Uruk 
Uruk - Unug (Sumerian), Erech (Biblical), Orchoë (Greek) and Warka (Arabic)
This was an ancient city located in Sumer and later Babylonia. It’s ruins can be found east of the present bed of the Euphrates, about 140 miles SSE from today’s Baghdad. The modern name of the country of Iraq is taken from the name Uruk.
Uruk was one of the oldest, as well as one of the most important cities of Ancient Sumer. The great king of history and myth, Gilgamesh, or rather, his predecessor Enmerkar, is said to have built its walls. Located within these wall, one could find the famous temple named Eanna, which wasdedicated to the worship of Inanna (Ishtar
Uruk played a very important part in the political history of the country from an early time. It held a place of supremecy in Babylonia at a period before the time of Sargon. Later, it played and important role in the national struggles of the Babylonians against the Elamites (up to 2004 BC). During this time, Uruk suffered severely. There are reminiscences of some of these conflicts that are embodied in the Gilgamesh epic.
Oppenheim states, "In Uruk, in southern Mesopotamia, Sumerian civilization seems to have reached its creative peak. This is pointed out repeatedly in the references to this city in religious and, especially, in literary texts, including those of mythological content; the historical tradition as preserved in the Sumerian king-list confirms it. From Uruk the center of political gravity seems to have moved to Ur."
You can read in the Sumerian king list, that Uruk was founded by Enmerkar. He is said to have brought the official kingship with him from the city of Eanna.
Uruk was first excavated by a German team led by Julius Jordan before World War I. This expedition returned in 1928 and made further excavations until 1939, then returned in 1954 under the direction of H. Lenzen and made systematic excavations over the following years. These excavations revealed some early Sumerian documents and a larger cache of legal and scholarly tablets of the Seleucid period, that have been published by Adam Falkenstein and other German epigraphists.
*Source: wikipedia.org
