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The Excavations at Ur, 1924–1925

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

C. Leonard Woolley
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Extract

The Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania restarted its excavations at Ur on 1st November 1924 and closed down on 28th February 1925 after a most successful season. For the epigraphical side of the work I had associated with me this year Dr. L. Legrain, of the University Museum, to whose help I owe much more than I can express: even in this preliminary report it will be clear how greatly our discoveries gained in interest and value from his study of the inscriptions. Mr. J. Linnell, who was in the field for the first time, assisted on the general archaeological side and kept the card index of objects. Unfortunately there was no architect on the staff, and we had to make what shift we could without, in a campaign peculiarly rich in architectural results; all the time I had reason to regret the loss of Mr. F. G. Newton, whose skill and experience had proved invaluable in former years. The main reason for the lack of an architect was shortness of funds: the British Museum was unable to provide from its own resources its due half of the cost of the Expedition, and we could not have taken the field at all but for the generous help given by friends in London; and even so I should have been obliged to bring the season to a premature end in January had not the British residents in Iraq come forward with subscriptions for the British Museum's side of the work which, met by Philadelphia with an equal sum, enabled me to carry on for another month. To all these I wish to acknowledge my gratitude.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 1925 , pp. 347 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1925

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References

page 349 note 1 The name of the founder of the Third Dynasty is now read as Ur-Nammu, but for the sake of consistency I continue to use the name Ur-Engur employed in my earlier reports.

page 354 note 1 As can be seen on the plan (fig. 1 (a)), the north-west side of the Ziggurat and the terrace wall are not parallel. This may be due to the existence of some earlier buildings whose line was followed by the Third Dynasty workers or it may be merely accidental: the terrace was of course built first and the more accurate orientation of the Ziggurat perhaps for the first time betrayed the mistake made in the setting-out of its base: the line of the parapet wall looks like a conscious compromise between the divergent lines of terrace and Ziggurat.

page 354 note 2 In one case, in Room 6, the hinge-stone was found in situ, and resting still upright in the well-worn hollow of the socket was the copper shoe of the hinge-pole. It was of heavy metal, 0·25 m. high and 0·22 m. in diameter, and had been made fast to the pole with copper nails; in it were traces of burnt palm-wood from the pole itself. On the outside of the shoe was repeated the inscription of Ur-Engur engraved on the stone.

page 364 note 1 Dr. Andrae in O.L.Z., Aug. 1924, speaks of it without hesitation as the Tieftempel.

page 375 note 1 On such figures, see Zimmern, H. in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, N.F.I., p. 152.Google Scholar

page 383 note 1 Other such bricks, also associated with ‘school exercise’ tablets, were found in a trial trench cut just outside the south-west wall of the Temenos. The ‘abaci’ have sixty squares arranged in a rectangle of six by ten, ten and six being the basic numbers of Babylonian arithmetic; the game-boards are T-shaped. The game is widely diffused. Professor Newberry supplies the following note: ‘A game called in Egypt dfw(?), Robbers(?), played with pieces similar to those used in the game śn.t but with the squares differently arranged. Certain squares are marked with a cross or are inscribed with hieroglyphic signs. The earliest example of such a board dates from the XVIIth Dynasty (from the tomb of Aqhor, now in Cairo), but it is probable that the game was known in Egypt as early as the Old Kingdom. Other similar boards have been found at Bismaya (Adab) in Lower Mesopotamia, of the age of Sargon (now in the Chicago Oriental Institute); at Susa (Morgan, de, Delegation en Perse, tome vii, p. 105)Google Scholar; at Enkomi, Cyprus (Murray, A. S., Exc. in Cyprus, p. 12Google Scholar, fig. 19). Ridgeway (J.H.S., xvi, 290) gives his theory as to playing the game.

page 387 note 1 Découvertes en Chaldée, Pl. 57 bis, 1.

page 392 note 1 I must here thank Mr. Bruce, of the Iraq railways, who when my little homemade oven proved inadequate to the task undertook the firing of all tablets found.

page 397 note 1 Dr. Legrain comments on this, ‘The name is Semitic, and so also is the prayer SILU and the writing of ZU-EN as = SIN. Da-da-i-lum may be an Akkadian; several DADA diviners are known at the time of Naram-Sin.’