Context Title: EM Site | EM     
Context Name (Excavation): EM     
Context Name (Publication): EM Site     
Context Description: The excavation area abbreviation EM stands for Extra-Mural because this area lies outside of the southwest Temenos Wall. H.R. Hall investigated a portion of the high ground at this site (his Area A) in 1919, finding the remains of domestic structures. Taylor had also cut a trench here in 1853. Woolley first tested the ground early in 1926 (season 4) and then dug more completely in season 5, concentrating on about 60x40 meters of space and excavating to a depth of approximately 5 meters from the surface. He dug through Kassite and other late remains that were particularly fragmentary. He reported two Kassite houses (which he dubbed High House and Hill House) that were complete enough to map, and eventually uncovered twelve houses of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period. There were many graves beneath the floors and tablets were also relatively common. Most of the tablets have to do with the business of the temple, so the houses here probably belonged to temple workers. Woolley named the streets he found in areas EM and AH. He felt that by naming the streets he could more easily identify any particular house, giving them numbers along the street with odd numbers on one side and even on the other. Many of the street names recur in the English city of Bath, where Woolley owned a house. The northern portion of area EM ('Quality Lane' on Woolley's map) was excavated as area DP in season 4. This was higher ground than much of the rest of EM and is mapped with only partial houses that are not published in any detail. The houses of EM are more completely published, but their various phases of construction and rebuilding are not detailed. The domestic space represented by these houses likely continued eastward into area EH in the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian and Kassite periods, then was cut through and partly destroyed by the foundations of the Neo-Babylonian temenos wall.     
Location Type: Domestic     

