Search Results: Ur

Ur was a city in the region of Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, and its ruins lie in what is modern-day Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq. According to biblical tradition, the city is named after the man who founded the first settlement there, Ur, though...

Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE) was the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur in Sumer who initiated the so-called Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE) also known as the Sumerian Renaissance. He is best known as the king who composed the oldest extant...

Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334 - 2279 BCE) was the king of the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, the first multi-national empire in history, who united the disparate kingdoms of the region under a central authority. He is equally famous today as...

The Akkadian poet Enheduanna (l. 2285-2250 BCE) is the world's first author known by name and was the daughter of Sargon of Akkad (Sargon the Great, r. 2334-2279 BCE). Whether Enheduanna was, in fact, a blood relative of Sargon's or the title...

Mesopotamia is the ancient Greek name (meaning “the land between two rivers”, the Tigris and Euphrates) for the region corresponding to modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. It is considered the “cradle of civilization” for...

Sargon and Ur-Zababa is a Sumerian poem, date of composition unknown, relating the rise to power of Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 BCE), founder of the Akkadian Empire. The work is classified as a Mesopotamian folktale, relying on motifs such...

The Legend of Sargon of Akkad (c. 2300 BCE) is an Akkadian work from Mesopotamia understood as the autobiography of Sargon of Akkad (Sargon the Great, r. 2334-2279 BCE), founder of the Akkadian Empire. The earliest copy is dated to the 7th...

The Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100-2050 BCE) is the oldest extant law code in the world. It was written by the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE) or his son Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE) centuries before the famous Code of Hammurabi was...

Akkad was the seat of the Akkadian Empire (2334-2218 BCE), the first multi-national political entity in the world, founded by Sargon the Great (r. 2334-2279 BCE) who unified Mesopotamia under his rule and set the model for later Mesopotamian...

Daily life in ancient Mesopotamia cannot be described in the same way one would describe life in ancient Rome or Greece. Mesopotamia was never a single, unified civilization, not even under the Akkadian Empire of Sargon of Akkad (the Great...