A Brief Architectural History of Uruk and the Emergence of the First Cities

AI Generated Rendition of Ancient City of Uruk in Mesopotamia

Investigating why our ancestors began building architecture and congregating in cities can reveal fundamental insights about human nature. There is no better place to start than with the development of the first cities in ancient Mesopotamia. The city has always been where people congregate, and ideas, innovation, and progress flourish. People come to the city to reinvent and express themselves and test and share their ideas, wherein, simultaneously, culture evolves and civilization progresses. Since their conception, cities have always been nuclei of human advancement.

The city is a human-made creation, distinct from the natural environments of the wilderness and filled with spectacle, luxury, stimulation, chaos, corruption, disease, and brutality. Many of our species' most tragic and barbaric events and acts have occurred in cities or can be traced back to the effects of cities.

Should we sacrifice the positive effects of the city and retreat to the countryside, where one can soak up the peace of nature, thereby forgoing the benefits of dense human interaction? What is the ideal environment for humans? There is no standard formula. Each environment serves its purpose in the development of the human individual, depending on the stage of growth they are in within their own lives, along with the broad spectrum of needs that spans from isolation to overstimulation. It is a balancing act that only the individual can sense and adjust to maintain homeostasis within themselves.

The challenge arises when we lose touch with our inner balance and cannot discern the deleterious effects an environment can have on us.

The idea is to create environments that facilitate and foster connection with others while balancing this with environments that promote inward connection to ourselves.

When our ancient ancestors embarked on the creation of the city, they were not just shaping a physical environment, but also a new way of life. The city, this human artifact, would not only alter the landscape we inhabit, but also rewire our brains, change our living patterns, and redefine what it means to be human. The transformative power of the city on human life is a testament to its profound impact.

After millennia of inhabiting these environments, it is crucial to reflect on our past and assess how the environments we create and inhabit shape our lives. This process of historical analysis is of significant importance, as it allows us to determine what has worked and what has not, both positively and negatively.  

One of the greatest mysteries of our species is why humans first began to create cities. What did these cities look like, and what do we know about the people who inhabited them?

Epic of Gilgamesh

One of humankind's earliest surviving works of literature is the Epic of Gilgamesh. It tells the story of a man who views building a great city (Uruk) as a means to contribute to his people and find meaning and legacy in his own life. In the Story, Enkidu struggles with his human nature to live as a wild, free man, the lure of the city's artificialities, and all the extravagances that come with it, such as sex, food, and a luxurious lifestyle. The tale describes the fabled city of Uruk. Enkidu represents all humankind facing the decision to live in the city or nature. The Epic of Gilgamesh shows how our ancestors were grappling with the transition from nature to city when the concept of the city was still in its infancy. This was a change for human beings that would alter what it meant to be human.

What is a City and Civilization?

The ancient Sumerian and Mesopotamian cultures, with their architectural monuments and early urban settlements, began to shape the concept of 'civilization.' The built environment's scale, quality, and longevity are key components that differentiate a large village from a city. As they saw it, their cities, ingenuity, cultural superiority, and the will of their gods differentiated them from those outside their cities' walls.

The definition of civilization and the qualities society must display and embody to qualify as a civilization are hotly debated. However, establishing monumental architecture and the surrounding urban fabric is a relatively agreed-upon and implicit quality in defining a city. To most, the presence of intentional, large-scale architecture and infrastructure is a key indicator that a village has evolved into a city. Let's go back to when the first communities were transitioning into cities.

End of the Last Ice Age

Roughly 11,700 years ago, the last Ice Age drew close. The environment and climate were changing, impacting how humans lived. It profoundly impacted our mobility, food sources, dwellings, and social structures. One of the areas that witnessed and fostered this change was the region now known as the Fertile Crescent. If drawn on a map, this area forms a semicircle spanning the Nile River valley in the west to the Persian Gulf in the east. The tribes and societies of this time were primarily hunter-gatherers, as agriculture and farming had not yet been invented.

At that time, the fertile crescent was unique because it contained diverse ecological, topographical, and climatic conditions, thus offering a biodiverse environment for hunter-gatherers. Many areas in this region contained various naturally occurring food sources.

The landscape of the Fertile Crescent after the last ice age looked significantly different compared to what it does today. It would have been a much wetter environment, primarily due to the higher sea levels. We know that sea levels rose around this time, and the Persian Gulf expanded into the area, nearly 200 kilometers north of its current location.

