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The Excavations at Ur, 1926–7

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 started its fifth season at Ur on 28 October 1926, and closed down field work on 19 February 1927. Of the staff, three had been with me in the previous season : Mr. M. E. L. Mallowan again acted as general archaeological assistant, Mrs. Keeling was responsible for the drawings, and Mr. A. S. Whitburn was architect ; this year the inscribed material was dealt with by the Rev. E. Buroes, S.J.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1927 , pp. 385 - 423
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1927

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References

page 387 note 1 This is certainly the case with the town area excavated at Babylon, though Herodotus i, 180, says τὸ δὲ ἄστυ αὐτὸ ἐὸν πλκῆρɛς οἰκιέων τριωρόφων καὶ τɛτρόφων …

page 389 note 1 Generally speaking, therefore, the ground-level of the house was lower than that of the street; even where, owing to the repaving of the interior, one had to step up from street to house, that might be due to the fact that we had excavated down to early street level and had removed the road-surface contemporary with the late housepavement. An Omen Text, dealing with house features, says, ‘If its threshold drops towards the inside, revenue will come in; if its threshold drops towards the outside, there will be outgoings (expenses).’ Certainly it was almost invariably the case that the front door sill was raised, so that one had to step over it to enter ; the Text says, ‘If the threshold of a man's house is higher than the court, the master of the house will be set over the mistress of it : if the threshold of the court is higher than the (level of the) house, the mistress of the house will be over the master of it.’ For these and subsequent quotations from Omen Texts I am indebted to Mr. C. J. Gadd.

page 389 note 2 ‘If a house blocks the main street in its building, the owners of the house will die; if a house overshadows or obstructs the side of the main street, the heart of the dweller in that house will not be glad.’ Omen Text.

page 390 note 1 “ If the door of the room (RUKBU) opens on to the court, that house will be enlarged ; if the door of the RUKBU opens inside the house, that house (will be) broken away.’ Omen Text.

page 390 note 2 ‘If the water in the court runs to the back, expense will be continual; if the water in the court runs to the middle of the court, that man will have wealth.’ Omen Text.

page 390 note 3 ‘If the front of the house is made of plaited reed, the house will be scattered; if the front of the court is made of matting, the master of that house will be afflicted.’ Omen Text.

page 391 note 1 In the modern buildings of Baghdad the walls are similarly formed of two skins of brickwork with a rubble core between them; but as, by a false economy, the bricklayers lay all the bricks as stretchers, there is no bond and the tendency is for the outer face of the wall to peel off exposing the core, which rapidly disintegrates and the building collapses.

page 391 note 2 In no. 3 Gay Street the north-east wall had been entirely destroyed, and the rooms here may have been larger than is allowed for in our restored ground-plan.

page 400 note 1 The deification of the kings after their death and even in their lifetime might really be an extension of a belief normally held concerning every man who died. The niche may have its parallel in the ‘false door’ of the Egyptian tomb chamber (in the central sanctuary of the north-east temple of the Gig-Par-Ku there is a niche with double reveals which for a long time I took to be a bricked-up doorway), and if so this characteristic architectural feature may originate here as in Egypt from beliefs concerning the dead and be intimately connected with their worship.

page 401 note 1 The walling-up of the front door of a house for safety when the owner is leaving it for a season has always been a common practice in the East; cf. the houses of Tell el Amarna in Egypt.

page 406 note 1 Thureau-Dangin, Sum. u. Akkad. Konigsinschr., p. 201 top.

page 416 note 1 It seems to me perfectly obvious that this cutting away was not a work of destruction but that the old ziggurat (probably restored by Nebuchadnezzar, though no trace of his work on it remains) was incorporated in the temple plan ; the terrace of the ziggurat stands some metres above the temple floor, and the ziggurat itself is even to-day preserved to a considerable height; it is inconceivable that the new temple should have been backed against a mound which would have dwarfed it if that mound was merely a shapeless and discarded ruin.