Ur[a] (/ʊr/ or /ɜːr/[3]) was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar[b] (Arabic: تَلّ ٱلْمُقَيَّر, lit.

[4] The site is marked by the partially restored ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur, which contained the shrine of Nanna, excavated in the 1930s.

[5] Archaeological discoveries have shown unequivocally that Ur was a major Sumerian urban center on the Mesopotamian plain.

These tombs, which date to the Early Dynastic IIIa period (approximately in the 25th or 24th century BC), contained an immense treasure of luxury items made of precious metals and semi-precious stones imported from long distances (Ancient Iran, Afghanistan, India, Asia Minor, the Levant and the Persian Gulf).

Fish, birds, tubers, and reeds might have supported Ur economically without the need for an agricultural revolution sometimes hypothesized as a prerequisite to urbanization.

The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Woolley.

Excavators of the 1920s interpreted the layer of soil as evidence for the Great Flood of the Epic of Gilgamesh and Book of Genesis.

The Sumerian King List provides a tentative political history of ancient Sumer and mentions, among others, several rulers of Ur.

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.

[17] Ur came under the control of the Semitic-speaking Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC.

This was a period when the Semitic-speaking Akkadians, who had entered Mesopotamia in approximately 3000 BC, gained ascendancy over the Sumerians, and indeed much of the ancient Near East.

[19] The Ur empire continued through the reigns of three more kings with Semitic Akkadian names,[13] Amar-Sin, Shu-Sin, and Ibbi-Sin.

The city came to be ruled by the Amorite first dynasty of Babylon which rose to prominence in southern Mesopotamia in the 19th century BC.

[13] The demise of Ur was perhaps owing to drought, changing river patterns, and the silting of the outlet to the Persian Gulf.Ur is possibly the city of Ur Kasdim mentioned in the Book of Genesis as the birthplace of the Jewish and Muslim patriarch Abraham (Avraham in Hebrew, Ibrahim in Arabic), traditionally believed to have lived some time in the 2nd millennium BC.

[23][24] There are however conflicting traditions and scholarly opinions identifying Ur Kasdim with the sites of Şanlıurfa, Urkesh, Urartu or Kutha.

[29] In 1625, the site was visited by Pietro Della Valle, who recorded the presence of ancient bricks stamped with strange symbols, cemented together with bitumen, as well as inscribed pieces of black marble that appeared to be seals.

[30] European archaeologists did not identify Tell el-Muqayyar as the site of Ur until Henry Rawlinson successfully deciphered some bricks from that location, brought to England by William Loftus in 1849.

[36] Among the finds were copies of a standard cylinder of Nabonidus, Neo-Babylonian ruler, mentioning the prince regent Belshar-uzur, usually thought to be the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible.

[39] Stamped bricks on the ziggurat detail the rebuilding of the temple of Ningal by 14th century BC Kassite ruler Kurigalzu I.

Natives used the now loosened, 4,000-year-old bricks and tile for construction for the next 75 years, while the site lay unexplored,[42] the British Museum having decided to prioritize archaeology in Assyria.

After some soundings were made during a week in 1918 by Reginald Campbell Thompson, H. R. Hall worked the site for one season (using 70 Turkish prisoners of war) for the British Museum in 1919, laying the groundwork for more extensive efforts to follow.

[43][44][45] Excavations from 1922 to 1934 were funded by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania and led by the archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley.

[68] In 2009, an agreement was reached for a joint University of Pennsylvania and Iraqi team to resume archaeological work at the site of Ur.

Some distance south of Area AH a German team of Munich University directed by Adelheid Otto excavated an Old Babylonian home.

Both teams spent the first few months digging a trench and found evidence of burial grounds by collecting small pieces of golden jewelry and pottery.

At the Penn Museum the exhibition "Iraq's Ancient Past",[84] which includes many of the most famous pieces from the Royal Tombs, opened to visitors in late Spring 2011.

It traveled to eight American museums, including those in Cleveland, Washington and Dallas, ending the tour at the Detroit Institute of Art in May 2011.

[87] The famous Royal tombs, also called the Neo-Sumerian Mausolea, located about 250 metres (820 ft) south-east of the Great Ziggurat in the corner of the wall that surrounds the city, are nearly totally cleared.

In May 2009, the United States Army returned the Ur site to the Iraqi authorities, who hope to develop it as a tourist destination.

[88] Since 2009, the non-profit organization Global Heritage Fund (GHF) has been working to protect and preserve Ur against the problems of erosion, neglect, inappropriate restoration, war and conflict.