2-668-232 - © CM Dixon/Heritage Images

Terracotta Astarte or 'Ishtar' figure, Third Dynasty of Ur, c2100 BC. The Third Dynasty of Ur, also known as the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to both a 22nd to 21st century BC (middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider to have been a nascent empire.