Pit X

General

Context Title:	Pit X¹
Context Name (Excavation):	Pit X
Context Name (Publication):	Pit X
Context Description:	Pit X was excavated as a large southern extension of the Royal Cemetery area, likely originally conceived as an extension of Pit Y (Pit J) at the southwest corner. Its main purpose was to uncover the earliest burials in the area, the so-called Jemdat Nasr cemetery first encountered in pits Y and Z. Pit X measured approximately 30x15 meters, though it may originally have been laid out to be 35x20. Woolley reports it as a rectangle covering 1000 square meters, but even the largest indication on the plan map and satellite images is at most 700 square meters and not truly rectangular. Nevertheless, it is a very large space that reached sea level some 20 meters below the surface of the mound. In the Antiquaries Journal for 1934 Woolley reports a total of 13,160 cubic meters of dirt having been removed from this pit. Some minor building remains of the Neo-Babylonian and Kassite periods were found near the surface but most of the area was apparently used as a dumping ground in the Late Bronze Age and later. Woolley knew that the Royal Cemetery area extended to the south of his main area PG but believed he would find few graves of the Akkadian and EDIII period. He discovered more than he expected, but none were overly rich in finds. These graves did not receive PG numbers since the UE2 Royal Cemetery volume had already been published. Instead, they received PJ numbers. The series PJG applied to graves in Pit X Woolley felt to be Akkadian or later and PJB applied to those of the EDIII period. The break between these two sequences came at around 10 meters above sea level. In all, Pit X added some 250 to the more than 1000 burials of these periods that Woolley had already uncovered in area PG. Beneath the graves of the Royal Cemetery (starting at around 6 meters above sea level) Woolley reached the earlier graves of what he called the Jemdat Nasr cemetery. Graves at this depth were given JNG numbers. In fact, JNG eventually applied to all of the early graves discovered in pits W, X, Y, and Z. Some of those excavated in Y and Z had received PG numbers but they were renumbered for publication in the JNG sequence. Most of these graves actually date to the Early Dynastic I period. The area near the base of the pit was smaller than that at the top. Only around 400 square meters was exposed near sea level, yet more than 200 early graves were discovered. Although Ubaid period pottery fragments were found, only two Ubaid burials were discovered here. The large area excavation stopped at 2 meters above sea level, but a test pit at the bottom reached down to sea level itself.

[1] Imported from BM list of contexts.

Files

General

UE 4 Pit X.pdf - Download

UE 4 Pit X.3.pdf - Download

UE 4 Pit X.2.pdf - Download

Objects: Pit X Export: JSON - XML - CSV

U Number	Museum Number (UPM Date Reg Number)	Museum Number (BM Registration Number)	Museum Number (UPM B-number)	Description (Catalog Card)
19235	35-1-68	(none)	(none)	Beads. Four shell tubes (one borken); four carnelian and four crystal rings.
18880	35-1-77	(none)	(none)	Beads. Gold double conoids, thin and poor, carnelian double conoids, rings, diamonds, and one ribbed date-shaped, and one pear-shaped with bleached pattern, [drawing] agate tubular and date-shaped, and lapis date-shaped. 49 in all. Restrung mostly in the original order.
19181	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Lapis and carnelian double conoids, Lapis ovals. Carnelian rings. Large cats-eye and white calcite truncated triangle.
19180	35-1-76	(none)	(none)	Beads. Lapis and carnelian rings; lapis tubes; lapis and carnelian truncated triangles.
19250	35-1-91	(none)	(none)	Beads. Lapis barrels, carnelian rings, lapis cylinder, long paste date-shaped, quartzite flattened hexagonal.
19239	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Lapis double concoids and one carnelian cylinder.
19223	(none)	1935,0112.81	(none)	Beads. Lapis tubes & ovals, quartzite double conoids; also a quantity of shell rings, and some small shells pierced as beads.
19200	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Lapis, small balls and ovals and date-shaped.
19074	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Lapis, small balls, ovals and double conoids; carnelian balls; silver balls.
19253	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Large carnelian rings and small shell rings and spacer.
19257	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Large carnelian rings.
19103	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Minute rings of blue glaze.
19131	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. One carnelian facetted date-shaped and 3 long date-shaped; 5 large lapis double conoids, one lapis striated ball, small lapis balls, and lapis pendant. [drawing 1:1]
19240	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. One carnelian tube, one crystal pear pendant, small paste ringed tubes, lapis ovals.
19077	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. One large carnelian date-shaped, and a number of small date-shaped beads of dark steatite (?)
19184	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Two long carnelian tubes and 13 carnelian date-shaped, and 4 lapis ditto.
19248	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Very long shells, four tubes and one oval frontlet pierced at each end.
19254	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Very small paste rings and oblong spacers for 3 ranks of beads (see field notes).
19850	35-1-79	(none)	(none)	Beads. 6 hematite and 1 red stone. Large ring beads.
19971	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. A few minute tubes of green glazed frit.
19435	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. carnelian balls and short date-shaped, lapis balls and balls of black and white marble.
19944	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Carnelian cylinders and 1 long faceted double conoid.
19945	35-1-71	(none)	(none)	Beads. Carnelian cylinders and rings, lapis ditto, 2 large chalcedony flattened ovals (one broken and ground down to half).
20089	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Carnelian cylinders [crossed out] rings.
20089	(none)	(none)	(none)	Beads. Carnelian cylinders [crossed out] rings.