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( Uruk)
Coordinates 31°19'20?N 45°38'10?E? / ?31.32222, 45.63611 In myth and literature Uruk was famous as the capital city of Gilgamesh, hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is also believed Uruk is the Biblical (Genesis 1010) Erech, the second city founded by Nimrod in Shinar. In addition to being one of the first cities, Uruk was the main force of urbanization during the Uruk Period (4000-3200 BCE). This period of 800 years saw a shift from small, agricultural villages to a larger urban center with a full-time bureaucracy, military, and stratified society. Although other settlements coexisted with Uruk they were generally about 10 hectares while Uruk was significantly larger and more complex. The Uruk period civilization, exported by Sumerian traders and colonists (like that found at Tell Brak), had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force. Geographic factors underpin Uruk's unprecedented growth. The city was located in the alluvial plain area of southern Mesopotamia, on the Euphrates rivers. Through the domestication of native grains from the nearby Zagros foothills and extensive irrigation techniques, the area supported a vast variety of edible vegetation. This domestication of grain and its proximity to rivers enabled Uruk's growth into the largest Sumerian settlement, in both population and area, with relative ease.
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