UPPSALA or UPSALA, a city of Sweden, 41 m. N. of Stockholm. Pop. (1928), 30,198. The name originally belonged to Old Uppsala, nearly 2 m. N. of the present city. This Uppsala, mentioned in the 9th century, was famous for its heathen temple, which gleamed with gold. Three huge grave mounds remain here.
In the same place the first cathedral of the bishops of Uppsala was erected (c. iioo). But on its destruction by fire, convenience caused removal in 1273 of the archiepiscopal see to the present city, then called Ostra Aros, but later Uppsala, which became a kind of ecclesiastical capital. Here the kings were crowned, after their election at the Mora Stones, io m. S.E. of Uppsala.
In 1567 Eric XIV. murdered in the castle five most emi nent men of the kingdom, three of them belonging to the family of Sture. In 1593 was held the great synod which marks the final victory of Protestantism in Sweden; in the same year the uni versity was restored by Charles IX. In the castle, Christina, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, resigned her crown to Charles X. in 1654. In 1702 nearly the whole city was burnt down.
Uppsala has water-communication with Stockholm by the river Fyris and the northward arm of Lake Malar, into which it flows. The older part of the city lies on its sloping west bank.
The university, the chief and oldest in Sweden, was founded in 1477 by Archbishop Jakob Ulfsson. The university build ing, completed in 1887, lies west of the cathedral. The library building was erected in 1819-41. It is on the site of the Academia Carolina, founded by Charles IX., and is known in consequence as Carolina Rediviva. Since 1707 the library has had the right of receiving every work printed in Sweden. Among the mss. is the famous Codex Argenteus (6th century), a translation of the Gospels in the Gothic of Bishop Ulfilas (4th century). In the old botanic garden, Linnaeus had his residence. The new botanic gar den was given by Gustavus III. in 1787. The observatory was founded in I730. The Victoria museum contains Egyptian antiqui ties. The Royal Society of Sciences, founded in 1710 by Arch bishop Erik Benzelius, has a valuable library. Much of the rev enue is drawn from the estates granted by Gustavus Adolphus in 1624. Every student must belong to a "nation" (landskap), of which there are 13, each representing a particular part of the country and having generally its own club-house and fund. For
singing, the students have a high reputation.
The cathedral stands nobly above the town; its tall western towers with their modern copper-sheathed spires are visible for many miles. It is of simple form, and mainly French in style (the first architect was a Frenchman, Etienne de Bonneuil) modi fied by the use of brick as building material. Ornamentation is thus slight except at the southern portal. The church was build ing from 1287 to 1435. It suffered from several fires, and a thorough restoration was completed in 1893. The easternmost chapel is the fine mausoleum of Gustavus Vasa. The castle was founded in 1548 by Gustavus I. It was destroyed by fire in 1702, and is still in part ruined. Uppsala is a book-printing centre.
In ancient Limes the Euphrates ran west of Ur, reaching open water near Eridu. The river was diverted so that it passed by Ur in the time of Rimsin. The city also lay near the ancient junc tion of the Tigris with the Euphrates, when the former flowed along the Shatt al Hai. Ur lies close to the low hills which form the edge of the Arabian desert. It commanded the communica tions of both rivers. It was close to the sea and at the same time a convenient entre* for the commodities of the desert. The gradual change in the coast line and in the course of the rivers has left the ruins in the desert. Although most of the ruins of Ur as seen to-day,—and the ziggurat is one of the best preserved in Mesopotamia,—belong in their present form to the Neobabylonian period, recent excavations have shown that the site has been occupied from extreme antiquity. Original excava tions were undertaken by Taylor in 1854, but a serious exam ination of the site was not made till after the World War by Hall. His work has since been ably continued by Woolley.