Excavations at Ur

Abstract

OWING to the late date at which excavations were resumed at Ur this year, Dr. C. L. Woolley's first report on the season's work has only just been received and is published in the Times of March 16. The operations of the joint expedition this year are to be directed to the exploration of a cemetery of the Jemdet Nasr period of about 4,000 B.C., which lies at a depth of 54 ft. below the surface and involves the removal of about 5,000 tons of accumulated rubbish. The three weeks‘ work which had been completed at the time Dr. Woolley wrote has produced a remarkable example of sculpture in the round in the form of a woman's figure in alabaster with lapis lazuli inlay forming a fillet outlining the face, lapis lazuli and shell eyes, bituminous inlay for the eyebrows, which meet above the nose, and hair in dark paint. The statue is ten inches high. It is not only the earliest known example of sculpture in the round at Ur, dating from about the last quarter of the fourth millennium, but it is also remarkable as being the first statue to be found in a grave. It lay in a soldier's grave, close to his head and touching the blade of a bronze axe which he carried over his shoulder. This grave is situated in what would appear to have been a military cemetery in the latter half of the Boyal Cemetery period. This at least is the inference which Dr. Woolley draws from the number of battle axes, adze-shaped axes and daggers which have been found in this area. An interesting feature in the economy of the city is conjectured to interpret the existence in the very heart of the town of an area which throughout the history of Ur was a mere rubbish heap. A section shows that while this rubbish heap was continually receiving additions, it was at the same time constantly being removed to provide material for the terraces on which new buildings were erected.