Between 1931 and 1939, Arnold Noldeke directed the German excavations at Uruk-Warka in southern Iraq, which are under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute. Uruk-Warka, one of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia, was occupied without interruption between the 5th millennium BC and ca. 300 AD, and is the setting of several Sumerian legends and epics, the most famous of which is the Epic of Gilgamesh . Noldeke’s letters to his family do not deal with scholarly research; instead, they recount the everyday life on an archaeological excavation and some socio-political events. Notes on the latter are especially interesting and important against the backdrop of an increasingly Nazist German state. German text.