The First Traces of Large-Scale Community Construction Projects

One of the earliest settlements in the Fertile Crescent is Göbekli Tepe. It is in northern Mesopotamia, present-day Turkey, and was constructed roughly 12,000 years ago. It is composed of "T"-shaped megalithic stone pillars, each weighing approximately twenty tons, arranged in a circle. Göbekli Tepe is believed to be a sacred place of worship, ritual, and pilgrimage.

Göbekli Tepe challenged the conventional theory that constructing monuments of this scale was only possible in agrarian communities. Before its discovery, historians believed that large-scale megalithic monuments could only be created by stationary societies that practiced agriculture and had a grain surplus to feed the workforce. It has been proven that hunter-gatherers were capable of monument construction with the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, and thus, megalithic architecture preceded the agricultural revolution.

This chronology reveals the high degree of importance that sacred locations, spirituality, and architecture played in our ancestor's societies. The people who constructed Gobkli Tepe gave the spiritual dimension of their world just as much energy and resources as the accumulation of stable food sources.

Other proto-settlements and villages developed all around Mesopotamia after the Ice Age. However, none emerged past a large village until about 5,000 years later in southern Mesopotamia.

Agriculture Emerges

Around 6000 BC, farming communities began to emerge, and the people of Mesopotamia transitioned from surviving off wild foods to domesticated agriculture and a more sedentary lifestyle. The Sumerians are believed to have come from the northeast and arrived in Mesopotamia around 5000 BCE.

The earliest cities began to emerge on the southern Mesopotamian plain. These groups of cities, known as Sumer, appeared between 4500 and 4000 BC. We define this region based on the language spoken by the people, which was Sumerian.

Origin Stories of the Sumerians and the Ancient Environmental Conditions

The Sumerians believed their cities emerged from a primordial, watery swampland, where people engaged with the water's edge and harvested its bounties. This amphibious mythology was difficult for early historians and archaeologists to believe because, today, the landscape looks dramatically different, with its hot desert landscape characteristic of modern-day Iraq. Contemporary science has made significant advancements in studying ancient climates. These studies reveal that these areas were swampy marshlands dating back to around the fifth millennium, thus affirming the original mythologies and stories of the ancient culture.

Sumerian Belief Systems

Before discussing the urban makeup and architecture of these cities, it is essential to understand the belief systems of the Sumerian people, as they were the primary driving force behind their desire to build. In "The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character," Noah Kramer states that there is little doubt they considered themselves "chosen people." Their cultural myths suggest that the gods blessed them uniquely and that they were specially selected to be intimately related to the gods.

Their belief systems established a framework for encouraging personal initiative and social improvement, and their success was attributed to the will of the gods. Man was still subservient to the gods, and all of humanity's achievements were attributed to their divine powers. This belief structure may have prompted them to pursue large-scale building projects. They had a unique psychological drive and ambition.

The Sumerians' unique relationship with their gods was one of the primary driving forces behind their desire to create temples, buildings, and, ultimately, cities. They felt obligated to their gods and saw themselves as their servants. This strong connection with their gods is revealed in one of their creation myths on a clay tablet in Nippur, which tells the story of human-like gods that ruled the earth. They then created humans to assist them in performing labor on the planet. This myth reveals their strong desire to please the gods and avoid disappointing them.

Eridu

Eridu was the earliest known Sumerian settlement, believed to have emerged around 5,000 BC. Its location near the Euphrates, close to a marsh and desert, and with a plentiful supply of alluvial soil offered favorable conditions for human development. It is a transitional zone between land and sea. It had access to three unique environments: the alluvium, the desert, and the marshes. The range of environments provided different means of subsistence, including farming, nomadic pastoralism, and fishing. Therefore, various food types were available to support the community.

The first building in Eridu was a modest mudbrick shrine situated on the river's edge. It was deemed sacred and endowed with spiritual significance. The shrine was most likely built to worship the god of fresh water.

Beyond being a mystical and spiritual place, the marshes would have been a vibrant ecosystem with rich food sources, fresh water, and abundant life. The settlement was to evolve and develop around this small shrine into one of the first major Sumerian settlements in history. It became the point of inspiration for many of the early Sumerian settlements in the area; however, according to scholars on the subject, it never developed into a fully formed city.

