Uruk period
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The Uruk period, named for the city on the Euphrates in southern Iraq, runs from about 4000 to 3100 BCE and ends with the invention of writing. In these nine centuries the small towns of Mesopotamia became cities: Uruk itself grew to perhaps 40,000 people by 3100 BCE, with a precinct of temples, the Eanna district sacred to Inanna and the Anu ziggurat raised above the houses. Mass-produced pottery was turned on the fast wheel, cylinder seals were cut from stone to mark ownership, and the first tablets recorded rations of grain, beer and cloth in pictographic signs that soon became cuneiform. The period also produced great stone vases such as the warka vase, and painted pottery of the earlier phases. Society grew more unequal: larger houses stood beside modest ones, and the temple managed herds, fields and workshops. Uruk's influence travelled north with colonies such as Hacinebi and Godin Tepe, carrying the architecture and the seals of the south, and the period closed as kingship, warfare and writing appear together in the record. The period also saw the first large-scale irrigation canals and the first evidence of long-distance trade in lapis lazuli and carnelian from far to the east.