On the Iraqi delta, north of Basra, winds from the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf met cool air flowing down from the Taurus mountains. Swirling currents of wind intertwined, twisting, yawning, creating a whirlwind that, as it touched the ground, blew the ancient dust of the dry delta high up into the tawny dawn of a rose-pink sky.
As the wind currents dissipated, the dust fell once again to earth, settling gently onto massive misshapen lumps of dried mud lying in the middle of the dry river delta.
Here lay the hoary remains of the ancient city of Uruk from the land of Sumer.
A city of unimaginable importance to our civilisation. Silent. Lost. Forgotten.
Hidden in antiquity until 1850 when the first excavations started.
On office clocks around the world, office workers watch the hands go around where sixty seconds mark off a minute. Sixty minutes mark off an hour. Ask any of the workers in the building why sixty? They will not know. They just want to go home.
Sumerian mathematics used multiples of sixty and it carried forward through the ages. No one ever wondered where it came from. How many Sumerian memes are embedded in our present day lives? Far more than you would expect for a civilisation lost in the sand for five thousand years.
Uruk revolutionised agriculture leading to an explosion of industry. Weaving, Pottery, brick making, building, mathematics, astronomy, writing, irrigation, the wheel, and the loom.
Money had not been invented. The written word hardly existed.
How did they do it?
Maybe it was all just a dream.
In 1850, dream catchers, posing as archaeologists, picked up the discarded cuneiform tablets amongst the rubble of the ruins and scratched their heads as to why history had no record of this ancient civilisation.
They pieced together fragments, but without written history, no complete picture of life can ever emerge.
A dream, however, is different. A dream can be imagined.
All cities need a dream to live.
Anywhere that people live together you will find a common mood, an outlook, a sentiment.
Few living under the spell of a city can be unaffected. There is always an expectation, a new morning, a mutual longing for something better, a shared contentment at the end of a productive day.
Uruk’s dream grew and as it grew, Gods formed overhead like rain clouds gathering under low pressure.
Gods to explain the mystery of a people performing the obscure, unknowable, and delicate daily dances needed for so many to live together.
Working together, believing together.
The dream of Uruk written in these pages is set in a time just before the rise of kings.
Every Sumerian city had their own gods. All religion was local. Uruk’s were Inanna and Anu.
Under these gods, Uruk became the perfect city. But with rapid growth, things began to change quickly. And men whose descendants would become kings were already searching for a path to dominate.
GODS BEFORE KINGS - The golden age of Uruk 
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