 | AH Site | AH | In the southeast portion of the mound of Ur, Woolley excavated a large horizontal extent of domestic space roughly 115 x 85m. near the surface he found scattered Neo-Babylonian and Kassite remains and intrusive graves of the late periods but he did not publish these in detail nor are there any extant notes covering them. Instead, Woolley's main goal was to uncover the best preserved floorplans of houses. These he found several meters down, houses of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period. Because the Old Babylonian period was typically that associated with the potential time of Abraham, Woolley used the abbreviation AH (Abraham's Housing) to refer to this excavation area.
In the course of excavation of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian levels Woolley numbered 27 'houses,' or excavation units. He renumbered the houses for publication based on the overall plan, preserved walls, and doors onto streets. In this way he showed there were 52 individual houses within his 27 excavation areas. However, houses were frequently altered throughout period, as families would knock out walls or block up doors, and thus true house numbers are difficult to establish. Woolley mentions phases of rebuilding, but states that he sought the best preserved floor plan and published the excavation of a particular house based on that plan alone. In some cases he noted deeper remains that may have gone back to the Ur III period. These levels he partially uncovered as he excavated graves beneath the Larsa period floors.
A great deal of baked brick was in use for walls of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period. Some houses used it in the lowest portion of a wall, but others used it for entire walls up to 3 meters in height. Town planning was not evident, as streets tended to wander in narrow and winding paths. Corners where streets met were often rounded, leading Woolley to surmise that this was to prevent problems with laden donkeys catching their wares on corners.
Many houses had a domestic chapel within, often with family burials beneath the floor. Communal chapels were also noted, at least four being identified in the area. Finally, Woolley believed that some buildings were specifically used for commercial activities (shops), though this is difficult to prove. | (none) |
 | House I | Excavation house designation on the southeast side of Straight Street (originally called Division Street as it divided the first excavation house designations I, II, and III). This unit covered published houses No.2 and No. 4 Straight Street. | (none) |
| No. 4 Straight Street | A solidly built and compact house with rooms symmetrically arranged about a central court: the exceptionally heavy walls suggest that this house may have stood to a considerable height, and that there may have been a heavy roof to support. The site was nearly rectangular but the SE wall ran askew, following the angle of Paternoster Row. The burnt-brick superstructure of the house stood in places as much as twenty-two courses high, and the high level of the top pavement suggests that most of this superstructure belonged to the end of the Larsa period, shortly before the destruction by Samsu-iluna. On the tops of some of the Larsa walls there were flimsy remains of burnt-brick walls of the Kassite period, and much of the Larsa brick-work had been torn down and levelled to make an even foundation for the walls of the Kassite house. On the other hand much of the evidence suggests that this house dated back to an ancient foundation in Third Dynasty times. The burnt-brick walls of the Larsa period followed along the lines of an older mud-brick structure, and between the pavement associated with this older building and that of the end of the Larsa period, there was an accumulation of more than 1.6 metres of debris. The rubbish in the courtyard underneath the late Larsa pavement consisted of decayed mud brick and contained carinated saucers of Third Dynasty type. In the SW wall there was an inscribed brick of Amar-Suena, but the fact that this wall did not go as deep as the boundary wall of No. 4 Paternoster Row and that the foundations of No. 4 Straight Street appeared to overlap the burnt-brick work of No. 4 Paternoster Row indicates that the latter was an earlier foundation still., The brickwork and pavements in this room give a convenient summary of the history of this house which divides itself into four main periods: 1. The earliest foundation, mud brick walls and burnt brick pavements, probably going back to Third Dynasty; 2. Burnt brick superstructure erected over the mud brick foundations in the Larsa period, good burnt brick pavements associated, access given to No. 2 Straight Street by doorways in the SE wall; 3. Burnt brick pavement slightly raised, following the rise of Straight Street, doors in SE wall blocked up, end of the Larsa period; 4. Kassite period, flimsy burnt brick walls erected over the more solid foundations of the Larsa period. | (none) |