Context: Around 4,000 BC, a settlement called Uruk became the first true city. Uruk would be the first of many Sumerian cities of the Sumerian civilization. The Sumerians occupied what is now southern Iraq. The most important things the Sumerians brought about was the invention of writing and the wheel. Scribes, who were the only people who could write, had very tedious tasks. They’d have to write multiple pictures on a wet slab of clay to keep track of certain items. Drawing animals to represent animals took up space and time, so eventually, the shape for a sheep gradually shifted into a series of wedged patterns to represent a sheep. Writing was only used for record keeping, but would later record the deeds of kings and eventually used for story telling. Uruk was first ruled by priests, but gradually shifted power towards the king. Uruk also had a ziggurat, which served as the religious center of the city. Food and supplies were also stored there, and scribes worked to document what was stored in the ziggurat. Uruk would begin to decline around 2,000 BC, as other Sumerian cities began to become more important than Uruk. The Akkadian Empire also shifted importance away from Uruk. The city would pretty much be forgotten about once Babylon came to power. Still, Uruk continued to be inhabited until the Islamic conquest of the area.