By 3300 BC the world’s first cities had developed in southern Mesopotamia. City walls and buildings, from houses to monumental temples, were constructed from mud bricks. By 3000 BC administrators were writing on clay tablets in the language we today call Sumerian. This term is also applied to the people and culture of southern Mesopotamia during the so-called Early Dynastic period (2900-2300 BC) when dynasties of rulers controlled competing city-states. Much of the early writing comes from the site of Uruk, home to the hero of the epic poem Gilgamesh (2000 BC). The wealth of one Sumerian city is shown by sixteen Royal Graves excavated at Ur dating to 2500 BC and containing objects made from precious metals and stones as well as sacrificial victims.

Around 2300 BC, Sargon, ruler of the city of Agade (or Akkad), created an empire by conquering the cities of Sumer, Syria and western Iran. The Akkadian empire lasted until about 2150 BC and although Sumer was now just a region of Babylonia, some aspects of its culture including the Sumerian language remained intact. By 2000 BC the majority of people in southern Mesopotamia spoke Akkadian and Amorite, but Sumerian, although no longer spoken, continued to be written by learned scribes for the next 2000 years.