Ancient World
Stele of the Vultures: Lagash Victory over Umma in Sumer
Eannatum defeated Umma, restored Lagash's claim to the Gu-edena and imposed a border sworn by oaths to the gods.
Region
Middle East
Ancient World
Ebla Archives: The Royal Tablets of an Early Syrian Kingdom
The largest third-millennium archive found in Syria, revealing an unknown Semitic language and a major kingdom outside Mesopotamia.
Ancient World
Urukagina's Reforms in Lagash: The First Recorded Reforms
Urukagina's decrees curbed officials' fees and abuses and protected the weak, but Lagash fell to Lugalzagesi of Umma within about a decade.
Ancient World
Sargon of Akkad: Founder of the World's First Empire
Sargon united the city-states of Sumer and Akkad under one king, creating the Akkadian Empire that lasted about 180 years.
Ancient World
Enheduanna: Sargon's Daughter and the First Named Author
Enheduanna served as high priestess at Ur and was remembered as the author of hymns that scribes copied for centuries.
Ancient World
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin: Akkadian Triumph over the Lullubi
The stele became a defining image of Akkadian kingship; it was carried off to Susa in the 12th century BC and is now in the Louvre.
Ancient World
Collapse of the Akkadian Empire: Drought and the Gutians
The Akkadian state shrank to a small kingdom and disappeared; southern Mesopotamia fragmented until the Third Dynasty of Ur reunited it c. 2112 BC.
Ancient World
Gudea of Lagash: The Sumerian Ruler of the Famous Statues
Gudea rebuilt the Eninnu temple of Ningirsu and left the largest group of statues and the longest literary text surviving from Sumer.
Ancient World
Sumerian King List: Myth and History of Mesopotamian Kings
A literary chronicle of kingship that mixes legend with genuine dynasties and remains a key, if unreliable, source for early Mesopotamian history.
Ancient World
Code of Ur-Nammu: The Oldest Surviving Law Code in History
The oldest surviving collection of laws, issued by the Third Dynasty of Ur and later identified on tablets in Istanbul and the British Museum.
Ancient World
Ziggurat of Ur: Ur-Nammu's Great Temple Tower in Sumer
The best-preserved ziggurat of Sumer, restored in antiquity by Nabonidus, excavated by Woolley and partly reconstructed in the 20th century.
Ancient World
Epic of Gilgamesh: The World's Oldest Great Work of Literature
The epic was copied across the Near East for some 1,500 years, was forgotten, and was rediscovered in the 19th century as one of the world's oldest great works of literature.