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Ur Region

Excavating the temples at Eridu


In ancient times, the head of the Gulf reached much further north so that the region around Ur was an important link between the rich heartland of Sumer and the trading nations of the Gulf and India. The Sumerian city of Ur itself dominated the region but it is also where the city of Eridu is to be found, considered by the Sumerians themselves to be the oldest city in the world. Eridu was excavated by a team of Iraqi archaeologists in the 1940s. They found an amazing sequence of temples dating back to prehistoric times. Many other towns and villages dot the landscape of the Ur region, almost all undisturbed and still awaiting excavation by archaeologists.