The Great Wall of Sumer: A Mega-Project of the Ur III State

At the dawn of the Sumerian civilization, the city of Ur spearheaded a cultural and political renaissance. The kings of this great state were warriors and master administrators. Many products of this age are well known today (the ziggurat of Ur and the first tales of Gilgamesh), but one great construction of this age still remains fairly obscure: The Great Wall of Sumer. Sources: Dong, Xiaobo. “Warfare in Ur III Dynasty A Comprehensive Study about Military and Diplomacy.“ PhD diss., University of Liverpool, 2022. Michalowski, Piotr. “The Royal Letters in Their Historical Setting 2: Great Walls, Amorites, and Military History: The Puzur-Šulgi and Šarrum-Bani Correspondence (Letters 13–14 and 19–20).” In The Correspondence of the Kings of Ur: An Epistolary History of an Ancient Mesopotamian Kingdom, 122–69. Penn State University Press, 2011. Patterson, Daniel. Elements of the Neo-Sumerian Military. University of Pennsylvani