Even though the city lost the position of pre-eminence it had enjoyed during the Uruk Period, it continued to play an important position down through the Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE). The Third Dynasty of Ur governed in such a way as to give birth to a Sumerian Renaissance and Uruk benefited from this as much as the rest of the region. With the fall of the city of Ur in 1750 BCE and the invasion of Sumer by Elamites, along with the incursions of the Amorites, Uruk went into decline along with the rest of Sumer. The city continued to play a significant role, however, throughout the Seleucid and Parthian periods of Sumer’s late history. This is a substantial point to note in that many other Sumerian cities fared far less well at this same time. The sacred districts continued to be maintained, though to lesser degrees, into the 7th century CE; long past the time when many other Mesopotamian cities had been abandoned. The historian Bertman writes, “Uruk had a life-span of 5,000 years. Its oldest layers lie virtually unexplored, submerged deep in the mud of the alluvial plain from which its life once sprouted” (37. Perhaps buried in the ancient ruins is the answer to why the first city in the world rose as it did, where it did, and remained so important to the people of Mesopotamia for so long. Unlike other cities throughout the region, it was not abandoned until the Muslim Conquest of Mesopotamia in 630 CE.