Title: Ur Excavations VIII; The Kassite Period and the period of the Assyrian Kings     
Date: 1965      
Author: Woolley, Leonard     
Publisher: Oxford University Press     
Publication place: Oxford     

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Objects: Ur Excavations VIII; The Kassite Period and the period of the Assyrian Kings | Ur Excavations VIII; 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)
(none) (none) (none) (none) [card missing]
(none) 32-40-304 (none) (none) [Unknown]
(none) (none) (none) (none) [Unknown]
1013 (none) (none) B15188 Terracotta relief. Red clay. Moulded. Replica (from same mould) as U.1012, but broken off a little bit below the waist.
1103 (none) (none) B15678 Clay Figurine. Fragment of. From waist upwards. Moulded: pinkish clay. [drawing 1:1] P
1165 (none) (none) B15885 Black stone gate socket, with long but incomplete inscr. running round the side. Beginning and end lost, partly by the breaking off of one side of the stone, partly by flaking away the surface. 42 ll remain, recording the building of an archive-house (dub-la-mah), annexed to the court of justice, by Bur-Sin I, king of Ur. The text ends with blessings and curses upon those who should respect or destroy the king's monument. Photo 147 RI.71
117 (none) (none) (none) Collection of tablets and fragments found in 2, TTB.
118 (none) (none) (none) Tablet found with hoard in 2, TTB probably astronomical
12183 (none) (none) (none) Statuette-Copper dog. Statuette intended for suspension. Perforated hoop at back of neck. Dog is squatting on its haunches and has a twisted collar round neck. On top of head an upstanding band of copper. Dog represented with mouth agape-barking? Assyrian style. See drawing in field notes.
12624 (none) 1928,1010.811 (none) Terracotta mask. Grotesque. Head of Puzuzu. Perforated on either side of eye to allow of attachment to some other material. [drawing 1:1]
12688 (none) 1929,1017.365 (none) Cylinder seal. Glazed frit. Bluish green. Inscribed. 7 columns of inscription and a remaining portion of seal a heavily draped standing figure right hand upraised in salutation engraving of head has flaked away.
12689 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Glazed frit. Bluish green. Inscribed. Broken and much decayed.
12690 30-12-47 (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Glazed frit. Blue-green. Winged dragon, rampant lion. Star.
12691 30-12-46 (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Shell. White. Poor cutting. Eagle in flight, antelopes? Bulls.
1353 (none) (none) (none) Leg and hoof (of bull?). Thin gold leaf. [drawing 1:1]
1359 (none) (none) (none) Shell amulet. In form of a left hand; pierced at wrist for suspension. [drawing 1:1]
1404 (none) (none) (none) Glass fragment. White surface, with blue-grey leaf pattern. Probably from bottle. In text, see U.1359 [drawing 1:1]
1407 (none) 1924,0920.94 (none) Mask. Red clay: moulded. Grotesque head.
1430 (none) 1924,0920.116 (none) Chair or bedstead. Fragment. Drab clay. Moulded decoration, on upright, of 2 crescents on poles with tree (?) between.
1487 (none) (none) (none) Cylinder seal. Crystal. Four-winged deity carrying a sickle and facing him a winged bull erect; a cross between their feet. In text: see U.1359 etc.
1515 (none) (none) (none) Large clay cone. Nearly complete, but surface damaged. Inscription of Warad-Sin, king of Larsa, duplicate of U.1200, etc.
1531 (none) (none) B15655 Figurine. Fragment., below waist upwards only: drab clay: moulded. Female figure, same type as U.1530. P.
1561 (none) 1924,0920.251 (none) Base of baked clay cone, with (originally) several narrow columns of inscription of which the first is preserved intact. Inscription of Enannatum I, governor of Lagash, referring to his work in connection with an IB-GAL of the goddess Quanna.
15711 (none) 1930,1213.328 (none) Terracotta plaque. Pair of demons, both standing-full face. One a bearded male, the other a female: both wearing flannel kaukanes skirts, the male figure carries a flabellum(?).
1593 (none) (none) B15658 Fragment of jar? Decorated with nude female figure in relief, moulded and affixed to surface of jar: drab clay. The surface is also decorated with incised lines and circles. P.
