Shuruppak

(present-day Tall Far’ah), an ancient city in Su-mer. According to Sumerian legend, Shuruppak was the native city of Ziusudra, a mythological figure corresponding to the Babylonian Utnapishtim, who survived the great flood on an ark he built upon the command of a god.

By the end of the third millennium B.C., Shuruppak had become an insignificant settlement. Excavations there by a German archaeological expedition in 1902 uncovered an archive of economic and legal documents and teaching materials from around the 26th century B.C., as well as sculputured monuments.