Objects: EM Site | EM Export: JSON - XML - CSV

Object U Number Museum Number (UPM Date Reg Number) Museum Number (BM Registration Number) Museum Number (UPM B-number) Description (Catalog Card)
7548 (none) 1928,1009.53 (none) Cylinder seal. Marble. White. Incised lines decoration and 4 minute circles [drawing of design]
7550 (none) 1928,1009.467 (none) Terracotta figurine. Nude god. Missing below knees. Bearded, wearing horned headdress and supporting against the breast in the right hand a short curved club and in the left a bird?? [drawing 1:1]
7551 (none) (none) B16771 Pin. Bone. Yellow. Point missing. Incised decoration at head. Hole perforated below decoration. [drawing 1:1]
7554 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Steatite. Black. Inscribed Unpierced. Unfinished. Ur Ama(?) ^dBa-u; dumu Arad-^dNannar(? written SES.) Outline of 1 figure only.
7557 (none) (none) (none) Duck weight Marble. Black. Head removed, outline of its base remains. Type VI.
7559 (none) (none) (none) Clay vase. Glazed. Originally blue, bleached. Type LXXXVIII =P182A Persian
7560 (none) (none) (none) Reclining bull. Mottled marble. Head missing. Bull rests on outside of hollowed cylinder and may be part of a decorative handle. [drawing 1:1]
7562 (none) (none) (none) Earring. Gold. Lunar pendant attached to which is a plate flat behind and convex in front with gold filigrane decoration in the shape of a nine-petalled rosette. Also gold filigrane decoration around rim. [drawing 1:1 and enlarged detail drawing of filigree]
7564A (none) 1928,1009.95 (none) [A-B] Two necklaces. Carnelian, frit, paste. Found loose in soil and arbitrarily re-strung. Both similar in type. Ribbed frit ring beads predominate. No mention of these beads in field notes (or in written account of site).
7564B (none) (none) B16796 [A-B] Two necklaces. Carnelian, frit, paste. Found loose in soil and arbitrarily re-strung. Both similar in type. Ribbed frit ring beads predominate. No mention of these beads in field notes (or in written account of site).
7565 (none) 1928,1010.371 (none) Bar. Iron. Rectangular in section, loop at one end. Badly corroded. Tapering at one end. Thick end is hollowed out to a depth of 10mm
7566 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Sard? Two registers. Inscribed Ur-sa(g)-ga; dumu.Ur-GAR-MUG. Portion of one end missing. Below spread eagle; above dragon?
7567 (none) (none) (none) Ring. Copper. [drawing 1:1] Found with U7624, U7575, U7623
7568 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Steatite. Black. Worshipper before seated Nannar.
7571 (none) (none) (none) Necklace. Glass beads. Ring 37 and 1 lentoid.
7572 (none) (none) (none) Necklace. Carnelian, blue crystal, yellow and one lapis lazuli bead. 34 in all. Lentoids, ring beads, bugle beads and double conoids. Restrung in original order. Found with Phonecian black and blue glass bottle U7660 and with clay pot Type XXIX
7574 (none) (none) (none) Stone fragment of statute. Human right hand, life size. Missing above knuckles. Blue diorite. Forefingers bent and grasping the back of the second hand? Skin round nails neatly pared and rounded off. [drawing 1:3]
7575 (none) (none) (none) 85 glass? ring beads. Bleached white. With U7624 and 7623. Found with Ccopper right U7567.
7576A (none) (none) (none) [A-B] 2 clay bowls. Glazed. Blue, bleached white. Found together one firmly waged into the other. Portion of rim of B missing. Type CCLXXVI. =P.24 Kassite.
7576B (none) (none) (none) [A-B] 2 clay bowls. Glazed. Blue, bleached white. Found together one firmly wedged into the other. Portion of rim of B missing. Type CCLXXVI. =P.24 Kassite.
7577 (none) (none) (none) Clay vase. Glazed, blue. Bleached white. Perforated on either side immediately below rim. Type CCXCIII
7578 (none) (none) (none) Pin. Bone. Brown. Perforated below top. [drawing 1:1]
7580 (none) (none) (none) Clay saucer. Reddish. Type CCXCV. =L
7581 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Rock crystal. White. 9 fish. c.-3000BC?
7582 (none) 1928,1009.464 (none) Terracotta plaque. Cast from mould of a deity in an arched shrine. [Drawing 1:1] Sides of the shrine are formed of two columns, the shafts covered with rows of minute dots in relief, the capitals squared and decorated with a rosette. The arched supported by them is rather flat, the sides of the soffit straight below but curved in the centre: the straight sides make an angle of 135 degrees, the central curve corresponds to a segmental swelling in the face the crown of the arch. On this face of the arch are two rows of lines, resembling brickwork; on the segmental swelling these are radial, on the straight sides at right angles to the soffit. Above the arch is a flat calathus-shaped drama with 2 smaller rings above. The figure it shown full face. The impression from the mould is bad especially in the middle of the figure which projects considerably; here are all detail is missing. It is difficult to say whether the figure is intended to be seated or standing. The face, full and oval, has no beard and is presumably that of a female; the hair is lost against the crown of the arch. The drapery is shown by a series of crescent-shaped curves, rather sharply pointed over the breast and fuller and rounder below; it starts high on the neck and comes low down, covering the feet if the figure is meant to be seated, reaching halfway down the calf as if it is standing; below the last curve vertical rows of small dots (like those on the columns) cover the whole field; these might be the skirt of an undergarment (if the figure is standing) or might represent the floor under a seated figure. From the defaced middle part of the body there rise, in high relief against the drapery, two pointed objects; these look at first sight like the ends of a short stole; but they are more probably attributes held in the two hands - but neither hands nor arms are visible on the relief. On either side of the figure, between it and the columns, is a vertical band of circular rosettes, with a similar rosette on each shoulder; a narrow band in relief, running along their inner edge, connects theese and seems to pass behind the head (as though the two small sections of it between the last rosettes and the ears might alternatively be earrings or the ends of culs): the effect is that of a garland festooned below the arch. A row of dots in high relief, running right across the plaque below the column bases, forms the ground of the relief. [drawing 1:1]

Media: EM Site | EM Export: JSON - XML - CSV

Media Media Title Title Label Author Omeka Label
Social Variation in Ancient Mesopotamia: An Architectural and Mortuary Analysis of Ur in the Early S Social Variation in Ancient Mesopotamia: An Architectural and Mortuary Analysis of Ur in the Early Second Millenium B.C. 1990 Luby, Edward Michael (none)
Social Variation in Ancient Mesopotamia: An Architectural and Mortuary Analysis of Ur in the Early S Social Variation in Ancient Mesopotamia: An Architectural and Mortuary Analysis of Ur in the Early Second Millennium B.C. 1990 Luby, E. (none)
Ur Excavations VII; The Old Babylonian Period Ur Excavations VII; The Old Babylonian Period 1976 Woolley, L. and M. Mallowan (none)
Ur Excavations VIII; The Kassite Period and the period of the Assyrian Kings Ur Excavations VIII; The Kassite Period and the period of the Assyrian Kings 1965 Woolley, Leonard (none)
UPM Field Photo numbers UPM Field Photo numbers (none) (none) (none)
  • 5 Media