Ur Excavations II; The Royal Cemetery | Ur Excavations II; The Royal Cemetery

General

Title:	Ur Excavations II; The Royal Cemetery
Date:	1934
Author:	Woolley, Leonard
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication place:	Oxford

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General

Objects: Ur Excavations II; The Royal Cemetery | Ur Excavations II; The Royal Cemetery Export: JSON - XML - CSV

U Number	Museum Number (UPM Date Reg Number)	Museum Number (BM Registration Number)	Museum Number (UPM B-number)	Description (Catalog Card)
(none)	30-12-574	(none)	(none)	(none)
(none)	(none)	(none)	(none)	unknown
(none)	(none)	(none)	B17581	Unknown
(none)	(none)	(none)	(none)	(none)
(none)	30-12-522	(none)	(none)	(none)
10000	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Wig. Of Mes-kalam-dug. A casque of hammered gold with engraved detail representing the hair and beard. The hair on top of the head is in long combed and slightly waved tresses coming from a parting which goes right across from front to back down to the ears: it has a long tress bound round the head by a narrow ribbon, and below this are two rows of looped curls: at the back it is gathered into a small chignon: below the looped curls come formal pendant curls 2 rows at the back of the head and 4 rows (for whiskers) in front of the ears. The interior was fitted with a padded cap fastened on by small holes round the edge of the metal: fragments of wool and cloth were found inside. [drawing]
10001	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Cup Oval calabash type, with rib at end On the side, inscr: Mes-Kalam-dug
10002	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Cup Hemispherical (nearly) with simple ridge round rim On one side inscription: Mes-Kalam-dug
10003	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Cup Oval, calabash type Decorated with fluting and engraved patterns round the edge and on the base. The handles are vertical knobs of lapis lazuli between gold plates, secured by rivets.
10004	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Lamp Ordinary flat shell type At the tip of the spout the metal is bent into a coil On the base inscr. "Mes-Kalam-dug"
10005	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Pin With lapis lazuli ball head capped with gold Type V
10006	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads Double conoids of gold and lapis The larger gold beads are of foil over bitumen, the smaller more solid: the largest are unusually large, both in gold and lapis
10007	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads Triangles of 11 gold and 11 lapis
10008	(none)	(none)	(none)	Frog Amulet. Lapis [drawing]
10009	(none)	(none)	(none)	Amulet Lapis In form of a seated ram [drawing] 1:1
10010	31-18-8	(none)	(none)	Gold Monkey Miniature, on a copper stick (probably a decorative pin), the stick broken [drawing]
10011	(none)	(none)	(none)	Cylinder Seal White shell Only the remains of it, completely decayed It hung on the silver belt with the gold dagger and whetstone
10013	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Drinking-cup (electrum?) apparently lathe spun: base formed by adding a small circular plate. Found with U.10,034
10014	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Dagger The blade is of gold, leaf shaped with central rib The hilt has a gold guard studded with gold nails: the grip was of silver-plate over wood, the pommel of silver-plate studded with gold. The sheath was of silver. The silver of the hilt has perished altogether: the sheath is preserved in poor condition. It was fixed to a silver belt
10015	(none)	(none)	(none)	Whetstone Lapis lazuli Hung on a thin gold ring which was attached to the silver belt
10018	(none)	(none)	(none)	Gold Axe Double lunate type Made of a rather low grade electrum [drawing] Type A15
10019A	(none)	(none)	(none)	[A-P] Earrings. Gold and Silver. Spirals of wire. [A-D] 4 of gold, [E-P] 12 of silver. There were other silver examples too broken to be kept: all the silver is much corroded. Two of the gold rings were inside silver ones (the latter a good deal broken).
10020	(none)	(none)	(none)	Dagger Copper blade Gold handle and silver grip The blade leaf-shaped with central rib the handle of gold over wood (decayed) with lunate pommel: the handle is broken and distorted: the silver grip (attached by gold studs) is much decayed Blade in poor condition
10021	(none)	(none)	(none)	Dagger Copper blade Handle of some material now wholly perished (silver?) with gold guard studded with gold nails and gold nails on the point of the pommel [drawing]
10022	(none)	(none)	(none)	Dagger Copper blade, handle of silver-plate over wood In very bad condition, blade decayed and broken, and the silver all persished [drawing 2:5]

