Near East Kingdoms

Urukag / Urukug (City) (Sumer)

Mesopotamian States & Groups Canaanite States & Groups Islamic Empire Israelites & Israel Ancient Mesopotamia (Intro) Rome Syrian States & Groups

The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture.

It developed out of the end of the Pottery Neolithic across the Fertile Crescent, a period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices spread far and wide across the Near East and beyond. Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement, initially in the form of pastoralists but soon as farmers too.

By the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer was divided into approximately a dozen independent city states which used local canals and boundary stones to mark their borders. Many of the smaller cities emerged in two broad waves, in the mid-third millennium BC and at the start of the second millennium BC.

The city of Urukag or Urukug (not to be confused with the mighty city of Uruk) was located to the north-west of the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris, a short way to the south of Lagash and close to Nina. About sixteen kilometres to the east of Lagash was its daughter city of Girsu, the state's religious centre.

The city's goddess was Bau, wife of Nin-girsu and otherwise known in Isin as Nininsina and in Nippur as Ninibru, queen of Nippur. Bau originally seems to have been a goddess of the dog. As Nininsina she was long represented with a dog's head, with the dog as her emblem. This may have been due to the licking of sores by dogs supposedly having curative value, as a result of which she became a goddess of healing.

Eurasia Magazine reported in 2023 that archaeologists working with the Girsu Project had 'found the remains of a sanctuary [which was] dedicated to the god Ningirsu. Its ruins were found in the area of Urukug which [was] considered a sacred precinct'. The sanctuary, named Eninnu, was considered to be one of the most important temples in Mesopotamia. Its importance had long been known through records, and generations of archaeologists had been searching for it.

Principal author(s): Page created: Page last updated:

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC, Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), and from External Links: Evolution of Sumerian kingship (Ancient World Magazine), and Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project (Published between 2003-2021, part of the Babylonian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology), and the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, and The story of a Sumerian palace in Iraq (Eurasian Magazine).)

c.2500 BC

Sumerians continue to control southern Mesopotamia. The major city states are: Adab, Akkad, Bad-tibira, Borsippa, Eridu, Girsu, Isin, Kish, Lagash, Larsa, Mari, Nippur, Shuruppak, Ur, and Uruk.

This figurine of a woman was dated by archaeologists at about 2500 BC, having been uncovered in the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash

The minor cities and city states include Urukag, at a time at which the scribes of Abu Salabikh bear Semitic names. Sumer is now a multi-lingual region, with at least two major languages being spoken in the form of Sumerian and Semitic (sometimes labelled proto-Akkadian, with that later being a dominant form of non-Sumerian).

Semitic predominates in northern Sumer and in northern Mesopotamia beyond that - such as at Ashur and Nineveh - as this is the route of entry into Sumer itself for Semitic-speakers.

Its use is most notable in early Akkadians, while Sumerian still dominates in the south and Amorites are already penetrating into north-western Mesopotamia to assume gradual control of small cities such as Terqa.

Some of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became the complex Sumerian network of cities and canals (click or tap on map to view full sized)

c.1763 - 1750 BC

Hammurabi's Babylon attacks and defeats the Amorite city state of Larsa for its failure to provide any real assistance in the allied effort to beat back the growing threat of the powerful Elamites and their Eparti kings. The victory gives him control of the entire lower Mesopotamian plain, which includes Nippur, Ur, Uruk, and Isin - and doubtless also Girsu, Urukag, and Zabalam.

The Elamites become vassals of Babylonia, as does Ekallatum, while Dilmun remains an important trading centre. Girsu fades from the historical record though, relatively soon to be fully abandoned. It is likely that Urukag follows suit.