Oh, wait. Ancient SUMERIAN.
Never mind.
The city-states would occasionally get more prosperous than their neighbors and would march on out and couquer as many as they could. This often happened when another city-state had some kind of setback such as a military defeat, dynastic crisis, that kind of thing. Lagash, which I'm sure most had never heard of, went through a boom phase, lots of public building construction, prosperity -- then got pulverized shortly after Gudea's time, and pretty much wiped out. The large cuneiform archive (clay tablets) of Mari was preserved by the inferno that consumed the city when it was destroyed by a none-too-neighborly neighbor. But that ws a huge break for modern scholars, so, too bad, so sad. :^)
Oh, wait. Ancient SUMERIAN.
Never mind.
See, this is what I love about Free Republic and the Internet in general-I am a history buff, but my understanding of history is largely bound from about the Middle Ages on, though I have delved into some Roman, Egyptian, and Greek.
Your post made me look up the clay tablets of Mari, and now I know a tiny bit about them.
Just lots of bits and pieces, but I am richer for them!
Thank you.
“get more prosperous than their neighbors and
would march on out and conquer as many as they could”
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The ancient land of Sumeria is now called Iraq.
Not much has changed in their culture.