A small site between Baghdad and Babylon, near Kish, Iraq, which has given its name to a period of Mesopotamian chronology and its black-and-red painted pottery ware. The period of 3100– 2900 bc was characterized by writing in pictographs, pottery with painted designs or plum-red burnished slip, and plain pottery with beveled rims. Cylinder seals are squat and plain and a drill was used in the designs. The period is characterized by increasing populations, the development of more extensive irrigation systems, towns dominated by temples, increased use of writing and cylinder seals, more trade, and craft specialization. The period – equivalent to Uruk III of the Eanna Sounding sequence – was followed immediately by the Early Dynastic period of Sumer. A building of Jemdet Nasr date may be the oldest palace discovered in southern Mesopotamia.
