 | AH Site | AH | In the southeast portion of the mound of Ur, Woolley excavated a large horizontal extent of domestic space roughly 115 x 85m. near the surface he found scattered Neo-Babylonian and Kassite remains and intrusive graves of the late periods but he did not publish these in detail nor are there any extant notes covering them. Instead, Woolley's main goal was to uncover the best preserved floorplans of houses. These he found several meters down, houses of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period. Because the Old Babylonian period was typically that associated with the potential time of Abraham, Woolley used the abbreviation AH (Abraham's Housing) to refer to this excavation area.
In the course of excavation of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian levels Woolley numbered 27 'houses,' or excavation units. He renumbered the houses for publication based on the overall plan, preserved walls, and doors onto streets. In this way he showed there were 52 individual houses within his 27 excavation areas. However, houses were frequently altered throughout period, as families would knock out walls or block up doors, and thus true house numbers are difficult to establish. Woolley mentions phases of rebuilding, but states that he sought the best preserved floor plan and published the excavation of a particular house based on that plan alone. In some cases he noted deeper remains that may have gone back to the Ur III period. These levels he partially uncovered as he excavated graves beneath the Larsa period floors.
A great deal of baked brick was in use for walls of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period. Some houses used it in the lowest portion of a wall, but others used it for entire walls up to 3 meters in height. Town planning was not evident, as streets tended to wander in narrow and winding paths. Corners where streets met were often rounded, leading Woolley to surmise that this was to prevent problems with laden donkeys catching their wares on corners.
Many houses had a domestic chapel within, often with family burials beneath the floor. Communal chapels were also noted, at least four being identified in the area. Finally, Woolley believed that some buildings were specifically used for commercial activities (shops), though this is difficult to prove. | (none) |
 | No. 2 Church Lane | The house was much ruined; it had been destroyed by fire in antiquity, the north side of the site had been denuded by water action, part of it had been dug, probably by Arab seekers after treasure, and the holes made were filled with clean drift sand; most of the walls had been removed and could often be traced only by the edges of the pavements and it was only along the south side of the building that the brickwork stood to any height. In spite of this it was possible to recover nearly all the ground-plan. The house had been a large one; the party walls between its rooms had had three courses of brickwork but those facing on the courtyard (3) had had eleven or more, and the door-jambs as many as fourteen; the burnt bricks in the walls were of the typical Larsa type, light yellow in colour, often with a bright red face, 0.27-0.28 m. X 0.18 m. X 0.09 m, and in the pavements were bricks of three types, 0.30 m. sq., 0.25 m. sq. and 0.27-0.28 m. X 0.18 m. X 0.09 m. The outer NW corner was rounded (implying that a lane branched off from Church Lane at this point) and the SW corner had been cut off diagonally to make easier the turn of the street. Against the south side of the house, beyond Church Lane, there was what appeared to be an open yard. | (none) |