The archaic texts from Uruk

Abstract Around 4000 clay tablets have been found in the excavations at Uruk in Lower Iraq; these date to the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C. The first part of the article is devoted to the problem of their exact date and their assignment to building levels, since all the tablets were found in rubbish deposits. The second part deals with the emergence of writing, since the documents from Uruk are thought to be the oldest known. Finally, a summary is provided of our present understanding of the contents of the texts, with examples from the two largest groups, the Lexical Lists and the economic texts.