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Historical Period

The world's first cities, the first writing, and the rival kingdoms of Sumer.

Use the timeline below to navigate through major events and milestones.

Sumer & the First Cities · 5500-2334 BC
Ancient Mesopotamia

Sumer & the First Cities

Between the Tigris and the Euphrates, on the alluvial plain of southern Iraq, humanity built its first cities. From the villages of the Ubaid, through the towering temples of Uruk and the birth of writing, to the rival city-states of Sumer — Ur, Lagash, Kish — this is the land that later ages called the cradle of civilization. Slide across the millennia to read the events that opened recorded history.

5500 BC
Ubaid Period
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5500 BC

Ubaid Period
  • Cultural

    The Ubaid villages of the south

    Farming communities spread across the marshy south, digging the first irrigation canals and raising the earliest temples at Eridu.

9 milestones

Meanwhile

Around 5500 BC

Full Chronicle

Sumer & the First Cities

Between the Tigris and the Euphrates, on the alluvial plain of southern Iraq, humanity built its first cities. From the villages of the Ubaid, through the towering temples of Uruk and the birth of writing, to the rival city-states of Sumer — Ur, Lagash, Kish — this is the land that later ages called the cradle of civilization. Slide across the millennia to read the events that opened recorded history.

  1. Ubaid Period

    • The Ubaid villages of the south

      Farming communities spread across the marshy south, digging the first irrigation canals and raising the earliest temples at Eridu.

  2. Uruk Period

    • Uruk and the first city

      Uruk swells into the largest settlement the world has yet seen, its people gathering behind walls around great temple precincts.

  3. Uruk Period

    • The birth of writing

      Scribes in Uruk press reed styluses into clay to keep temple accounts, and cuneiform — the first writing — is born.

  4. Early Dynastic

    • The city-states of Sumer

      The plain fragments into rival city-states — Ur, Uruk, Kish, Lagash, Nippur — each ruled by a king under its patron god.

  5. Early Dynastic

    • Gilgamesh, king of Uruk

      Legend and history meet in Gilgamesh, the warrior-king of Uruk whose deeds become the world's first great epic.

  6. Early Dynastic

    • The Royal Tombs of Ur

      The great death-pits of Ur are filled with gold, lyres, and attendants, revealing the wealth and rituals of Sumer's kings.

  7. Early Dynastic

    • Lagash, Umma, and the first war record

      King Eannatum of Lagash defeats neighbouring Umma and commemorates it on the Stele of the Vultures, history's earliest war monument.

  8. Early Dynastic

    • Urukagina's reforms

      The reformer-king Urukagina of Lagash issues what is remembered as the first code of social justice.

  9. Early Dynastic

    • Lugalzagesi unites Sumer

      Lugalzagesi of Umma conquers the Sumerian cities and claims dominion 'from the Lower to the Upper Sea' — on the eve of Akkad.