Context Title: City Wall | CLW     
Context Name (Excavation): Central Long Wall     
Context Name (Excavation): City Long Wall     
Context Description: The meaning of the excavation area abbreviation CLW is not precisely clear. Some references to it state that it is the central portion of the northeastern city wall, thus it might mean Central Long Wall. Field notes with the abbreviation, however, refer to excavation squares along the entirety of the edge of the mound where the outer city wall once stood and thus it more likely to refer to the City Long Wall as a whole. H.R. Hall dug a 12 meter trench across the city wall in 1919, but Woolley began his investigations of it in February of 1929. In a period of a few days he exposed 100 meters of the length of the wall behind his dig house. In the next season he set his workers to tracing the entirety of the wall, which ran approximately 2.5 miles around the city. To uncover it they simply followed the outer line of the wall to no great depth and made cross cut trenches to assess the width of the wall at intervals. Despite the great extent, the tracing of the wall took only one month. In a report sent from the field in February of 1930, Woolley said, "...the wall is a complete ruin; not a vestige of the burnt-brick wall proper has been discovered and in few places does more survive than the weathered stump of the huge mud-brick rampart along which the wall originally ran." The investigations showed the original wall to be between 25 and 34 meters wide and Woolley estimated that it once stood to a height of 8 meters. On the central portion of the east side, he found and excavated partial houses. Woolley believed that for portions of Ur's history, the backs of these houses formed the defensive wall itself. Many of the objects marked as CLW come from this specific area of houses along the wall, and this is likely the reason that CLW in abbreviation lists is said to be the central portion of the northeast city wall. The sloping revetment that was often found in CLW squares was evidence of the bank of a canal running along the east side of the city. Some of the CLW squares also contained other excavation areas, such as the North and West harbors, the so-called Kassite Fort, the Rim Sin temple (RS), and the Nin-Ezen Temple (NT).     

Objects: City Wall | CLW 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)
13101 (none) (none) (none) Tablet contract.
13103 (none) (none) (none) Tablet. Contract complete.
13104 (none) (none) (none) Tablet. Fine tablet. Obverse mostly perfect.
13105 (none) (none) (none) Tablete. Large fragment
13106 (none) (none) (none) Tablet 3rd Dynasty
13108 31-16-358 (none) (none) Brick. Contains all the inscription (19? Lines), which is however badly defaced. Apparently completes the fragments RIU 120 and U.11662. (Sin-idinnam) (which are half-bricks).
13603B (none) (none) (none) Clay cone. [Catalog entry divided by find location] [A] Ur-Nammu =RIU 42 as U.13601. [B] Another fragment: RS temple by wall loose.
13605L (none) (none) (none) Clay cones (fragments). [A-H] Libit-Istar as R1 U.13601 as 13601, [7 others as 13601]; [I] Another (the inscription on the head perfect) PG 6.7m down, Larsa rubbish on line AB. [J] Another: immediately below surface on 3rd. Dynasty city wall, slightly above foundation of brick wall (Part of stem & part of nead). [K] Another by mud-brick wall of inner fort; [L] Another: CLW. [M] Another CLW.
13605M (none) (none) (none) Clay cones (fragments). [A-H] Libit-Istar as R1 U.13601 as 13601, [7 others as 13601]; [I] Another (the inscription on the head perfect) PG 6.7m down, Larsa rubbish on line AB. [J] Another: immediately below surface on 3rd. Dynasty city wall, slightly above foundation of brick wall (Part of stem & part of nead). [K] Another by mud-brick wall of inner fort; [L] Another: CLW. [M] Another CLW.
13613B (none) (none) (none) [A] Clay cone. [catalog card divided by find location] Ur-Nammu - RIU 45, as 13601 (1.5 metres) [B] Another CLW.
13622 (none) (none) (none) Tablet. Fragment. Neo-Bab. Semitic?
13623 (none) (none) (none) Tablet. Ur III with broken date - apparently variant cf. Grice p. 42. (=Rim-Sin 17?) HC.710
14423A (none) (none) (none) Beads. Glazed rings?
14425A 98-9-75 (none) (none) Copper fibula. Hoop spiral. Type 3. [drawing 1:1]
14426A (none) (none) (none) Beads. Glazed balls.
14428A (none) (none) (none) Bronze fibula. Hoop spiral. [Type 3] Same as G.77(4) [drawing 1:1]
14429A (none) (none) (none) Beads. Carnelian ring beads. Red jasper double conoids. Quartzite cylindrical. Steatite? Discoid, flat one side, convex on the other . Agate lentoid and pendant shapes thus. [drawing]
14430A (none) (none) (none) Beads. Small glazed rings.
14431A (none) (none) (none) Bronze fibula. Type same as U.14428.
14432A (none) (none) (none) Seal pendant. Limestone. Cut as an animal possibly a hedgehog(?) and engraved in flat side with 2 gazelles or antelopes (?) Perforated vertically for suspension. [drawing 1:1]
14433A (none) (none) (none) Beads. Necklace. Agate and carnelian lentoids. Carnelian bulbs.
14435A (none) (none) (none) Bronze object. Flat seal? Buoy shaped. [drawing 1:1]
14436A (none) (none) (none) Flat seal. Chalcedony. Mauve. Faceted and suspended by a copper hook. Typical Persian period stamp seal. Engraved with design of a bearded deity wearing a cap and a long coat hand raised over a horse on the back of which is a pedestal supporting a crescent in a hole attribute and star.
14437A (none) (none) (none) Silver vessel. Situla shaped without handle. Type 12. [drawing 1:5]
14438A (none) (none) (none) Bronze platter. Fluted (very shallow fluting) on the outside. Type 9 [drawing 2:5]

Media: City Wall | CLW Export: JSON - XML - CSV

Media Media Title Title Label Author Omeka Label
Ur Excavations VI; The Ur III Period Ur Excavations VI; The Ur III Period 1974 Woolley, Leonard (none)
Ur Excavations IX; The Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods Ur Excavations IX; The Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods 1962 Woolley, L. and Mallowan, Max (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)
Woolley's Field Note Cards Woolley's Field Note Cards Ur_Notes_v2_p231c Ur_Notes_v2_p231c (none)
Woolley's Field Note Cards Woolley's Field Note Cards Ur_Notes_v2_p232 Ur_Notes_v2_p232 (none)
  • 6 Media