.
5. Ibid., pg. 410 and footnote 8, which mentions in situ documents from the time of "Cyrus and Cambyses" (Kurash and Kambuziya).
6. Ibid., pg. 416.