Cities in the Sand: The Archaeology of Urbanism in Mesopotamia

Images of legendary Mesopotamian cities, now wired with explosives or pockmarked with looters’ pits, flit daily across our screens. For more than a century, archaeologists have been working to uncover these early urban centers in Iraq and Syria, where the very idea of the city was first imagined. This seminar offers an introduction to the archaeology of urbanism and a detailed examination of the cities of Mesopotamia – from Uruk and Ur to Babylon and Baghdad.