The City & Its Patron God
Every great city belonged to a god — its temple the god's house, its fall the god's departure.
Also: city · uru · patron god · city god · Nippur · Eridu · Ur · Uruk · Babylon
Mesopotamian civilization was a civilization of cities, and each great city 'belonged' to a god: Nippur to Enlil, Eridu to Enki, Ur to the moon-god Nanna, Uruk to An and Inana, Babylon to Marduk, Assur to the god Aššur. The city was literally the god's estate, the temple the god's house, and the citizens the god's people. A city flourished while its god was pleased and present, and fell when the god, angered, abandoned it. Civic identity, religion, and politics were one: to be of a city was to serve its god.
In short
The Mesopotamian city (Sumerian uru) conceived as the household and possession of its patron deity, who dwells in its temple and whose favor underwrites its prosperity.
Where it’s found
'The temple hymns' (ETCSL 4.80.1, in corpus); the city-laments (ETCSL 2.2.2–2.2.6, in corpus)
How the idea developed across Sumer, Babylon & Assyria
The city-god model is the bedrock of Sumerian and Babylonian religion. Political history is often narrated theologically as the rise and fall of cities tracking the favor of their gods; the city-laments dramatize the catastrophe of a god abandoning his city.