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Locations: Ur Excavations VIII; The Kassite Period and the period of the Assyrian Kings | Ur Excavations VIII; Export: JSON - XML - CSV

Location Context Title Context Description Description (Modern)
High House | High House (none) (none)
Room 2 | High House (none) (none)
Room 3 | High House (none) (none)
Room 4 | High House (none) (none)
Room 5 | High House (none) (none)
Room 6 | High House (none) (none)
Hill House | Hill House (none) (none)
Room 1 | Hill House (none) (none)
Room 2 | Hill House (none) (none)
Room 3 | Hill House (none) (none)
Room 4 | Hill House (none) (none)
Room 5 | Hill House (none) (none)
Room 1 | High House Courtyard (none)
Dublalmah | LL First investigated by Taylor in 1853, the dublalmah was originally a gateway onto the eastern corner of the ziggurat terrace. It expanded into a larger building in the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period. It had multiple functions, religious and administrative, through the centuries. An inscribed door socket of Amar-Sin found here refers to the building as the great storehouse of tablets and the place of judgment. It was thus essentially a law court, possibly with tablets recording judgments stored within. In Mesopotamia, an eastern gateway--in sight of the rising sun--was typically seen as a place of justice, and gateways were often places where witnesses or judges might hear claims. After the Ur III period the door onto the ziggurat terrace was sealed up and the dublalmah appears to have become a shrine, but it retained its name and probably its law court function. Kurigalzu made significant restorations to the building in the Kassite period and Woolley marveled at the well-constructed fully preserved arched doorway of this Late Bronze Age time. By the Neo-Babylonian period, the structure had essentially merged with the functions of the neighboring giparu. (none)
Cemetery X Season 1 catalog cards contain the context location Cemetery X referring to late period (Persian and Neo-Babylonian) graves discovered along (or just northwest of) the northwest temenos wall. Originally believed to be a late period cemetery (along with cemeteries Y and Z nearby), it was eventually found that the graves lying near the surface here were originally located beneath the floors of domestic space that had almost completely denuded. Contextual information from later seasons indicate this area of houses and graves with the abbreviation XNCF, meaning northeast of the Nebuchadnezzar Corner Fort. Some of the material in this later explored area is as early as the Kassite period. (none)
Cemetery Y Season 1 catalog cards contain this context location referring to graves discovered along the northwest temenos wall. The graves labeled Y typically fell east/northeast of those labeled X. Originally believed to be a late period cemetery (along with cemeteries X and Z nearby), it was found that the graves lying near the surface here were originally located beneath the floors of a domestic area that had almost completely denuded. Later work in the area revealed portions of Kassite houses. These were published as area YC. (none)
Nebuchadnezzar Corner Fort | NCF The excavation area abbreviation NCF refers to the Nebuchadnezzar Corner Fort excavated in seasons 10 and 11. This building was located at the west corner of the temenos where it meets the ziggurat terrace and turns to the south. Publication UE9 refers to this specific structure as the West Corner Fort, built by Nebuchadnezzar at the corner of his temenos wall. An earlier fortification had been uncovered in season 3, which Woolley called the Bastion of Warad Sin. This structure sits at the north corner of the ziggurat terrace, approximately mid-way along the northwest temenos wall and may have functioned as a kind of sally port gate. It was sometimes called the north corner fort in early seasons but artifacts were not catalogued with this abbreviation in those seasons. Any artifacts from the Warad Sin building were likely catalogued instead with the abbreviation PDW. Nebuchadnezzar's Corner Fort may also have been defensive, but it contained in its later phase a large mixing basin filled with bitumen. In the time of Nabonidus it may well have been in use in repairing the ziggurat. Woolley dug beneath the Nebuchadnezzar Corner Fort, still using the abbreviation NCF, and uncovered what he believed was a temple or shrine. (none)
Nin-Giz-Zida Temple | Nin-Ezen Temple | NT The excavation area abbreviation NT refers to a successive series of small temples built very near the city wall in the southwestern portion of Ur. The temple nearest the surface was that built in the Neo-Babylonian period and attributable to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. The excavation area abbreviation NT actually stands for Nebuchadnezzar's temple. No Persian period temple was found here but Persian burials infringed on the building (see area NTB). Beneath the Neo-Babylonian temple Woolley discovered another, similar temple of the Kassite period. This one seemed to have two phases of construction, one phase attributable to the reign of Kurigalzu. Beneath this sat another temple of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period, also with two phases. One of these dated to the reign of Rim Sin and the other to that of Sin-Iddinam. Yet another temple sat beneath, but this one was very fragmentary and difficult to map. It likely belonged to the Ur III period but little could be discerned. Inscribed clay cones found in the Larsa levels give the name of the building as E-ni-gi-na and state that Rim-Sin restored this temple dedicated to Nin-gish-zida. Inscriptions in other levels show that this deity was honored here throughout the time periods but that Nin-Ezen (Ningizzida's consort) was also honored here in a kind of double shrine. Woolley suggested that another temple to Nin-Ezen appeared in the temenos area (see area SM) and that Ningizzida was the primary deity for this smaller temple in the southern city. (none)
