Portal to Ur

Last year I was lucky enough to fulfil a lifelong dream of visiting the British Museum in London, which is arguably the world’s most illustrious stash of loot. One of the most fascinating halls was devoted to objects from Mesopotamia, particularly the Sumerian treasures.

I’ve recently been reminded of the exhibition because I’ve been reading some interesting articles by Michael Hudson about economic history, in which he discusses how Sumer’s palatial economy was the first known civilization to develop money, credit, and the payment of interest.

Sumer

Sumer was an area of several city-states that together comprise the earliest known civilization of Mesopotamia. The area that is now the desert of Southern Iraq was once a fertile river valley (Mesopotamia literally means ‘between rivers’, ie the Tigris and Euphrates). Sumer emerged in the 4^th millennium BCE and collapsed between 2100 and 1700 BCE, probably because rising soil salinity made it difficult to grow food crops.

Many of Sumer’s city-states were large, with populations of tens of thousands of people. They were stratified (divided into priests, upper class, lower class, slaves), temple-centered and centrally administered. Education was very important and male children were taught to write and keep records.

Nowadays, Sumerians are probably best known for developing cuneiform script, and for the world’s earliest known example of fictional literature: the Epic of Gilgamesh, the adventures of the King of Uruk (who was, however, a real historical figure).

Their gods were anthropomorphic and each city-state had its own selection of patron deities (though a deity could be worshipped in more than one city). Each god was served by a temple (ziggurat) and a priest-king (or, early in its history, a priest-queen).

The Sumerians buried their dead outside the city walls, and marked each grave a small mound. They believed the spirit would travel to Kur, a dark cavern underground, reached by a long staircase and through one of seven gates guarded by the god Neti. The spirit would come before Ereshkigal, Queen of the Great Earth, who pronounced the person dead as her PA, the scribal goddess Geshtinanna, recorded his or her names on a kind of census. After that, the spirit hung around eating dust and waiting for living relatives to pour down some libations so they’d have something to drink.

The 1922 Dig

Just over a hundred years ago, in 1922, an archeological team led by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley began excavations in Ur, one of Sumer’s great cities. It was a project sponsored by the British Museum and Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.

Incidentally, for those who have read Agatha Christie’s novel Murder in Mesopotamia, that novel is loosely based on her visit to this excavation—Woolley was a friend and had invited her to visit. During this visit she met her second husband, archeologist Max Mallowan, who was acting as Woolley’s assistant at the time.

Four years into the dig, Woolley’s team found a huge cemetery that had been in use in the last half of the third millennium BC.

The Royal Cemetery

Of about 2,000 graves, sixteen that were extraordinary for their size, the richness of their grave goods, and the evidence of special funerary rites. Collectively, these have been dubbed the Royal Cemetery at Ur.

Tomb of Queen Puabi

One of the most amazing of these tombs was that of Queen (or possibly High Priestess) Puabi. It was full of exquisite grave-goods and had been completely untouched by looters.

Puabi was identified by a cylindrical seal buried beside her. Like a seal ring, a cylinder was an identity document used to imprint one’s official signature, in this case by rolling it onto a tablet of wet clay. It could also be worn as jewelry or used as an amulet. In addition to the seal there were three women buried with her, who seem to have been her personal attendants. She and her attendants were beautifully adorned with elaborate gold head-dresses.

Above Puabi’s chamber was a death pit containing 21 attendants, a lyre, a chariot/sled and a large chest full of grooming tools. It’s not completely clear whether or not these were her servants, but it seems likely. If so, these attendants would have been killed at the time of her death in order to accompany her into the afterlife.

The Tomb(s) of Meskalumdug

King Meskalumdug (“Hero of the Good Land”) was a ruler in the 26th century BCE. There are two possible candidates for his tomb. Woolley proposed that it was (PG755), where they found an interesting eared helmet, a cylinder seal, lapis lazuli beads, alabaster vases, a gold dagger, golden bowls and a stick with a golden monkey carved on top of it.

Others think that King Meskalamdug’s actual tomb was a different one (PG 789), right next to Queen Puabi’s. In this there was a beautiful bull-headed lyre, whose music would alleviate the spirit’s long dreary years in the underworld. There was also a silver model of a boat and a silver-handled knife.

The Standard of Ur

One of the most amazing sights in the museum was the Standard of Ur, which was found in one of the largest royal tombs (PG 779), which probably belonged to a king named Ur-Pabilsag, who died about 2550 BCE.

This was a group of mosaics set in a wooden frame. Woolley’s team uncovered it in a tomb that had been extensively looted. Although the wooden frame had disintegrated and the bitumen glue had decayed, the pieces kept their original form in the soil. As such, the archeologists covered sections with wax, allowing the mosaics to be lifted in the original form.

There are two panels, each consisting of three horizontal strips. One is dubbed “War” because it depicts a military campaign. The central upper figure, bigger than everyone else, is the king. The naked, wounded figures lying under horses are the vanquished enemies. The other panel is called “Peace” because it shows a banquet complete with lyre, cups, and animals.

It is called a standard because Woolley initially thought it was designed to be carried on a pole. It’s not clear what its real purpose was though—it might have been a chest or a sound board.

The Ram in a Thicket

The strange and beautiful ‘Ram in a Thicket’ is one of a pair, the other being kept in the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia. Woolley named it this in reference to the Biblical story of the binding of Isaac, in which Abraham prepares his son for sacrifice in obedience to God. An angel stops Abraham at the eleventh hour, pointing out a ram caught by its horns in a thicket and so intimating that it would do just as well.

In fact, the animals probably depict markhor goats eating the leaves of a flowering tree. Here is Woolley’s description:

“The head and legs of the animal are of gold, the belly of silver, the body-fleece of pieces of carved shell but the fleece on the shoulders of lapis lazuli, and of lapus lazuli are the eye-pupils, the horns and the beard; the tree to whose branches its front legs were chained is of gold and it stands on a pedestal whose sides were silver-plated and its top of pink and white mosaic (PL 36)… The elegance and lightness of the figure harmonise perfectly with the brilliance of its colour—there is all the agility of the goat translated into art, but at the same time it is a dedicated animal and possesses a curious solemnity; the momentary poise which, as the drawings on the shell plaques prove, the artist knew so well how to seize is here frozen into permanence and life has become statuesque.”

It seems to have been an (extremely) elaborate stand for a tray, possibly meant for ritual materials. The tray would have sat on top of the golden tube that extends from the goat’s neck. Ash found near the statue suggest something was burned on it.

The Royal Game of Ur

Found among the tombs were five examples of a two-player strategy race boardgame dubbed the Royal Game. It was probably meant to amuse the dead during their long sojourn in Kur. It dates to between 2600-2400 BC, which makes it one of the oldest known boardgames in the world. It subsequently became popular throughout the Middle East and a very similar game was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. It seems to have faded out in late antiquity, perhaps morphing into other games. A version of it was still being played as late as the 1950s by a Jewish population in Kochi in India.

In the 1980s the Assyriologist and curator at the British Museum Irving Finkel deciphered a clay tablet written in 177 BC, which specified the rules of the game.

If you’d like to learn more or even have a go at playing it, here’s an explainer by Tom Scott and Irving Finkel himself.

Note: More photos are available to view here.