Most hypotheses around its failure to develop into a city are based on environmental conditions. Exhaustion of the soil due to extensive farming and irrigation could have been one of the primary reasons, along with the encroachment of the desert dunes into the area. Whatever the primary purpose, it was most likely a confluence of events that led to its eventual deterioration.

AI Generated Rendition of Ancient City of Uruk in Mesopotamia

Uruk

Eridu inspired the construction of many other small shrines and temples on island mounds in swamps and marshes throughout the region. One of the locations inspired by Eridu would eventually become the city of Uruk, which has a strong claim to being one of the first cities in history. The city would grow to be about three square miles, nearly half the size of Imperial Rome at its height. Uruk is where urbanism began, and all of the world's great cities today can find their ancestral roots in the city of Uruk.

In its earliest days, Uruk consisted of two temples, Eanna and Kullaba, which served as the sanctuaries of Anu, the Sumerian sky god, and Inanna, the goddess of love and fertility. These two temples were established and continually added to, with their architecture evolving into more extensive and sophisticated incarnations. The area between the two temples merged, and the urban fabric grew together, gradually evolving into the world's first city. Why could Uruk cross the threshold from a small village to become the first city in the world when so many others could not make this leap?

Some believe that Uruk developed by establishing colonies they controlled, mined their resources, and traded with. Archaeological evidence supports the theory that a robust network of trade and interaction existed between southern Mesopotamia and its surrounding rural areas. It is also clear that Uruk attracted many people from the rural regions in the adjacent area.

The people of Uruk began digging irrigation canals to channel, control, and conserve water. Studies show climatic changes that would have caused these areas to start drying up and receding in water in the city's early development stages. As arable land became increasingly limited, the Sumerians constructed irrigation channels to control and redirect water, thereby continuing their farming practices.

Additionally, irrigation brought water to previously unproductive areas of land, allowing the soil of the previously farmed land to recuperate and prevent soil exhaustion.

The irrigation channels carried silt, rich in minerals and ideal for farming. The control and success of these canals produced a surplus of crops for specific groups of people. This would have created an elite and a power dynamic amongst the people. Those in control of the water were in control of the food supply and had power over society. This elite class could exchange and trade for raw materials and resources with other groups.

The third and most logical theory is based on the idea of climate change. As mentioned, water levels began to recede during Uruk's development, making water and other farming resources scarce. In order to continue farming the lands, the people needed to set up physical and societal systems to continue the farming practices. Social hierarchy was established to mobilize a workforce that could dig the irrigation trenches. The social stratification set up a power hierarchy within the community that most likely led to the creation of an impoverished working class. The ruling class used the working class to create many monuments, buildings, and infrastructure in the community. They were the force behind the progress.

These were most likely the primary factors that enabled Uruk to grow and develop to the scale it did. These societal, environmental, and economic conditions established a fertile setting for creating astonishing architecture and urban design works.

Build and Rebuild in Uruk

Between 3800 and 3200 BCE, a building boom occurred in Uruk. With a highly sophisticated agriculture system and stable food sources, the people of Uruk began constructing monumental structures from mud, brick, and stone. Archeology suggests several iterations of buildings were erected, one on top of the other after demolishing the previous one. Each successive building had unique architectural characteristics and aesthetics.

The continual building, demolishing, and rebuilding cycle stems from their insatiable desire to serve their gods. Their society and economy had developed to a point where they could support a large workforce dedicated to building and free from the burden of acquiring their food.

When the community was ready to build more, the existing structure would be filled with rubble and turned into a building pad or terrace for the forthcoming construction. The builders of Uruk innovated and developed new construction and design techniques, some of which we still use today, including rammed earth walls, waterproofing with bitumen, and a primitive form of cast concrete. As mentioned, the early forms of the temples in Uruk show clear influence from the temple in Eridu.

Many art and architectural historians have described the architecture and urban planning developed in Uruk as a high art form. Uruk exhibited a far more developed, complex, and comprehensive vision of the built environment relative to the Mesopotamian settlements of the past. The city's layout was carefully planned and organized with intentionally zoned and designated areas. The architecture exhibited painted walls and mosaic decorations. The builders and planners used architectural design to establish and differentiate urban spaces.

A Walk Through Uruk

Upon approaching the Uruk, a foreign observer would undoubtedly see the city as a work of the gods. At the time, it was the most densely populated place on the planet, with a population of between 50,000 and 80,000.

