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search Relief on the front of the Inanna temple of Karaindash
from Uruk. Pergamon Museum, Berlin  Uruk was an ancient city of
Sumer and later Babylonia. It was east of the present bed of the
Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the
Euphrates River.[1] It was in what is now Iraq.  Uruk gives its
name to the Uruk period, the early Chalcolithic to early Bronze
Age period in Mesopotamia, about 4000 to 3100 BC. This was
followed by the period of Sumer proper. It played a leading role
in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid 4th millennium BC.
At its height c 2900 BC, Uruk probably had 50,000–80,000
residents living in 6 km2 of walled area. It was the largest
city in the world at the time.[1]  According to the chronology
in the Sumerian king list, the semi-mythical king Gilgamesh
ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. The city lost its prime
importance around 2000 BC, after the struggle of Babylonia with
Elam. It remained inhabited throug