Kish

an ancient city in Iraq (site of modern Tell al-Uhaimer), 18 km southeast of Babylon. Kish arose at the end of the fourth or beginning of the third millennium B.C. on the site of more ancient settlements. In the 28th century B.C. it was the center of the first union of Sumerian tribes, but it lost its supremacy in the 27th century B.C. in the course of a struggle with the city of Uruk. In the 24th century B.C., Kish was destroyed by the Sumerian king Lugal-zaggesi but was restored by the Akkadian king Sargon. After this, Kish did not play an independent role, remaining a major provincial center of Babylonia, of the Achaemenid state, of the Parthian kingdom, and of the Sassanid state.

Excavations conducted in 1912 and between 1923 and 1932 revealed the remains of a palace (28th-25th centuries B.C.) comprising two buildings: an older, rectangular one surrounded by a fortified wall with towers, and a later one with a narrow hall with four columns along its central axis on the building’s western side and a gallery with columns on the parapet on the eastern side. A necropolis dating from the early dynastic period (second quarter of the third millennium B.C.) has been investigated. Researchers have found numerous ceramic articles, bronze tools and ornaments, and cylindrical seals. Buildings from the Akkadian period and later periods have been discovered, including three palace buildings (224–651). A large archive of cuneiform documents dating from the beginning of the third millennium to the first millennium B.C. has also been found.