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Neo-Sumerian Empire: A Visual History

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The Sumerian renaissance under the Third Dynasty of Ur: the great ziggurat, the first law code and a bureaucracy that recorded every sheep.

Existed
2,112 BC to 2,004 BC
Duration
108 years
Existed
About 2112 to 2004 BC
Peak area
About 300,000 km2 (2050 BC)
Capital
Ur
Notable rulers
Ur-Nammu, Shulgi
Ended by
Elamite sack of Ur, 2004 BC

The Third Dynasty of Ur (about 2112-2004 BC) was founded by Ur-Nammu, who ended the Gutian interlude and reunited Mesopotamia in the last great Sumerian state. He built the ziggurat of Ur and issued the earliest surviving law code; his son Shulgi (about 2094-2047) reformed the calendar, weights, army and administration, deified himself, and ran a state whose scribes produced tens of thousands of tablets recording labour, livestock and grain. Amorite incursions and famine weakened the empire, and in 2004 BC the Elamites sacked Ur and carried off King Ibbi-Sin, mourned in the Lament for Ur.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Neo-Sumerian Empire (Ur III). The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

4,500 BC4,000 BC3,500 BC3,000 BC2,500 BC2,000 BC1,500 BC1,000 BC500 BCNeo-Sumerian Empire (Ur III) (2,112 BC to 2,004 BC)Open: SumerSumer (4,500 BC to 1,900 BC)Open: Indus Valley CivilisationIndus Valley Civilisation (3,300 BC to 1,300 BC)Open: Elamite EmpireElamite Empire (2,700 BC to 539 BC)Open: LagashLagash (2,500 BC to 2,270 BC)Open: Akkadian EmpireAkkadian Empire (2,334 BC to 2,154 BC)Open: LarsaLarsa (2,025 BC to 1,763 BC)Open: Old Assyrian periodOld Assyrian period (2,025 BC to 1,364 BC)Open: First Babylonian EmpireFirst Babylonian Empire (1,894 BC to 1,595 BC)

Ur III territory

0751502253002,112 BC: 1002,094 BC: 2502,050 BC: 3002,028 BC: 2002,010 BC: 502,004 BC: 02,100 BC2,080 BC2,060 BC2,040 BC2,020 BC2,004 BCthousand km2 (approximate)

Timeline of the Neo-Sumerian Empire (Ur III)

  1. 2,112 BC
    Ur-Nammu founds Ur III
  2. 2,100 BC
    Ziggurat of Ur; law code
  3. 2,094 BC
    Shulgi
  4. 2,070 BC
    Administrative reforms; Shulgi deified
  5. 2,037 BC
    Shu-Sin builds the Amorite wall
  6. 2,028 BC
    Ibbi-SinProvinces break away.
  7. 2,004 BC
    Elamites sack Ur

Ur-Nammu

After Utu-hengal of Uruk expelled the Gutians, his governor Ur-Nammu took power at Ur around 2112 and made it the capital of Sumer and Akkad. He rebuilt canals and temples, raised the ziggurats of Ur, Uruk, Eridu and Nippur, and promulgated a code of laws that fined rather than maimed for most injuries. He died in battle, and a poem describes his journey to the underworld.

Shulgi's state

Shulgi reigned 48 years, standardised weights and measures, created a standing army, a network of relay stations and a corps of scribes trained in schools he founded. He claimed to have run from Nippur to Ur and back in a day, and was worshipped as a god in his lifetime. Ur III's archives from Puzrish-Dagan, Umma, Girsu and Ur, over 100,000 tablets, track sheep, workers' rations and temple deliveries with obsessive detail; the empire's provinces paid a rotating tax, the bala.

Collapse

Amorite nomads pressed in from the west; Shu-Sin built a wall 'to keep off the Tidnum'. Under Ibbi-Sin famine sent grain prices up 60-fold; provinces broke away, and his general Ishbi-Erra set up at Isin. In 2004 the Elamites and their allies from Shimashki sacked Ur, took Ibbi-Sin to Anshan and left the city in ruins. Sumerian died as a spoken language over the following centuries, but Ur III literature and law lived on in Babylonian schools.

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8 surprising things about the Neo-Sumerian Empire (Ur III)

  1. The Code of Ur-Nammu, from about 2100 BC, is the oldest surviving law code, three centuries older than Hammurabi's.
  2. The Ur III bureaucracy left more tablets than any other period of Mesopotamian history: over 100,000 published.
  3. The Great Ziggurat of Ur was restored by Saddam Hussein and stands next to a former US airbase.
  4. Shulgi claimed to be a scribe, musician, athlete and diviner, and his hymns say he ran 200 km in a day.
  5. One Ur III tablet records the delivery of 27 fattened sheep to a temple, one of thousands of such receipts.
  6. The Lament for Ur, describing the city's destruction, is one of the great poems of world literature.
  7. Ur III kings married daughters to Elamite and other rulers and were sometimes deified in their lifetimes.
  8. The Sumerian King List, in its final form, was compiled to legitimise Isin as Ur's successor.

Sources

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