The Ur III Governor Ur-Mes and Urusagrig from an Iraqi Perspective

Abather Rahi Saadoon (Professor in Archaeology and Ancient studies Kerbala University College of Education for Humanities, Iraq)
Tonia. M. Sharlach (Oklahoma State University, United States)
Jassim Abid Al-Ameer Jassim Al-Janabi (Qadisiayh University, Al Diwaniyah, Iraq)
Imran Al Ucok Nasution (Universitas Lancang Kuning, Indonesia)

Journal of Social and Society (JOSS)
Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): Journal of Social and Society (JOSS): INPRESS

The Ur III period does not suffer from a shortage of tablets: if anything, we have more information than we can adequately handle now. Starting about twenty or thirty years ago, a new cache of tablets from Urusagrig appeared on the art market: they appear to number more than 2700. Some of these tablets have been published; some collections have been returned to the Iraq Museum. Study of the archive is really just beginning. In addition to providing transliterations of a few previously unpublished Urusagrig texts in Iraq, this article seeks to address four main questions: 1. What can Iraqi scholars contribute to the ongoing debate about the location of Urusagrig? 2. How can Urusagrig texts legitimately be studied? 3. What do we know about its governor Ur-mes? 4. What were Urusagrig’s taxes like and did it hold a special place in the Ur III state?