Pit F
| Context Title: | Pit F |
| Context Name (Publication): | Flood Pit; Pit F |
| Context Name (Excavation): | PFT; Pit F |
| Context Description: | Pit F stands apart from the Royal Cemetery pits dug in the preceding year, despite its letter 'F' falling inside the sequence of those pits. The sequence of pit letters was assigned after most had been dug, probably in season 8 as confusion arose over pits I and J. Pit F was originally called PFT to distinguish it from pits in the Royal Cemetery area. The suffix T probably stood for Temenos to show that Pit F was dug in the area inside the early temenos wall. The abbreviation became confusing and Legrain reports PF as 'Flood Pit' and PFT as 'Shaft in town area,' but the two designations are actually identical. The term 'Flood Pit' was often used to refer to Pit F because of the deep layers of silt found near its deepest extent. As much as 3 meters thickness of fine water-lain soil was encountered here, evidence of a great flood. In his books and talks for the general public, Woolley often made the equation of this flood with the biblical flood, but in his academic discussions he never did. Instead, here he referred to the frequent flooding of the Euphrates and how this particular flood must have been large and may have spawned Sumerian legends. Pit F was extremely large and extremely deep. Woolley's intent was to reach the earliest occupation of the site. He chose an already low-lying zone neighboring the excavation area EH and laid out a trench 15x25 meters, though in the southern half he only dug 10 meters width, making the final pit L shaped. He truncated the horizontal extent further as he dug down to avoid collapse and he eventually reached a depth of some 19 meters from the surface of the mound. The top of the pit had already been denuded to the Early Dynastic levels and thus late material was typically not found here. From the surface, Woolley found eight levels of early building remains going deeper and deeper. Beneath this he found pottery kilns and a deep layer of over-fired pottery fragments indicating manufacture. Near the bottom of this stratum he began finding Uruk period graves (that he called Jemdat Nasr period graves). He labeled these not with numbers, but with letters in the sequence PFG/A through PFG/XX. Below this he encountered the flood layer with Ubaid period graves cut into it. Beneath the flood layer he found evidence of Ubaid habitation near sea level and what he believed to be indications of the early marshlands in which Ur had originally been a very low mound. |
Files
| Object | U Number | Museum Number (UPM Date Reg Number) | Museum Number (BM Registration Number) | Museum Number (UPM B-number) | Description (Catalog Card) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 13683 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Tablet. Round tablet, silver by weight and bronze archaic, perhaps rather later that archaic. Collection from 1928/29 HC.400. |
| 13696 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Seal impression. With inscription. Fragment little legible (apparently containing theophorous name ending dDungi) HC.207. |
| 13697 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Seal impression, with inscription. fragment. Little legible. HC.206. |
| 13698 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Tablet. Business. obv. illegible; rev. dated . Bur-Sin I (variant). HC.507. |
| 13699 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Tablet. Ur III Dyn. Business note; fragmentary. HC.508 |
| 13701 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Copper tool (1 barb missing) Cast? And then the blade hammered. Cutting edge on both sides of the blade; the haft thick and with rectangular section. [drawing 1:1] |
| 13702 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Whetstone. Grey stone. Section square with bevelled edges; slightly thickened at centre; piered at one end. |
| 13704 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Spindle whorl. Half of ... of pink stone, (steatite), polished; the top slightly convex. [drawing] |
| 13705A | (none) | (none) | (none) | (A) Upper quern-stone. dark grey larve. Set in a round-topped lump of bitumen which served as a handle; (B) A lower saddle quern-stone of dark lava. |
| 13706 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Flint core. [drawing 1:1] |
| 13708 | 31-17-370 | (none) | (none) | Clay jar. Fragments of. With nicked ornament on rim & shoulder-line, and combed or scrabbled ornament on shoulder (see field notes for drawing). Type RC.116 variant. | |
| 13710 | 31-17-402 | (none) | (none) | Libation vase drab clay. Type ?12CXLIV [unclear] Not published [ This contradicts publication info on same catalog card] | |
| 13711 | 31-17-15 | (none) | (none) | Cylinder seal. White shell. With linear design. | |
| 13713 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Model boat. In bitumen (broken). [drawing] |
| 13714 | 31-16-371 | (none) | (none) | Stone bowl. Half of: Rather roughly worked in dark grey steatite. Type rough rimless variant of type RC112. Not in field notes. [drawing] | |
| 13715A | (none) | (none) | (none) | Clay pans. Low straight sides. 3 broad ribbon loop handles which bend down inwards and are attached to the base of the bowl inside about halfway between the center and the circumference. A = 2 handles broken and missing. Red clay with whitish slip. B Complete except for a chip : greenish clay. Not in Cat of Vol. IV |
| 13716 | 31-16-517 | (none) | (none) | Fragment of Obsidian lid. Ground down to a thinness of one millimetre, originally a dish about d. 80, of greying obisidian. [drawing] |
| 13717 | 31-16-483 | (none) | (none) | Fragment of a small bowl. (Steatite?) Round the side in very low relief is a moulded rope pattern: from this rise imitation loop handles modeled in low relief, the tops of the loops comming to the rim of the bowl. [drawing] | |
| 13718 | 31-16-724 | (none) | (none) | Clay model wheel. Not in Catalog 7. | |
| 13719 | 31-16-494 | (none) | (none) | Clay Disk. Pierce through the centre. The flat edge is notched all round, and round it runs a shallow roughly-cut groove thus, but rough and irregular. [drawing] |
| 13720 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Clay figurine. Clay burnt black, sheep? [drawing 1:1] |
| 13722 | 31-17-24 | (none) | (none) | Stamp seal. Translucent white quartzite(?) oval, flat below & rounded above: on the flat base, traces of an animal design mostly done with a drill-point, in dots joined up by rough engraving; the design really unrecognisable now. [drawing 1:1] | |
| 13723 | 31-16-505 | (none) | (none) | Weight of grey stone. Lentoid, with flattened base. [drawing 1:1] Type II | |
| 13724 | 31-16-476 | (none) | (none) | Stone celt. Black pebble: polished, edge chipped. [drawing 1:1] |
| 13725 | (none) | (none) | (none) | Stone celt. Black stone. Ground. [drawing 1:1] |
| Media | Media Title | Title | Label | Author | Omeka Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UPM Field Photo numbers | UPM Field Photo numbers | (none) | (none) | (none) |
| Ur Excavations IV; The Early Periods | Ur Excavations IV; The Early Periods | 1955 | Woolley, L. | (none) |
- 2 Media
Sibling Locations
AH Site | AH - City Wall | CLW - DP - Dublalmah | LL - EH Site | EH - Ehursag | HT - EM Site | EM - Enunmah | TTB | ES - ESB - FH - Giparu | KP - Great Nanna Courtyard | PD - Harbor Temple - House 34/1 - House 34/2 - House Site - Kassite Fort - KPS Site | KPS - LT - LW - Mausoleum Site | BC - Neo-Babylonian Housing | NH - NNCF - NTB - P/103 - Palace of Bel-Shalti-Nannar | AD - Royal Cemetery | PG - SM - Temenos Wall | TW - TTC - XNCF - Ziggurat Terrace | ZT
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Context
Ur > Pit F
References
Woolley, L. . (1955) Ur Excavations IV; The Early Periods, Oxford: Oxford University Press.