The golden Sumerian lyre was one of more than a dozen Sumerian stringed instruments discovered at the ancient city of Ur in 1927 in southern Iraq.
The Sumerian civilization which goes back to more than six thousand year flourished in southern Iraq, cities like Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Lagash and Kish were among the very fist cities known in history.

Even when the Sumerian cities lost the political power to the Babylonians and Assyrians in later periods, their influence as religious centers continued for almost 5000 years and far beyond the boundaries of place and time. Sumerian cities like Uruk and Nippur were the focus of pilgrimages and royal building and temples.

Uruk played a major role. It was also the centre of the worship of the goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, which is symbolized by the star Venus. Her worship went to the Greeks and Romans under the name of Aphrodite or Venus, who had exactly the same attributes as Ishtar. Not only is that but the festival of Ishtar (the goddess of fertility) still celebrated all over the world in the form of Easter festival to this day. The legacy of Sumerian culture and heritage continue to live in our modern life in many forms and shapes.

The city of Uruk (called Unug or Urug in antiquity) became so significant that gradually it gave its name to the whole country, hence the name Iraq. Contrary to the common believe, the name Iraq was known for more the 2000 years ago. The land of Iraq was well known and was clearly mentioned in folk stories, poetry and manuscripts of Arabia during the Roman, pre Islamic and throughout the Islamic period. The idea that the British colonial power gave the country the name "Iraq" is nothing but a myth, which exists only in the head of some politicians and orientalists. The word Mesopotamia is in origin a Greek word (land between the rivers), used only by the Greeks in ancient times as a discretion of the country, none of the neighboring nations of Iraq ever used any name other than Iraq since the Roman times.