City of Ur

I am warm, warm, warm. The sun shines on my sandy bricks all day long. A big, sparkly river flows right next to me, like a blue ribbon. In my middle, I have a giant staircase that goes up, up, up to the sky. It looks like big blocks stacked on top of each other. Can you guess who I am. I am the City of Ur, one of the very first cities in the whole wide world.

My wonderful friends built me a long, long time ago. They were called the Sumerians. They were so clever. They built my big staircase as a special house to say hello to their friend in the sky, the moon god Nanna. My streets were filled with happy sounds. Children laughed and played games. Their parents were busy, too. They wrote stories and drew pictures on soft, wet clay, just like you might play with dough. I loved being a busy, happy home for all my friends.

After a very long time, I got sleepy. The wind blew soft sand all over me, like a big, cozy blanket. I took a long, long nap. Then one day, on a sunny morning in the year 1922, a kind friend named Sir Leonard Woolley came to find me. He gently brushed the sand away to wake me up. Now, I am very quiet. But my bricks and my big staircase still tell stories. I show everyone how people first learned to build big things and live together as friends.