A city in Lower Mesopotamia, identified with the modern site of Tell Muqqayar, 20 km from the Euphrates. Occupied from the 5^th millennium, Ur was one of the largest Sumerian towns in the mid-3^rd millennium, as attested by its celebrated “royal tombs". It was briefly the capital of a powerful empire (known as Ur III) at the end of the 3rd millennium. Residence of Sin/Nanna, the moon god, the city had a holy quarter devoted to the deity, with a ziggurat - extremely well conserved - and a large number of buildings. Despite losing its political dominance, Ur continued to be one of the leading cities of southern Mesopotamia in the 2nd and 1st millennia. The Tell Muqqayar site, identified as early as the mid-19^th century, was one of the main sites excavated between 1919 and 1934 by British archaeologists. Fieldwork resumed in 2015.