Editing Ur (section)

=== Early Bronze Age ===
There are various main sources informing scholars about the importance of Ur during the Early Bronze Age.

====Early Dynastic period II====
[[Proto-cuneiform]] tablets from the Early Dynastic period, c. 2900 BC, have been recovered.<ref>Lecompte, Camille. "Observations on Diplomatics, Tablet Layout and Cultural Evolution of the Early Third Millennium: The Archaic Texts from Ur". Materiality of Writing in Early Mesopotamia, edited by Thomas E. Balke and Christina Tsouparopoulou, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 133-164, 2016</ref><ref>Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "An Archaic Recording System and the Origin of Writing." Syro Mesopotamian Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–32, 1977</ref>

====Early Dynastic period III====
{{main|First Dynasty of Ur}}

The [[First Dynasty of Ur]] seems to have had great wealth and power, as shown by the lavish remains of the [[Royal Cemetery at Ur]]. The [[Sumerian King List]] provides a tentative political history of ancient [[Sumer]] and mentions, among others, several rulers of Ur. [[Mesannepada]] is the first king mentioned in the Sumerian King List, and appears to have lived in the 26th century BC. That Ur was an important urban centre already then seems to be indicated by a type of [[cylinder seal]] called the City Seals. These seals contain a set of [[Proto-Cuneiform]] signs which appear to be writings or symbols of the name of city-states in ancient Mesopotamia. Many of these seals have been found in Ur, and the name of Ur is prominent on them.<ref>Matthews, R.J. (1993). ''Cities, Seals and Writing: Archaic Seal Impressions from Jemdet Nasr and Ur'', Berlin.</ref>

<gallery>
File:Map of Ur III.svg|Empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur. West is at top, north at right.
File:Meskalamdug helmet British Museum electrotype copy original is in the Iraq Museum, Bagdad.jpg|Gold helmet of King of Ur I [[Meskalamdug]], c. 2600–2500 BC
File:Mesopotamian female deity seating on a chair, Old-Babylonian fired clay plaque from Ur, Iraq.jpg|Mesopotamian female deity seated on a chair, Old-Babylonian fired clay plaque from Ur
File:Umma2350.svg|Sumer and Elam {{Circa|2350 BC}}. Ur was located close to the coastline near the mouth of the [[Euphrates]].
</gallery>

====Akkadian period====
Ur came under the control of the [[Semitic languages|Semitic]]-speaking [[Akkadian Empire]] (c. 2334-2154 BC) founded by [[Sargon of Akkad|Sargon the Great]] between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC. This was a period when the [[ancient Semitic-speaking peoples|Semitic-speaking]] Akkadians, who had entered Mesopotamia in approximately 3000 BC, gained ascendancy over the [[Sumer]]ians, and indeed much of the ancient [[Near East]].

==== Ur III period====
{{Main|Third Dynasty of Ur}}
[[File:World in 2000 BC.svg|thumb|270px|Map of the world around 2000 BC showing the Third Dynasty of Ur]]
After a short period of chaos following the fall of the Akkadian Empire the third Ur dynasty was established when the king [[Ur-Nammu]] came to power, ruling between c. 2047&nbsp;BC and 2030&nbsp;BC. During his rule, temples, including the [[Ziggurat of Ur]], were built, and agriculture was improved through [[irrigation]]. His code of laws, the ''[[Code of Ur-Nammu]]'' (a fragment was identified in [[Istanbul]] in 1952) is one of the oldest such documents known, preceding the [[Code of Hammurabi]] by 300&nbsp;years. He and his successor [[Shulgi]] were both deified during their reigns, and after his death he continued as a hero-figure: one of the surviving works of Sumerian literature describes the death of Ur-Nammu and his journey to the underworld.<ref>[[Amélie Kuhrt]] (1995). ''The Ancient Near East: C.3000-330&nbsp;B.C.'' Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-16762-0}}.</ref>

Ur-Nammu was succeeded by [[Shulgi]], the greatest king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, who solidified the hegemony of Ur and reformed the empire into a highly centralized bureaucratic state. Shulgi ruled for a long time (at least 42&nbsp;years) and deified himself halfway through his rule.<ref name=DTPotts132>{{cite book|last1=Potts|first1=D. T.|author-link=Daniel T. Potts|title=The Archaeology of Elam|date=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, United Kingdom|isbn=0-521-56496-4|page=132|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mc4cfzkRVj4C&pg=PA132|access-date=16 May 2015}}</ref>

[[File:Ziggurat of UrInbound1427286134917083377.jpg|thumb|[[Ziggurat of Ur]]]]
The Ur empire continued through the reigns of three more kings with [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] names, [[Amar-Sin]], [[Shu-Sin]], and [[Ibbi-Sin]]. It fell around 1940&nbsp;BC to the [[Elam]]ites in the 24th [[regnal year]] of Ibbi-Sin, an event commemorated by the [[Lament for Ur]].<ref>Ur III Period (2112–2004&nbsp;BC) by Douglas Frayne, University of Toronto Press, 1997, {{ISBN|0-8020-4198-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=http://cdli.ucla.edu/staff/dahl/dissertation.pdf |title=The ruling family of Ur III Umma. A Prosopographical Analysis of an Elite Family in Southern Iraq 4000 Years ago |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060512183750/http://cdli.ucla.edu/staff/dahl/dissertation.pdf |archive-date=2006-05-12 |first=Jacob Lebovitch |last=Dahl |publisher=UCLA dissertation |year=2003}}</ref>

According to one estimate, Ur was the largest city in the world from c. 2030 to 1980&nbsp;BC. Its population was approximately 65,000 (or 0.1 per cent share of global population then).{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}