As previously described, the city sat atop a mound composed of generations of built structures. The urban fabric and temples rose high above the horizontal plane of the Mesopotamian landscape. Upon approaching the city, travelers would have seen vast fields of cultivated land irrigated by channels dug into the earth. The fields would have contained various crops, including wheat, dates, barley, and others. Sheep and other domesticated animals would roam the fields.

Inside the massive walls that surrounded Uruk, which reached nearly 40 to 50 feet (12 to 15 meters) in height, one would come upon neatly organized gardens, where bustling groups of people harvested the produce and sold it in tiny outfits in an outdoor market format. The people would have embodied radically new ways of living, dressing, eating, and thinking compared to what people were accustomed to seeing outside the walls.

The most breathtaking architectural features would be the two prominent temples dedicated to their gods, Eanna and Anu. The temples sat high on their platforms, elevating them above the surrounding city. The temple of Anu would have been particularly noticeable as it was built with limestone and faced with bright white gypsum plaster that would have been almost blinding in the intense Mesopotamian sun. Someone approaching a city for the first time would have interpreted it as the work of the gods, a beacon of power, and a new way of life.

Densely packed windowless buildings, many houses, were organized on what seemed to be a twisting labyrinth of streets and alleys. However, there was a purpose to this layout. It was planned to create an urban microclimate that maximizes shade, harnesses breezes, and utilizes building forms' density and thermal mass to keep the interior cool. Uruk grew to cover about 550 hectares.

Construction Materials and Methods

In the natural environments where these settlements and cities arose, the Sumerians had limited raw materials for building. However, they made the best of what was available to them and managed to master these construction methods.

Many of the buildings in ancient Mesopotamian cities were built from unbaked mud brick. This material was widely available and did not require many resources to produce. The mud was typically mixed with chopped straw and shaped with wooden forms. The shaped bricks were then left in the hot sun to dry.

The challenge with mudbrick is its longevity. Unless it is well maintained with exterior plaster covering and a functional roof to shed excess water, mudbrick can quickly deteriorate and crumble through repeated water saturation and drying cycles. After many cycles, what was once an architectural masterpiece will dissolve into a heap of rubble and form a "tell."

The shape and makeup of bricks can help identify the approximate date that the buildings were constructed. For example, the Plano-Convex Brick is a standard brick shape in the Early Dynastic period. This is a rectangular brick with a hump, probably formed by hand, on one of the long faces. This brick was often laid in a herringbone pattern in construction.

Some Mesopotamian builders used baked or fired bricks instead of sun-dried bricks to preserve buildings for longer. The ziggurat at Ur was encased in a skin of these baked bricks, which is often attributed to its robust preservation over the years.

The builders used mud as the mortar; however, sometimes bitumen was used. Bitumen, a naturally occurring black petroleum substance, was used in waterproofing drains, walls, and cisterns and exterior courtyard architecture. Floors were sometimes finished with a layer of lime plaster and polished; however, they were often constructed of compacted earth.

The Temples in Uruk

The oldest temples in the Precinct of Eanna are relatively well-preserved. They are the Stone Mosaic temple also known as the Eanna Sanctuary and the Limestone temple or commonly referred to as the White Temple. They are both constructed of limestone and bitumen, which suggest that they held significant importance for the people. For the time, construction using large limestone blocks would have been innovative. Stone cones decorate the face of the Stone Mosaic temple. They are made using white, red, and black pigments.

The White Temple, dedicated to the sky god Anu, stood atop a ziggurat approximately 40 feet above the ground. Together, the temple and the ziggurat make up the Anu Precinct. The temple measures roughly 17.5 x 22.3 meters and is shaped in a typical tripartite plan arrangement reminiscent of the plan at the Temple of Eridu. The tripartite plan contained a rectangular central hall flanked by a series of individual rooms on either side. An altar is located on one of the rectangle's short sides, facing the temple's long axis. There is a hearth at the center of the interior and a stair for access to the roof. The temple is coated with white gypsum plaster that would have gleamed in the sun.

The Eanna precinct consisted of a series of monumental buildings associated with Inanna, the goddess of war and fertility. The Eanna Sanctuary (the temple in the Eanna precinct), also known as the Moasic temple, is dedicated to Inanna. It is raised approximately 16 meters above the ground and measures approximately 60 meters by 60 meters at its base.

There was a large court outside that one would have to enter before entering the temple. The temple had processional entrance stages that were controlled by the architecture. This process of entering the large court as a transitional zone would become a feature in many religious architecture types. Even today, many typical houses and commercial buildings bring people through a procession of entry courts before entering the building.

