Sources of Sumerian Gold: The Ur Goldwork from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. A Preliminary Report

Abstract

In Sir Leonard Woolley's account of the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Dr. Plenderleith mentions in his section on metal techniques a minute ring (diameter 2 mm) composed of six gold granules, which was found in the tomb of Queen Pu-Abi, and states, The Sumerians were the first people we know to have shown skill in filigree and granulated work .1 While there is no difficulty in finding examples of filigree or crude attempts at granulation in the Royal Cemetery, the six-granule ring is (with the strip discussed below) the only evidence that, in the Early Dynastic period, goldsmiths were able to produce the fine granulated work comparable to that known in the 3rd Dynasty of Ur and Early Babylonian periods. But until recently it was impossible to examine this celebrated piece because it could not be found among the collections of Ur jewellery in London, Baghdad or Philadelphia. To-day, however, it is on loan to the Institute of Archaeology in London from the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds, (the gift of J. R. Ogden), where a search, lasting over ten years, for what must be the smallest piece of archaeological evidence for the earliest use of this intricate and highly skilled technique, unexpectedly ended. (Plate Ia). A detailed scientific report by Dr. Seeley will be published when work on the entire Leeds collection is completed but to date we can say that while there is a variation of copper and silver in the granules of the six-granule ring one of the granules and a joint between two of the granules are virtually ioo% gold (Appendix I). We may therefore conclude that the goldsmith was using extremely small quantities of native gold obtained either from different alluvial sources or from the same river source but varying in composition. The method of manufacture probably used for the granules of the ring is given in Appendix II and it appears that no solder was used to join the granules together to form the circle; heating by a blowpipe on a flat surface and subsequent sintering would have been slifficient. A second piece (Plate Ib) from the Queen's tomb at Ur is composed of granules attached to a backing of sheet gold, and here the granules are less pure gold but were probably made in the same way as those forming the ring and fixed to the base by sintering. The initial analysis by Dr. Seeley and Mr. Robin Keeley, of the Institute of Archaeology Laboratory, of a gold bead (Plate Ic) from an Early Dynastic necklace from the Royal Cemetery now in the Leeds collection has formed the starting point of a programme of analysis in which the problem of the possible sources of Sumerian