The Priest-King. Urbanism began in Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth millennium B.C.E. At Uruk, the largest city in Mesopotamia, two great temples dominated the region. It has been proposed that the temple was at the center of a redistributive economic system. The head of the temple was an official who was called the en in Sumerian. While the exact nature of his functions and method of election is controversial, it appears that he also held a position of political authority. Scholars refer to the en as the "priest-king." At the beginning of the third millennium B.C.E., city-states began to expand in size and population. Royal ideology maintained that the main temple in each city was the residence of a particular god or goddess, a deity who acted as its protective patron. The temple administrator continued to act as the city ruler. The full range of his functions is unknown.....