Several buildings have been uncovered in the vicinity of the temples. Their uses and architecture suggest they were part of the more significant temple precinct rather than secular buildings. However, this is not fully known.

The Precinct's architecture exhibits a profound theme of a procession through sacred spaces. When one climbs the staircase to the top of the ziggurat, they elevate themselves above the ordinary plane of the city, entering a higher, more sacred space. We can see remnants of this architecture in future architecture, most notably the Acropolis in Athens.

What can their architecture tell us about their society?

The architecture design in Uruk gives insight into how people interacted with the buildings and how they may have interacted as a community. In general, the architecture is open and accessible to the public. Although ancient Sumerian societies had social stratification and hierarchies, their architecture may suggest this was not as rigid as once perceived. The large, open portico and courtyard layout, with easy access to ceremonial buildings, could indicate that Uruk exhibited more open and egalitarian tendencies, including gender equality.

The monumental architecture in Uruk is hypothesized to have served various purposes. Early archaeologists classified many of these buildings as temples or palaces; however, further archeological investigation has revealed remains that suggest a range of other activities also took place in these spaces, another hint of a more fluid society than we once envisioned.

Practicality and Innovation of the Sumerians

The Sumerians' worldview was the foundation of their civilization. On the one hand, they maintained a humble confidence in their fate, accepting that humans were fashioned out of clay and were here to serve the gods. The concept of free will was not well known to them, as they performed actions based on their belief in the will of the gods.

However, they held a dichotomy of views: they were also practical businessmen, builders, and farmers firmly rooted in the realities of their environment and the physical world. In parallel with building their cities, they also developed a range of innovations outside of architecture and construction that helped grow and supplement the development of their civilization and city. These innovations were undoubtedly contributing factors that allowed them to grow their city and thus produce the scale and sophistication of architecture they did.

One of their most notable innovations was a system of writing and record-keeping called cuneiform. Cuneiform was initially developed to record business and trade transactions; however, it would later evolve into a comprehensive writing system. Triangular styluses were pressed into clay tablets to symbolize the sale of supplies, business deals, and transactions.

They can also be credited to developing early forms of writing, the wheel, the plow, the 12-month calendar, the first laws, irrigation, sailboats, paved streets, asphalt, a system that developed into the postal service, glass, magnifying glass, flushing toilets, and sewer systems, a system of weights and measures, brewed beer, and the discipline of urban planning. They also valued material prosperity, as displayed in their property division and ownership traditions.

Roofs were usually constructed from palm tree trunks laid flat and spanning the mudbrick walls. They were then covered with layers of straw and mud to form a relatively sealed system that would shed water.

Conclusion

Uruk is the prototype of all cities and civilization itself. Its urban and architectural forms are the seeds that germinated into our contemporary cities. In revisiting these first cities, we must ask ourselves: What were the ideas, beliefs, and worldviews that shaped them? Are those ideas still relevant and present in our society today? Should the city begin to take a new shape derived from unconceived ideas that have not yet been explored? Is the city the optimal human environment or an antiquated artifact from our ancient ancestors?

When we inhabit contemporary cities, we should be observant and aware of the effects they have on us, both positive and negative. Many cities are designed using formulaic zoning codes that are far removed from addressing many fundamental needs of our species.  They cater to and prioritize the automobile, rentable area, and other abstract or mechanized creations. They often overlook how humans will interact with and influence their environment. A healthy environment promotes community, socialization, and a balanced lifestyle. Only through a profound re-examination of the history of cities can we come to reflect and better understand this artifact we call the city and how we can shape cities moving forward.

Sources:

Elizabeth, Harriet, and Cambridge University Press. Sumer and the Sumerians. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Freeman, Charles. Egypt, Greece, and Rome : Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean. 3rd ed., Oxford ; New York, Oxford University Press, 2014.

Freeman, Henry. The Sumerians : History for Beginning to End. Hourly History Limited, 2016.

Leick, Gwendolyn. Mesopotamia. Penguin UK, 29 Aug. 2002.

Wilson, Ben. METROPOLIS : A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention. S.L., Anchor, 2021.

 Zainab Bahrani. Mesopotamia : Ancient Art and Architecture. London, Thames & Hudson, 2017.

AI Generated Rendition of Ancient City of Uruk in Mesopotamia