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.