Cities of the Ancient Near East

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Uru was the Sumerian term for a city or city state, written with the cuneiform ideogram URU �� .

In Akkadian and Hittite orthography, URU became a determinative sign denoting a city, or combined with KUR "land" the kingdom or territory controlled by a city, e.g. ������������ LUGAL KUR URUHa-at-ti "the king of the country of (the city of) Hatti".

The largest cities in the Bronze Age Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age with some 30,000 inhabitants was the largest city of the time by far. Ur in the Middle Bronze Age is estimated to have had some 65,000 inhabitants; Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had a population of some 50–60,000, while Niniveh had some 20–30,000, reaching 100,000 only in the Iron Age (ca. 700 BC).


Contents

[edit] Mesopotamia

Further information: Mesopotamia

[edit] Lower Mesopotamia

Further information: Geography of Sumer

(ordered from north to south)

[edit] Upper Mesopotamia

(ordered from north to south)

[edit] Zagros and Elam

(ordered from north to south)

[edit] Anatolia

(ordered from north to south)