From Ur's Royal Tombs

Wall St Journal ^ | December 28, 2009 | Julia M. Klein

[SunkenCiv]

Crammed into a single large gallery, the Penn Museum show -- filled with delicate cylinder seals and alabaster pots, and glittering strings of gold, carnelian and lapis lazuli beads -- is at once frustratingly old-fashioned and deliberately retro in its design. Musical selections from the expedition's record collection play in the background. The texts are well-written but long and somewhat dense. They are supplemented by archival and contemporary images of the site and computer terminals displaying the exhibition's Web site and other Web resources and offering visitors a chance to "live blog" about the show.

[SunkenCiv]

Penn Museum -- Queen Puabi's headdress

[SunkenCiv]

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[Duchess47]

That is absolutely gorgeous. And thank you for keeping me on your ping list. I never reply but rest assured I read and enjoy every one.

[bunkerhill7]

Don`t forget the 12 Ram-in-a-Thicket statuettes a la` Abraham

[Fred Nerks]

Woolley conducted excavations at Ur for 12 seasons, excavations paid for by the British Museum and the University of Pennsyvlania; five of those seasons (1926-1932) were concentrated on the Royal Cemetery. Woolley excavated some 1850 burials, including 16 royal graves in the earliest part of the cemetery. Fourteen of them had been plundered in antiquity; one of those was Queen Puabi's tomb, which was largely intact. Ten of the sixteen royal tombs had large substantially-built stone and/or mud brick tombs with one or more chambers. The other six are royal Death Pits, which had no structures but lots of bodies.

Queen Puabi's tomb, recorded as RT/800, was discovered some 7 meters below the top of the tell.

WOOLLEY AT UR. LINK

[Fred Nerks]

TREASURES FROM THE ROYAL TOMBS OF UR:

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LINK

[Allegra]

How I would love to see this...

[rdl6989]

That is a beautiful headdress.

[Jimmy Valentine]

I saw this exhibit at the Smithsonian a few years ago when itwas on tour.

Fantastic.

Not only beautiful works of art but interesting technological advances made by the Sumerians could be seen.

[colorado tanker]

Thanks for posting. This is beautiful stuff.

[SunkenCiv]

Happy New Year.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks JV. I’ve gotta get on the Smithsonian mailing list, or something.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Fred Nerks. I’d guess the Sumerians invented naugahyde and velvet wallpaper.

[SunkenCiv]

I grok that.

[SunkenCiv]

The display is a bit different than the original — the headress used to be displayed on a likeness of a countenance restructured with clay over a skull.

[SunkenCiv]

They had more nerve than I would have had in the face of a possible cave-in.

[SunkenCiv]

Fred Nerks posted an image of that above — it antedates Abraham by 700 or 800 years.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Duchess47, I appreciate that kind remark.

[aruanan]

Fred Nerks posted an image of that above — it antedates Abraham by 700 or 800 years.

I suppose as long as there are thickets of thorns and wandering rams with curling horns somebody occasionally will get lucky, huh?

[Jimmy Valentine]

What is really interesting among many things,is there is a spear in the collection.The spearhead is not hafted, e.g. the end split and the tip tied to it.

Instead, the spear tip is socketed, e.g., the shaft of the spear is inserted into the spear tip.

The Egyptians were using hafted weaponry long after the Sumerians had disappeared.

It is like finding a semi-automatic weapon in a collection of muskets.