PJ

Context Title: PJ     
Context Name (Excavation): PJ     
Context Name (Excavation): Jemdet Nasr Cemetery     
Context Description: The excavation area abbreviation PJ originally referred solely to Pit J, later renamed Pit Y. The abbreviation then came to represent the expansion of the Royal Cemetery to the south from Pit Y, called Pit X. Pit Y uncovered many graves earlier than the Royal Cemetery that Woolley believed to come from the Jemdet Nasr period. This gave rise to the southern extension being conceived of as a Jemdet Nasr cemetery for which Woolley began assigning PJ numbers. From the beginning of Pit X, Woolley assigned PJG numbers rather than PG numbers. He quickly recognized that these upper graves were actually a continuation of the Royal Cemetery Akkadian burials and when he began to see the burials of the main Royal Cemetery period, he switched to PJB numbers. Below these he assigned JNG numbers to graves, continuing the sequence from Pit W excavated in the preceding year. Then he renumbered early graves in Pits Y and Z (dug 4 years prior) to follow the Pit X JNG sequence. There are very few references to the original Pit J. In fact, all catalog cards that utilize the PJ abbreviation come from the final season of excavation and all refer to Pit X. Any artifacts that have only the PJ designation and no further refinement of grave number come from the general area of Pit X and were not associated with a specific grave. These often have further notes such as 'upper levels' or other indication that they are from the dumping grounds near the surface of Pit X.     
Season Number: 08: 1929-1930      
Season Number: 11: 1932-1933      
Season Number: 12: 1933-1934      

Objects: PJ 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)
19037 (none) (none) (none) Statuette. White calcite. Of a woman, standing with hands clasped on her breast, wearing the kaukanes. The figure is carved in the round but the back is almost flat and the back of the head, which is missing, seems to have been added in plaster: it is carved from a slab of stone the back of which is the back of the statute. The eyes are inlaid with shell and lapis lazuli, and a strip of lapis lazuli forms the fillet across the forehead and down each side of the face: the eyebrows were in black paste (which came away in powder with the dirt) and there was black paint on the hair and in the grooves of the kaukanes: none of this could be preserved. The left side is stained green by the corrosion of the axe which lay against it. The stone is decayed in places and has run in blisters which interfere with the modelling of the face (right side) , right arm and hair. Some of the lapis inlay had been lost in antiquity. The figure is made in two pieces morticed together.
19038 (none) (none) (none) Conch shell. Cut open as a lamp, at the top of the opening is engraved a bird's head with inlaid lapis eye.
19039 (none) (none) (none) Beads: carnelian cylinders and one double conoid, ball and rings; paste tube and balls, silver balls, etc.
19040 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Shell. About 1/3 of the surface perished. Hero fighting animalsl; fine bold style.
19042 (none) (none) (none) Stone saucer. White calcite. Type _.
19043 (none) (none) (none) Stone bowl. Grey limestone. Type 19a. roughly made.
19044 (none) (none) (none) Beads: carnelian date-shaped (4) and very small tubes and rings of paste and lapis(?)
19046 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Shell. Two gazelles.
19048 (none) (none) (none) Stone bowl. Basic diorite. Type 51.
19049 (none) (none) (none) Stone vase. White calcite. The lower part of the surface decayed. Type 61a.
19051 (none) (none) (none) Beads: two or three carnelian barrels; lapis tubes, 4 small balls or barrels; and small rings of glazed frit; three lapis frog amulets.
19052A (none) (none) (none) [A-B] Weights. Two long oval. Pebble. Type I.
19053B (none) (none) (none) Beads; (A) A set of lapis triangular spacers from a small dog-collar (silver spacers decayed); (B) A long string of carnelian and lapis beads (and some silver) balls, tubes and rings.
19054 (none) (none) (none) Beads: carnelian rings and truncated triangles and one diamond: lapis diamonds and balls: paste long date-shaped.
19055 (none) (none) (none) Beads: carnelian rings, cylindrical and balls and double conoids: lapis balls, ovals, and double conoids: ribbed paste: steatite frog amulet, and mother-of-pearl bird amulet [drawing 1:1]
19056 (none) (none) (none) Beads: carnelian balls and long dated-shaped and cylindrical; lapis ovals and cylinders; shell date-shaped; jasper date-shaped and paste ditto, and paste rings; steatite frog amulets.
19057 (none) 1935,0112.35 (none) Cylinder seal. Shell. Hunters and fighting animals.
19058 (none) 1997,0607.1 (none) Stone vase. White calcite. Type 92.
19059 (none) (none) (none) Stone vase. White calcite. Type 4.
19061 (none) (none) (none) Stone bowl. White limestone. Type 43.
19062 (none) (none) (none) Stone vase. White calcite. Type 60 B.
19063 (none) (none) (none) Stone vase. White calcite. Type 60B.
19064 (none) (none) (none) Stone vase. White calcite. Type 3.
19065 (none) (none) (none) Stone vase. White calcite. Type 65 variant (rounded base, and proportions more slender).
19066 (none) (none) (none) Stone vase. White calcite. Situla. Type _.

Media: PJ 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)
  • 1 Media

Child Locations

Pit X - Pit Y

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Context

Ur > Royal Cemetery | PG > PJ

References

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