Megalopolis, really? At the same time, Mesopotamia's cities were much larger. Uruk's population was probably more than 30,000 people. Even outside Mesopotamia, Ebla, south of Aleppo, was a large city where nearby villages provided agricultural resources. In these regions, technology and art was apparently centuries ahead. See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk_period" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk_period</a> for some achievements before 3000 BC.<p>> Among the interesting artifacts revealed at the site was a cylindrical stamp impression of a man holding his hands up in the air, as well as several figurines of people and animals and tools imported from Egypt.<p>This was surprising for me. A city that cannot build tools, but imports them. And if the site was fertile and inhabited for milleniums, how come these artefacts look