Pit W

Context Title: Pit W     
Context Name (Publication): Pit W     
Context Name (Excavation): Pit W     
Context Description: Pit W was excavated from the bottom of area PG near Pits Y and Z in order to more fully explore the Seal Impression Strata discovered running across the cemetery. Since these strata contained so many early seals and tablets it was clear that they were essential for dating the graves and for learning more about the administration of the city of Ur. In order to observe the strata more clearly, Pit W was much larger than most exploratory pits in the cemetery region, laid out to be 15x7 meters. It was dug from the northeast side of PG/1631 but its horizontal extents were not mapped and Benati (2015) believes that PG/1631 was mistaken for PG/1648, placing Pit W somewhat farther SE. Its published stratigraphic profile shows that PG/1631 (possibly 1648) was actually somewhere near the middle of the long side of the trench and Woolley states that Pit W was placed so as to virtually fill the gap between Pits Y and Z, but was set a few meters northeast of them. This allows for a relatively accurate placement of the pit. Pit W quickly ran through the seal impression strata but Woolley continued it down much farther, as he had with Pits Y and Z, to reach about a meter below sea level. He thus uncovered many graves earlier than the main Royal Cemetery, and because he believed them to be from the Jemdet Nasr period, he began JNG numbers for them. This discovery, combined with early graves in Pit Y, spawned the conception of a Jemdet Nasr cemetery running beneath and south of the Royal Cemetery, and in season 12 Woolley would seek to expose it in Pit X.     

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Objects: Pit W 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)
18430 (none) 1933,1013.169 (none) Beads. Carnelian rings and white shell tubes and rings.
18476 (none) 1933,1013.170 (none) Beads. Carnelian rings and one tubular.
18415A (none) 1933,1013.224 (none) Clay figurines. Crudely hand-modelled in dark clay. Nude female figures, steatopygous, the heads very small, the arms thick and short. The lower part of the legs of B missing.
18424 (none) 1933,1013.231 (none) Clay owl's head. Baked clay. Hand-modelled with spike below for attachment.
18722 (none) 1933,1013.244 (none) Clay pot, painted. Drab clay with design in red on the shoulder. Type JN sj.8 but with 2 spouts side by side. [Note on back card reads Beads missing. JNG 15 - lozenge shaped carnelian.]
18605 (none) 1933,1013.246 (none) Clay vase, painted. Characteristic Jemdet Nast 3 color design. Type new JN.32.
18606 (none) 1933,1013.249a (none) Clay vase, painted with red wash, burnished. Type JN.j.12. Very badly smashed.
18646 (none) 1933,1013.62 (none) Lead tumbler. Distroed and one side decayed. Not in catalog.
18463 (none) 1933,1013.82 (none) Cylinder seal. Bright dark red stone (jasper?). Approved with 2 animals and a bird in procession.
19247 (none) 1935,0112.80 (none) Beads. 1 shell tube, and 2 oval shell frontlets; diamond beads of lapis, mother-of-pearl, paste and limestone, paste balls, small shell rings, quartzite rhomboid and square paste spacers.
(none) (none) 1935,0113.425 (none) (none)

Media: Pit W Export: JSON - XML - CSV

Media Media Title Title Label Author Omeka Label
Ur Excavations IV; The Early Periods Ur Excavations IV; The Early Periods 1955 Woolley, L. (none)
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Context

Ur > Royal Cemetery | PG > Pit W

References

Woolley, L. . (1955) Ur Excavations IV; The Early Periods, Oxford: Oxford University Press.