Billie Melman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- June 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198824558
- eISBN:
- 9780191863332
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198824558.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Historiography, Cultural History
Chapter 5 focuses on Ur, Tell al-Muqayyar, in southern Iraq, and the discovery and popularization, after the First World War, of Sumerian civilization, largely unknown until then. Excavated between ...
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Chapter 5 focuses on Ur, Tell al-Muqayyar, in southern Iraq, and the discovery and popularization, after the First World War, of Sumerian civilization, largely unknown until then. Excavated between 1922 and 1934 by an Anglo-American expedition directed by Leonard Woolley, the most prominent public archaeologist of the Near East between the wars, Ur became a spectacle of a distant antiquity that was related to modernity. The discovery of Ur’s cemeteries, studied here, competed with the contemporary exposure of the tomb of Tutankhamun. The chapter considers Ur’s appeal as an “antique modern”, combining the drawing power of the biblical paradigm manifested in the identification between Ur, Abraham, and the birth of Abrahamic religions, and the appeal of the material riches discovered in the cemeteries, extracted from their place of origin and displayed in metropolitan museums and venues, a process which the chapter recovers. Represented as an Ur-culture, the place of origin of Near Eastern and world civilizations, older than Egypt, Ur was modernized and envisioned as the hub of a global ancient world, a vision that matched mandate notions about the development of Iraq. At the same time, evidence of live burials at the cemeteries was connected to mass killing during the First World War and the commemoration of the war dead. In addition to written, archival, and published sources, the chapter makes use of a wealth of visual representations, including aerial photography, illustrations, and archaeological objects.Less
Chapter 5 focuses on Ur, Tell al-Muqayyar, in southern Iraq, and the discovery and popularization, after the First World War, of Sumerian civilization, largely unknown until then. Excavated between 1922 and 1934 by an Anglo-American expedition directed by Leonard Woolley, the most prominent public archaeologist of the Near East between the wars, Ur became a spectacle of a distant antiquity that was related to modernity. The discovery of Ur’s cemeteries, studied here, competed with the contemporary exposure of the tomb of Tutankhamun. The chapter considers Ur’s appeal as an “antique modern”, combining the drawing power of the biblical paradigm manifested in the identification between Ur, Abraham, and the birth of Abrahamic religions, and the appeal of the material riches discovered in the cemeteries, extracted from their place of origin and displayed in metropolitan museums and venues, a process which the chapter recovers. Represented as an Ur-culture, the place of origin of Near Eastern and world civilizations, older than Egypt, Ur was modernized and envisioned as the hub of a global ancient world, a vision that matched mandate notions about the development of Iraq. At the same time, evidence of live burials at the cemeteries was connected to mass killing during the First World War and the commemoration of the war dead. In addition to written, archival, and published sources, the chapter makes use of a wealth of visual representations, including aerial photography, illustrations, and archaeological objects.
Georges Roux
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748613878
- eISBN:
- 9780748653584
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748613878.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The ruins of Ur in Iraq are the most beautiful and eloquent in all Mesopotamia. After some explorations and probes, the first of which go back to 1854, the Ur excavations began in 1918 under the ...
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The ruins of Ur in Iraq are the most beautiful and eloquent in all Mesopotamia. After some explorations and probes, the first of which go back to 1854, the Ur excavations began in 1918 under the direction of Sir Leonard Woolley. In 1922, the ziggurat and the great rectangular platform surrounding it had been partly exposed. From this trench many clay vessels emerged, as well as beads of cornelian, lapis lazuli and even gold, sure evidence of the presence of tombs. Excavating a cemetery, above all in Mesopotamia, is always technically difficult and, as Woolley's labourers and the archaeologist himself lacked experience, he had the admirable sense to close the workings and not return until four years later. The celebrated ‘royal cemetery’ of Ur was thus excavated between 1926 and 1932, at a rate of three or four months a year.Less
The ruins of Ur in Iraq are the most beautiful and eloquent in all Mesopotamia. After some explorations and probes, the first of which go back to 1854, the Ur excavations began in 1918 under the direction of Sir Leonard Woolley. In 1922, the ziggurat and the great rectangular platform surrounding it had been partly exposed. From this trench many clay vessels emerged, as well as beads of cornelian, lapis lazuli and even gold, sure evidence of the presence of tombs. Excavating a cemetery, above all in Mesopotamia, is always technically difficult and, as Woolley's labourers and the archaeologist himself lacked experience, he had the admirable sense to close the workings and not return until four years later. The celebrated ‘royal cemetery’ of Ur was thus excavated between 1926 and 1932, at a rate of three or four months a year.
