![[Uruk_expansion.svg.png]] Uruk, located on a branch of the Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, may have been the world's first city. By about 7,000 years ago, agricultural villages began cooperating to build levees and irrigation canals, to regularize the river's unpredictable seasonal floods and expand farmlands. Historians tie the city's rise to the growth of centralized institutions such as the [Temple of the fertility goddess Inanna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eanna), which served as an administrative hub as well as a religious center. The city, which grew around the temple district after 6,000 years ago, ultimately (by 5,500 years ago) covered over 600 acres, with a population of up to 50,000.  *Devotional scene to [Inanna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna "Inanna"), c. 3200–3000 BC, Uruk. One of the earliest surviving works of narrative relief sculpture.* In order to organize the building and maintenance of the irrigation system, and to keep records of the extensive grain business, the people running the Temples developed cuneiform writing on clay tablets by about 5,200 years ago. A class of literate scribes became indispensable to the priests and ruling elites whose social power was based on their ability to control access to the stored staple foods and command the military forces that defended it from theft by Uruk's residents or by foreign invaders. In addition to protecting its stored grain from theft, Uruk enhanced its security and wealth by trading with its neighbors. By about 5,800 years ago, Uruk had established outposts such as [Habuba Kabira](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habuba_Kabira) (Syria) to manage trade in a wide variety of products that were not available in the mud-and-reed environment of southern Mesopotamia. Uruk exported barley, dates, wool, textiles, pottery, fish, and leather goods in exchange for timber (cedars from Lebanon) copper (Anatolia) and tin (Central Asia), lapis lazuli (Afghanistan), obsidian (Anatolia), and bitumen (northern Mesopotamia). ----- Next: [[3.5 - Egypt]] Back: [[3.3 - Quantity vs. Quality]]