Uruk and Ur in the city seal impressions, 3100-2750 BC: new evidence, new approaches

Uruk and Ur were two of the most important centres in the early development of the world’s first urban settlement in Lower Mesopotamia in the later fourth and early third millennia BC. And yet our knowledge of their socio-political structures and inter-city interactions during these earliest centuries of urban development is highly restricted. For Uruk, the earliest levels underlying the extensive Uruk IV and III precincts are known only from limited soundings and without extensive architectural contextualisation, while the Uruk IV-III buildings themselves were rebuilt and eventually severely truncated in a programme of planned rebuilding at ca. 3100 BC. For Ur, while recent studies have significantly augmented our understanding of the city’s early development, we are nevertheless limited to glimpses of Ur’s early urban phases through small soundings at the base of Woolley’s major trenches within the sacred precincts. Any new information and insights into the socio-political landscapes within which Uruk and Ur operated at the turn of the fourth-third millennia BC are therefore greatly to be welcomed, especially as it is likely to be a long time before modern scientific excavations at either of these key sites investigates levels of this period.