City of culture, 2600 BC presents the city which lies beneath the surface of the archaeological site of Abu Salabikh in south Iraq, first investigated in the 1960s and excavated in the 1970s and 1980s. It starts from the facts on the ground, and shows how the material remains can resurrect the city, illuminated by its library of literary and lexical texts, and documents from institutional administration. The archaeology and the textual data reinforce each other and together convey a picture of the city and its architecture, agricultural and industrial enterprises, and social structure. These are all integrated with our wider knowledge of south Mesopotamia at this time, and with the world view given us by the rich body of Sumerian literature – myths, epics and religious texts, but also homespun secular philosophy – to create a vivid image of city life in 2600 BC.

This is an account of one city and what it tells us. Cities were the defining components of early Mesopotamia, acting as the base for all economic, social, political and cultural activity. With their shared languages and traditions they belonged to a single cultural order, and as with other similar groupings of individual urban centres – whether in Greece, Italy or China – the rivalry and emulation generates a vibrant but varied and innovative world. The book concludes therefore with a more general account of “The Land” (kalam) in the pre-imperial Early Dynastic era, and with an assessment of the nature of the early Mesopotamian urban scene.