Ancient City Seals

At the end of the Uruk period in the ancient Near East c. 3100 BC there was a widespread re-alignment and reformulation of power structure in the ancient Near East entering the following Jemdet Nasr period, also called the Uruk III period (c. 3100–2900 BC). Based on recovered "city seals", primarily from Jemdat Nasr, it is thought that a consortium of twenty cities engaged in a trading system built around the primary Uruk female deity. In the Early Dynastic I period (c. 2900–2700 BC) another political re-alignment occurred, though restricted primarily to Mesopotamia. A standard list of cities found on clay sealings led to the proposal that there was a Early Dynastic I period "Kengir League" of cities centered around Nippur which encompassed a joint trading system with an underlying religious basis (centered on the chief god Enlil), similar in nature to the later bala taxation system. Uruk has also been proposed as the central city. While the concept has received support there is debate about how closely and in what way the cities were bound. It has been proposed that the seals were part of a progression, a cultic journey, of the main female deity's cult statue from Uruk through the other cities of Southern Mesopotamia.