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Locations: Ur Excavations II; The Royal Cemetery | Ur Excavations II; The Royal Cemetery Export: JSON - XML - CSV

Context Title	Context Description	Description (Modern)
Royal Cemetery \| PG	The excavation area abbreviation PG grew to refer to a large region, at least 60x80 meters, in the southeastern portion of the Neo-Babylonian temenos but below the level of that wall. The area is most often referred to as the Royal Cemetery. The abbreviation PG, however, was initially used to designate individual graves: PG1422, for example, refers to Private Grave number 1422. The first PG numbers were assigned in season 5 when a series of trial trenches (see TTD, TTE, TTF, and TTG) were excavated in the area. These trenches were expanded to uncover more and more graves over the next few seasons. The last number assigned in the PG sequence was around 1850 but numbers were often reassigned for publication and even in the field some numbers were combined as they were recognized to come from one large grave rather than two separate ones. Others were deemed too fragmentary to publish; furthermore, several hundred additional graves were found in Pit X, an expansion of the PG area dug in 1934. The total number of graves excavated in the Royal Cemetery is thus extremely difficult to determine. Woolley reports that there may once have been as many as three times the total number of graves he recorded, as he found many plundered and almost completely destroyed. Despite being called the Royal Cemetery, there were only 16 graves that Woolley actually dubbed 'royal.' He believed that these formed the core of the burial ground and that many others wanted to be buried nearby. The cemetery lay outside the original temenos, the core of the city, and was apparently a dumping ground through much of its history. Stratigraphic layers of sealings (see SIS) help to date the main period of the Royal Cemetery to the Early Dynastic III, though there are also graves of the Akkadian and perhaps some of the early Ur III period here. Well beneath the main PG area are also graves of the ED I and Uruk periods, but these were mainly uncovered in pits dug within or adjacent to area PG (see PJ, Pit W, Pit X, Pit Y and Pit Z). Most burials in area PG were simple inhumations with few artifacts, but the ones Woolley called royal were much more elaborate. Apart from having rich artifacts, they also showed evidence of human sacrifice -- many bodies were found in 'death pits' outside the main 'royal' burial. The people found in these death pits may have been attendants who went into the afterlife with their king or queen, yet no other indication of this practice is found elsewhere in Mesopotamia. Nor do we know who these 'kings and queens' were. The dating of the graves makes it difficult to associate them with a known dynasty at Ur and there were very few names found with any of the bodies. Only the burial of Puabi, the Queen, can be directly identified by her cylinder seal and she does not appear on any king list. References to Mesannepada and his wife Ninbanda, a king and queen of the first dynasty of Ur, were found but not in specific graves. Instead, they were found in material above the main graves and would imply that the royal tombs pre-date the first dynasty. Woolley spent a great deal of time and energy excavating the Royal Cemetery and the majority of his field notes concern it. Recording of contexts here, then, is better than anywhere else at Ur. Nonetheless, not all of the graves were mapped and photographs were often difficult to obtain.	(none)
PG/1422	(none)	(none)
Burial 1	(none)	(none)
Burial 10	(none)	(none)
Burial 11	(none)	(none)
Burial 12	(none)	(none)
Burial 13	(none)	(none)
Burial 14	(none)	(none)
Burial 15	(none)	(none)
Burial 16	(none)	(none)
Burial 17	(none)	(none)
Burial 18	(none)	(none)
Burial 19	(none)	(none)
Burial 2	(none)	(none)
Burial 20	(none)	(none)
Burial 21	(none)	(none)
Burial 22	(none)	(none)
Burial 23	(none)	(none)
Burial 24	(none)	(none)
Burial 25	(none)	(none)
Burial 26	(none)	(none)
Burial 27	(none)	(none)
Burial 28	(none)	(none)
Burial 29	(none)	(none)
Burial 3	(none)	(none)