- Uruk, today known as Warka, was a city in the ancient Near East situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates. The site lies 93 kilometers (58 miles) northwest of ancient Ur, 108 kilometers (67 miles) southeast of ancient Nippur, and 24 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of ancient Larsa. It is 30 km (19 mi) east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.
- By 300 AD, Uruk was mostly abandoned, but a group of Mandaeans settled there, based on some finds of Mandaic incantation bowls, and by c. 700 AD it was completely abandoned.
- Biblical scholars identify Uruk as the biblical Erech (Genesis 10:10), the second city founded by Nimrod in Shinar.
- William Kennett Loftus visited the site of Uruk in 1849, identifying it as “Erech”, known as “the second city of Nimrod”, and led the first excavations from 1850 to 1854.
- In myth and literature, Uruk was famous as the capital city of Gilgamesh, hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh.