The real city behind book one
Ur, in southern Iraq
Ur stands at Tell al-Muqayyar in Dhi Qar Governorate, near Nasiriyah. Four thousand years ago it was a wealthy port on the Euphrates, full of merchants, scribes, builders and astronomers. The river has since moved away, but the great ziggurat still rises from the plain.
Iraq's gifts to the world's maths
Where writing and counting began
Writing
The earliest known writing comes from Uruk, a few hours' journey from Ur.
Place value
Mesopotamian scribes wrote numbers where position changes value, the idea behind every number you write.
Hours and degrees
Counting in sixties gave the world its minutes, seconds and 360-degree circle.
Algebra
Developed in Baghdad's House of Wisdom, with a name taken from Arabic.
Discovering Ur
Between 1922 and 1934, archaeologists from the British Museum and the Penn Museum excavated Ur under Leonard Woolley, working alongside Iraqi workers and specialists. They uncovered houses, temples, schools for scribes and the famous Royal Tombs.
Among the finds was the Royal Game of Ur, a board game more than 4,000 years old. Its rules were worked out from a much later cuneiform tablet, and pupils can still play it today.
In 2016, Ur joined UNESCO's World Heritage List alongside Uruk, Eridu and the marshlands of southern Iraq.