 | TTA | TTA is shorthand for Trial Trench A, one of two exploratory trenches excavated in Woolley's first season at Ur in 1922. This one was about 4 meters wide by about 40 meters long as revealed by an aerial photograph taken at the end of the 1922 season. The trench encountered a few scattered finds of jewelry and materials that led Woolley to suspect they were from a graveyard, but he felt his team of local diggers was not yet ready to excavate such sensitive contexts. Thus, he decided to concentrate on TTB for the first few seasons, according to his various publications. One of the primary reasons for concentrating on TTB initially, however, may have been that Woolley discovered no architecture in TTA but had struck the enunmah building in TTB.
Woolley returned to TTA in season 5, when he expanded with new trial trenches and eventually opened up the entire area of the Royal Cemetery. No individual graves are reported in TTA and any that might have been encountered did not receive PG numbers. Those in the following trial trenches expanding TTA (TTE, TTF, TTG) did receive these numbers and gave their abbreviation (PG) to the entire Royal Cemetery area. | (none) |
