Insights into early urban life

Adelheid Otto’s research focuses on the development of urban civilization in ancient Mesopotamia. She is now excavating on the site of Ur, one of the world’s first cities. The finds yield fascinating insights into urban life 4000 years ago.

The houses had been flattened, the city’s elite were in captivity, and its remaining residents were starving. In about 2000 BCE, the city of Ur in Lower Mesopotamia was destroyed by invaders from the mountains to the East. The city was subsequently rebuilt, but the fate of its predecessor was not forgotten. It forms the subject of the Lamentation Over the Destruction of Ur, written several hundred years later. The poem tells us that Enlil, the supreme god in the Sumerian pantheon, had “blown up an evil storm” to punish the citizens of Ur for their transgressions.

The place where Ur once stood, now in Southern Iraq, hosts one of the world’s longest-running archaeological excavations and is on UNESCO’s world heritage list. “Ur was one of the largest, most important and cosmopolitan cities in the Ancient Near East. We know from the surviving texts how many thousands of people lived in the city and what life was like there – Read more.