Uruk (present-day Warka, Iraq, the biblical Erech) is a 200-hectare city with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, which remained populated and flourishing for 3,000 years. It boasts nine monumental buildings and the use of writing for accounting in the city’s temples. Uruk, unlike the Ukrainian mega-sites, is all core and no flesh: the city’s central structures are clearly visible, but little remains of the private dwellings around them. The expansion of Uruk and its culture into the surrounding populations is disconcerting in its success. Wine, clothing, wool, and cheese were produced in large quantities, which were then distributed through trade to neighboring populations.