Temenos Wall | TW The excavation area abbreviation TW stands for Temenos Wall, a wall that surrounded the ziggurat terrace and its extended sacred space in the northern central portion of the city of Ur through much of its history. The wall may have begun in the Early Dynastic period, as Woolley found some indication of what he believed to be its earliest foundation. There was clearly an Ur III period version that ran south of the giparu and then further southeast to encompass the ehursag. This was the general line of the wall through the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian and into the Kassite period, though the Kassites made some changes in the northern portion. Finally, the Neo-Babylonians changed the wall greatly, expanding the area encompassed to the north and south and adding several gateways. The foundations of this later, quite massive, wall often destroyed earlier remains. Woolley explored parts of the temenos wall in many seasons and frequently used the TW abbreviation for the wall in any of its building periods. Other excavation area abbreviations include parts of the temenos, particularly NCF, PDW and BC. The temenos wall built by Urnamma was 6 meters thick and built of mud brick with a baked brick facing. Most of the baked brick had been removed, probably for later building. The Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus temenos wall had chambers within it and sported six gates into the temenos area. This area was known as e-gish-nu-gal (Woolley read this e-gish-shir-gal). At least one later interpretation conflates TW with the phrase Town Wall, but the wall surrounding Ur was always referred to as the city wall, (CLW). (none)
Giparu | KP The excavation area given the abbreviation KP was eventually found to be the site of the ancient building known as the giparu (alternatively e-gig-par or gig-par-ku). Mostly dedicated to the goddess Nin-gal, Nanna's consort, it was also in various periods the residence of the entu priestess. The abbreviation KP, however, stands for King's Palace because Woolley initially thought this might be the site of Shulgi's palace, the ehursag. The giparu was a very long-lived building, though it underwent many changes over many centuries. Most striking were the changes in the Neo-Babylonian period when Woolley shows it combining with the dublalmah to the east. He believed that by this point the building was not sufficient to house the Ningal temple and the entu priestess together, and thus the so-called Palace of Belshaltinannar was constructed outside the temenos specifically to house the priestess herself. At times Woolley refers to the giparu as the Great Ningal Temple, which can be confusing as the Kassite and Neo-Bablyonian Ningal temples had moved onto the ziggurat terrace to the north of the giparu (Area HD). Furthermore, parts of the giparu were excavated under area abbreviations other than KP in season 3 when the full extents of the building were only just coming to light. The northern portion originally carried the abbreviation HDB and the southeastern portion, SF. (none)
XNCF This area lies along the edge of northwest temenos wall east of the Nebuchadnezzar Corner Fort (NCF). It was partly explored in season 1 when late graves were found in what at that time were called Cemeteries X, Y, and Z. In seasons 10 and 11 the larger area of late domestic space, or mostly that to the northwest, was more systematically excavated as area NNCF and the 'cemeteries' were found to be graves beneath heavily deteriorated late houses. Publication of area XNCF in UE8 discusses the remains of domestic buildings found east of NCF and Warad Sin's Bastion along the temenos wall and the northern extent of the Nanna Courtyard (PD). XNCF as a whole, however, appears to have included the long range of Kassite magazines extending under and somewhat beyond the Neo-Babylonian temenos wall. These were broken into rows A, B, and C, and field catalogue cards referring to XNCF often record one of these letters and a room number in the contextual notes. Thus XNCF contained public buildings between the ziggurat terrace and the temenos wall (including a clear reference to the Kuriglazu addition to the Warad Sin Bastion), and domestic buildings and burials somewhat beyond (north of) the northwest temenos wall. (none)
NNCF This area lies beyond (north/northwest of) Nebuchadnezzar's corner fort (NCF) at the west corner of the temenos wall. In seasons 10 and 11 the area was somewhat systematically excavated, initially creating a shallow trench from the northwest terrace and temenos wall almost to the city wall some 100 meters away. According to the 1932 reports, it was "enlarged into a regular excavation covering the area of a number of houses," and this expansion was continued in season 11. Excavations were taken through Persian (mostly surface) level down only a small depth to relatively well preserved house remains of the late Kassite and Neo-Babylonian periods. Many of the houses had graves under their floors. Woolley did not map or record the houses or graves, saying in his Antiquaries Journal report for 1932 (p.390): "They produced no objects of importance, but the graves did yield a certain number of glazed vases, beads and seals." Publication does not do justice to the extent of this excavation area. Only XNCF, a smaller excavation of domestic space along the NW temenos is published in UE8 and that in only a few paragraphs. (none)
KPS Site | KPS This excavation area was designated Kings Palace South (KPS) because it explored walls that were south of the main giparu building (KP). Some of these late walls cut into earlier levels of the giparu in its southern portion. The walls were found to be of patchwork domestic structures, two houses (A to the south and B to the north) separated by a street (scanty remains of a House C were also found). They were formed mostly of broken and reused bricks of the Larsa/Old Babylonian period and probably dated to the Kassite period, repaired and reused into the Neo-Babylonian. Beneath these walls were found indications of the earlier Temenos wall and various artifacts of the Early Dynastic period. The excavation area overall included part of the Neo-Babylonian temenos wall to the west, the part that contained the Nebuchadnezzar gate where inscribed bricks of this king were uncovered in foundation boxes. It stretched southward to the edge of the excavation areas called EH and DP. (none)
  • 23 Locations