 | 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. 9 Church Lane | The house lay at the far end of a long private passage which ran back from Church Lane between the "Ram Chapel" (No. 11 Church Lane) and a row of what were probably magazines belonging to the householder; that they were store-rooms seems to be shown by the fact that they required protection; at the entrance of the passage there was a little guard-chamber where a slave could sit and keep effectual watch on all comers. There were six store-rooms in all and they call for no description; to the first three (Nos. 2a, 3a, and 4a) which inter-communicated, no entrance could be found by us, the wall being in places completely ruined; No. 5a afforded access to Nos. 6a and 7a and was itself entered by a door prudently close to the front door of the house proper. The wall along Church Lane was somewhat pretentious, for twenty-five courses of burnt brick still survived; round the main court (Room 1) there were sixteen courses, but behind this the building utilised older walls of which the burnt-brick foundations were buried deep underground and only the mud brick showed above ground level. There were therefore two periods represented, of which the front of the house belonged to the later. It is peculiar that there were two front doors, one leading straight into the central court and one into the small passage-room (2) which is more like the normal lobby. At a later time, when the court level had risen by 0.60 m. or more, the door into it was walled up and only that into the passage used. It is further peculiar that access to the two rooms (3) and (4) was through the passage only and that they had no doors onto the central court - it is a most rare exception to the rule of the omen-texts. | (none) |