Charles River Editors The Greatest Cities of Ancient Mesopotamia: The History of Babylon Nineveh Ur Uruk Persepolis Hattusa and Assur

*Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts of the cities *Includes online resources and bibliographies for further reading Long before Alexandria was a city and even before Memphis and Babylon had attained greatness, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur stood foremost among ancient Near Eastern cities. Today, the greatness and cultural influence of Ur has been largely forgotten by most people, partially because its monuments have not stood the test of time the way other ancient culture's monuments have. For instance, the monuments of Egypt were made of stone while those of Ur and most other Mesopotamian cities were made of mud brick and as will be discussed in this report, mud-brick may be an easier material to work with than stone but it also decays much quicker. The same is true to a certain extent for the written documents that were produced at Ur. No site better represents the importance of the Sumerians than the city of Uruk. Between the fourth and the third millennium BCE,