At Ur, Ritual Deaths That Were Anything but Serene

NY Times ^ | October 27, 2009 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

[Pharmboy]

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
BURIAL PITA CT scan, left, of a female skull at a burial site at Ur. Women were buried with
elaborate adornments, right, and warriors with their weapons.

A new examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur, discovered in Iraq almost a century ago, appears to support a more grisly interpretation than before of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia, archaeologists say.

Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet a rather serene death. Instead, a sharp instrument, a pike perhaps, was driven into their heads.

Archaeologists at the University of Pennsylvania reached that conclusion after conducting the first CT scans of two skulls from the 4,500-year-old cemetery.

The recovery of about 2,000 burials attested to the practice of human sacrifice on a large scale. At or even before the demise of a king or queen, members of the court — handmaidens, warriors and others — were put to death. Their bodies were usually arranged neatly, the women in elaborate headdress, the warriors with weapons at their side.

C. Leonard Woolley, the English archaeologist who directed the excavations, a collaboration between Penn and the British Museum, eventually decided that the attendants had been marched down into burial chambers, where they drank poison and lay down to die. That became the conventional story. snip...

Ritual killing associated with a royal death was practiced by other ancient cultures, archaeologists say, snip...

...Ur, near present-day Nasiriyah in Iraq, has been spared in the recent warfare that brought damage and looting to other ancient digs. Ur is protected within the perimeter of an air base, which was recently handed back to the Iraqis.

[Pharmboy]

No wonder Abraham left...

"Hey...what're you going to do with that pike in your hand...hey...I'm talkin' to you..."

[Pharmboy]

An Ur-ping...

[Bulldawg Fan]

I believe Emperor Obama when he indicates our civilization is on an equal basis with every other society. No difference, right Mr President? Right??????????

[caver]

“Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?”

[Madam Theophilus]

For the absolute best history of the ancient world in regard to personal liberty, read Lord Acton’s masterful essay, “The History of Freedom in the Antiquity.”

[Prospero]

No wonder Abram left

First thing that went through my mind, as well. I'd always hoped for a better idea of what went on at Ur than we have. The Bible is mostly silent except that Abram was commanded to leave, and We have the ancient traditions as briefly hinted at by Josephus from the First Century (even then it was at least two thousand years in the past.)

I'd begun to see the "Astrologers," the Chaldees of Ur 4,000 years ago much like the Mayans. Over the long course of history that happened there at the original Babylon, there had to have been a variety of periods both good and bad. We just don't have enough information. Though, we certainly have more than we had a century and a half ago.

[Pharmboy]

Thanks for the esoteric correction you made on my post: Abraham to Abram. His Ur-ic name was indeed Abram and did not become Abraham until he made the Covenant with G-d. And, you did not point it out...humility always impresses.

[Pharmboy]

Thanks for the recommendation...I had never heard of the Acton book, but it sounds interesting.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

The Bible is mostly silent except that Abram was commanded to leave

Terah left Ur and headed to Canaan with his son Abram and his grandson Lot. But when he got to the land of Haran (also the name of his son (Lot's father) who had died in Ur), they stopped. Only after Terah died, did Abram finish the journey to Canaan.

So maybe the father was ordered by God, but he some reason to disobey and Abram was given the order afterward. I have always been fascinated by this story as people, particularly those with wealth and power, just didn't move from where they were from in those days.

Pikes to the backs of the head would certainly inspire some new ideas like "let's get the heck out of here!"

[FourPeas]

Thanks for this article. Because of its biblical tie, information on Ur is especially interesting.

[bperiwinkle7]

Lord Acton article link
http://www.acton.org/research/acton/history-of-freedom-in-antiquity.php

[FourPeas]

Thanks!

[PapaBear3625]

The recovery of about 2,000 burials attested to the practice of human sacrifice on a large scale. At or even before the demise of a king or queen, members of the court — handmaidens, warriors and others — were put to death. Their bodies were usually arranged neatly, the women in elaborate headdress, the warriors with weapons at their side.

The practice does provide the members of the court with a big incentive to do everything they can to ensure that the king stays healthy. This may have contributed to the system's beginning.

[Pharmboy]

VERY interesting point...makes sense.

[Prospero]

For the absolute best history of the ancient world in regard to personal liberty, read Lord Acton’s masterful essay, "The History of Freedom in the Antiquity."

Thanks, I needed refreshing. I hadn't read that speech in decades, and here it is online.

[Prospero]

Oh, no need in stressing a point with regard to his name, about which I was certain you were aware.

Another perhaps unrelated point is the fascinating elaborations on Abraham's story, as related by Josephus to his Roman audience, seems closer to the traditional (as opposed to scriptural) account, remembering the the author may or may not have had access to written records in the 1st century no longer extant (though not necessarily accurate - only interesting).

If I remember correctly, Josephus wrote Abram and his extended family's departure followed a dispute he had with the astrologers, the Chaldean priesthood of that particular epoch in Sumerian history. He held that the stars and planets themselves operated in obedience to a higher authority, and were therefore not likely to be worthy of worship as final arbiters of the fates of men. In other words, Abram broke with the astrologers and may be properly called the first astronomer, having recognized the stars and the wandering stars among them were created by the invisible One.

This elaboration, while unnecessary to a full understanding of the place held by Abram as chief among the Patriarchs and father of the faithful, always interested me, and had me wondering at what else in the history was lost to fire and neglect.

[aculeus]

bttt

[SunkenCiv]

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[colorado tanker]

big incentive to do everything they can to ensure that the king stays healthy

And a big incentive to get the heck outta Ur if the King looks peaked.

[Billthedrill]

Well, they don't know that their deaths weren't serene, but I guess it's a little tough to picture sliding sweetly into oblivion when somebody's hammering a metal spike into yer noggin. That's probably why I'm not a cultural anthropologist.