Low
Utu-hegal: 2055-2048
Ur-Nammu: 2047-2030
Shulgi: 2029-1982
Amar-Sin: 1981-1973
Shu-Sin: 1972-1964
Ibbi-Sin: 1963-1940
With the fall of the Ur III Dynasty after to an Elamite invasion in 2004 BC, Babylonia fell under foreign (Amorite) influence.

An early code of law
One salient feature of Ur III is its establishment of one of the earliest known law-codes. It is quite similar to the famous codex of Hammurabi, resembling its prologue and bodily structure. Extant copies, written in Old Babylonian, exist from Nippur, Sippar, and also Ur itself. The author is still somewhat under dispute, but in general scholars attribute it to Shulgi.

Many significant changes occurred in the Ur III empire under Shulgi's reign. He took steps to centralize and standardize the procedures of the empire. He is credited with standardizing administrative processes, archival documentation, the tax system, and the national calendar. He established a standing army of Ur. Shulgi was deified during his lifetime, an honor usually reserved for dead kings.

The prologue to the law-code, written in the first person, established Shulgi as the beacon of justice for his land, a role that previous kings normally did not play. He claims to want justice for all, including traditionally unfortunate groups in the kingdom like the widower or the orphan.

The law-code itself is probably more of a symbol than a set of actual prescriptions of law. More legal disputes were dealt with locally by government officials called mayors, although their decision could be appealed and eventually overthrown by the provincial governor. Sometimes legal disputes were publicly aired with witnesses present at a place like the town square or in front of the temple. However, the image of the king as the supreme judge of the land took hold, and this image appears in many literary works and poems. Citizens sometimes wrote letters of prayer to the king, either present or past

Culture
Even though this period is referred to as the Sumerian Renaissance, this does not imply that the Ur III kings ignored their Akkadian predecessors in favor of Sumerian culture. Rather, this period witnessed a revival of Sumerian language and literature even while the Ur III kings emphasized their ties to the Akkad Dynasty as well. Sumerian dominated the cultural sphere, while signs of the spread of Akkadian could be seen elsewhere. Virtually all of the names of members of the royal family are Akkadian, and new towns that arose in this period were virtually all given Akkadian names.

Industry/commerce
The Ur III kings oversaw many substantial state-run projects, including intricate irrigation systems and centralization of agriculture. An enormous labor force was amassed to work in agriculture, particularly in irrigation, harvesting, and sowing.

Textiles were a particularly important industry in Ur during this time. The textile industry was run by the state. Men, women, and children alike were employed to produce wool and linen clothing. The detailed documents from the administration of this period exhibit a startling amount of centralization; some scholars have gone so far as to say no other period in Mesopotamian history reached the same level.

Trading was another huge industry. The state employed independent merchants to run such commercial activities through a barter system. A standard system of weights was established to aid this process. Coins made of copper, bronze, gold, or silver were produced in certain, pre-set weights so merchants could easily discern values.

Political organization
The land ruled by the Ur III kings was divided up into provinces that were each run by a governor (called an ensi). In certain tumultuous regions, military commanders assumed more power in governing.

Each province contained a redistribution center where provincial taxes would all go to be shipped to the capital. Taxes could be payable in various forms, from crops to livestock to land. The government would then apportion out goods as needed, including giving food rations to the needy and funding temples.

Social system
This is an area where scholars have many different views. It had long been posited that the common laborer was nothing more than a serf, but new analysis and documents reveal a possible different picture. Gangs of laborers can be divided into various groups.

Certain groups indeed seem to work under compulsion. Others work in order to keep property or get rations from the state. Still other laborers were free men and women for whom social mobility was a possibility. Many families travelled together in search of labor. Such laborers could amass private property and even be promoted to higher positions. This is quite a different picture of a laborer's life than the previous belief that they were afforded no way to move out of the social group they were born into.

Slaves also made up a crucial group of labor for the state. One scholar estimates that 2/5 of chattel slaves mentioned in documents were not born slaves but became slaves due to accumulating debt, being sold by family members, or other reasons. However, one surprising feature of this period is that slaves seem to have been able to accumulate some assets and even property during their lifetimes such that they could buy their freedom. Extant documents give details about specific deals for slaves' freedoms negotiated with slaveowners.

Literature
Sumerian texts were mass produced in the Ur III period; however, the word 'revival' to describe this period is misleading because archaeological evidence does not offer evidence of a previous period of decline. Instead, Sumerian began to take on a different form. As the Semitic Akkadian language became the common spoken language, Sumerian continued to dominate literature and also administrative documents. Government officials learned to write at special schools that used only Sumerian literature.

Some scholars believe that the Uruk epic of Gilgamesh was written down during this period into its classic Sumerian form. The Ur III Dynasty attempted to establish ties to the early kings of Uruk by claiming to be their familial relations.

For example, the Ur III kings often claimed Gilgamesh's divine parents, Ninsun and Lugalbanda, as their own, probably to evoke a comparison to the epic hero.

Another text from this period, known as "The Death of Urnammu," contains an underworld scene in which Ur-Nammu showers "his brother Gilgamesh" with gifts.

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2001-05 Columbia University Press.

Shulgi -2100-2000BC- son of Urnammu, He is an important king known from odes in later texts. He was the Maecenas (patron of arts) of the Sumerian language and promoted the canonization of Sumerian literature.

King Shulgi:

1. proclaimed himself a god
2. boasted that he was one of the few kings who went to school to become a scribe.
   At the schools that taught this difficult skill, students also learned how to debate in public and practiced the refined art of insulting opponents before refuting their arguments.
   "He is spawn of a dog, seed of a wolf, a helpless hyena's whelp, and an addlepated mountain monkey whose reasoning is nonsensical!" begins one such preamble.
3. claimed that he once ran 200 miles during a fierce hailstorm..(which he may have done)
4. Who once wrote of himself "I am a powerful man who rejoices in his loins!"

He had his poets and scribes publicize all sorts of stories about his prowess: he had complete mastery of every weapon of war, could capture gazelles on the run, slay lions unaided, and play every known musical instrument.