Urban civilization rose in Southern Mesopotamia on the back of tides

[Judi Lynn]

The Great Ziggurat of Ur dedicated to the Moon god. Ziggurats were massive structure typical for Mesopotamia. Sumerians believed that the gods lived in the temple at the top of the ziggurats. (Photo credits: Reed Goodman, Clemson University)

August 20, 2025

Woods Hole, Mass. (August 20, 2025) -- A newly published study challenges long-held assumptions about the origins of urban civilization in ancient Mesopotamia, suggesting that the rise of Sumer was driven by the dynamic interplay of rivers, tides, and sediments at the head of the Persian Gulf.

Published today in PLOS ONE, the study, Morphodynamic Foundations of Sumer, is led by Liviu Giosan, Senior Scientist Emeritus in Geology & Geophysics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and Reed Goodman, Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Science at Baruch Institute of Social Ecology and Forest Science (BICEFS), Clemson University.

The research introduces a novel paleoenvironmental model in which tidal dynamics influenced the earliest development of agriculture and sociopolitical complexity in Sumer. Results are a contribution to the long-running Lagash Archaeological Project, a collaboration led by Iraqi archaeologists and Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Our results show that Sumer was literally and culturally built on the rhythms of water,” said Giosan. “The cyclical patterns of tides together with delta morphodynamics -how the form or shape of a landscape changes over time due to dynamic processes - were deeply woven into the myths, innovations, and daily lives of the Sumerians.”

More:
https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/news-release/southernmesopotamia/

[Permanut]

1. Totally cool.

[Judi Lynn]

2. First ancient cities built on rhythms of water in Mesopotamia

First ancient cities built on rhythms of water in Mesopotamia

August 25, 2025

Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist

- click for image -

https://cdn.shortpixel.ai/spai/q_lossy+w_566+h_319+to_auto+ret_img/cosmosmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/1-ur-20220417_052527-1200x675-1.jpg

The Great Ziggurat of Ur dedicated to the Moon god. Ziggurats were massive structure typical for Mesopotamia. Sumerians believed that the gods lived in the temple at the top of the ziggurats. Credit: Reed Goodman, Clemson University.


A model of the ancient environment suggests a new theory about how some of the first cities in human history were built.

The research, published in PLOS One, proposes that the beginnings of urban civilisation in ancient Mesopotamia were driven by the dynamic relationships between rivers, tides and sediments at the head of the Persian Gulf.

The Sumerian civilisation was in the south of the region known as Mesopotamia in modern Iraq. Sumer’s city-states of Ur, Uruk, Eridu and Lagash began to emerge around 7500 BCE, and were established by about 5,000 BCE.

While some “proto-cities” like Jericho and Çatalhöyük had emerged earlier, the Sumerian city-states are considered the cradle of civilisation because of the development of agriculture, writing and inventions such as the wheel which formed the cultural bedrock of these cities.

More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/first-cities-ancient-mesopotamia-water/