32http://www165.123.244.137/location/32/DPAreaUrSeason Number04: 1925-1926Culture/PeriodUr IIIContext TitleDPContext Name (Excavation)DP [Dungi's Palace?]Context Name (Publication)EM Sitepartially published as the northern portion of EMContext DescriptionThe excavation area abbreviation DP probably stands for Dungi's Palace; Woolley believed the building with bricks marked e-hur-sag (thought to refer to Shulgi's palace) was too small to be what should be a grandiose building. Thus, he explored the area southeast of the giparu extensively looking for it. Most of his abbreviations for excavations in this area refer to the potential palace. When he found cylinders inscribed with the name of Shulgi beneath a partly ruined floor (excavation area abbreviation DT in the northwestern portion of area EH), he thought he might have found it or at least indications of it. This building turned out to be a temple dedicated to Dimtabba (now read Nimintabba) and its very partial remains extended beyond the line of the Neo-Babylonian temenos wall to the west. Woolley continued to dig into this western area under a new excavation abbreviation, DP. This area did not reveal a palace or additional ruins of the Nimintabba temple, but instead it showed denuded domestic space related to Hall's Area A excavations. Area DP became the northern portion of area EM, but only partial houses are shown here along what Woolley termed Quality Lane. The houses here were never published in great detail, but many of the DP graves appear on the area EM map as falling along Quality Lane.1http://www165.123.244.137/location/1/EH Site | EHAreaUrSeason Number03: 1924-1925Season Number04: 1925-1926Context TitleEH Site | EHContext Name (Excavation)E-Hur-Sagnamed for the ehursag but does not contain that building itselfContext Name (Publication)EH SiteContext DescriptionArea EH is located within the Neo-Babylonian temenos wall south of the giparu. There are many other area designations given to parts of this space (such as DP and LR), but EH overall refers to the interior extent of the SW temenos wall from the south corner almost to the Nebuchadnezzar gate and extending east to the line of Pit F. Walls in the area were scattered and difficult to follow, so Woolley established a grid covering at least 55x100 meters in 5x5 squares. The grid is not well documented but publication shows that Woolley began numbers to the east, increasing to the west, and letters to the south, increasing to the north; square 1,A therefore sits in the SE corner -- 11,T in the NW.
The abbreviation EH stands for E-Hur-sag but the building of that name does not lie within this excavation zone. Woolley did not believe that the building to the east of this area (partially dug by H.R. Hall in 1919) was the e-hur-sag, the palace of Shulgi, despite bricks with the inscription of the building being found there. Instead he called that building Hall's Temple (HT) and sought the palace in many other places inside the temenos. He eventually conceded that HT was indeed the e-hur-sag and published EH without reference to the abbreviation's original meaning.
The area Woolley called EH was the area Hall called the 'tomb mound' because it was relatively high ground in which he found a number of graves. Woolley showed that these were the remains of graves beneath the floors of houses dating from the Isin-Larsa to Kassite periods. EH in this time was likely an extension of the domestic area EM. In the Ur III period there appear to have been larger public buildings here, but their remains were spotty at best. Tablets from this area and area EM show that the residents of the domestic quarter in the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period were likely temple workers.3414http://www165.123.244.137/location/3414/Nimintabba Temple | DTUnit EH Site | EHSeason Number04: 1925-1926Culture/PeriodUr IIIContext TitleNimintabba Temple | DTContext Name (Excavation)Dim-tab-ba TempleContext Name (Publication)Nimintabba TempleContext DescriptionThe abbreviation DT stands for Dungi's Temple or Dimtabba Temple and this abbreviation is found within the larger EH excavation area; Woolley discovered cylinders inscribed with the name of Shulgi beneath a partly ruined floor in area EH and assigned the building it was associated with an excavation abbreviation of its own. The building's walls were almost completely destroyed, however, and thus were difficult to follow. They lay in the northwestern portion of area EH and originally defined a temple dedicated to the god Nimintabba (Woolley initially read the name as Dim-Tab-Ba). The ephemeral remains of the temple stretched underneath and beyond the Neo-Babylonian temenos wall and Woolley expanded excavation in search of the rest, but little more of the temple was found. The westward expansion of the excavation beyond the temenos wall became excavation area abbreviation DP.14http://www165.123.244.137/location/14/Ehursag | HTAreaUrSeason Number01: 1922-1923Season Number04: 1925-1926Context TitleEhursag | HTContext Name (Excavation)Hall's TempleContext Name (Publication)E-Hur-SagContext DescriptionThe excavation area abbreviation HT stands for Hall's Temple because H.R. Hall had excavated parts of it in 1919. Hall called it Area (or Building) B and he found inscribed bricks in the paved floors of the building which indicated it was the ehursag, the house of the mountain, which was purported to be Shulgi's palace. Woolley, in his first season, found inscribed bricks in the walls that mentioned Ur-Namma's temple of the moon god, and he concluded the building was actually a temple, dubbing the excavation area HT. He believed the actual ehursag palace to be located somewhere else within the temenos. Many of his subsequent excavation abbreviations attest to his search for the building, but he eventually agreed that HT was the ehursag itself.
In his fourth season, Woolley cleared the remaining extents of the building. He had already explored parts of the terrace wall on which it stood and came to find that this was part of the Ur III temenos wall. Along this wall near the ehursag Woolley found a deep well, at the bottom of which (13 meters down) were many inscribed clay cones.15http://www165.123.244.137/location/15/Giparu | KPAreaUrSeason Number03: 1924-1925Season Number04: 1925-1926Context TitleGiparu | KPContext Name (Excavation)KP; King's PalaceContext Name (Publication)Gig-par-ku; Giparu; E.GIG.PARContext DescriptionThe 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.16http://www165.123.244.137/location/16/KPS Site | KPSAreaUrSeason Number04: 1925-1926Context TitleKPS Site | KPSContext Name (Excavation)KPS; King's Palace SouthContext Name (Publication)The KPS SiteContext DescriptionThis 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.28http://www165.123.244.137/location/28/SMAreaUrSeason Number04: 1925-1926Season Number05: 1926-1927Context TitleSMContext Name (Excavation)SMContext Name (Publication)SM SiteContext DescriptionThe meaning of this excavation area abbreviation is not clear, but its location is known to be immediately southeast of the giparu (KP) extending to the ehursag (HT) in the east. Badly preserved remains of a building were found here, distinct from the giparu. On a tentative reconstruction of the ground plan, Woolley suggests the original structure measured some 35x40 meters. The building remains date to the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian period and many small tablets recording business transactions were found within. T.C. Mitchell, editing the UE 7 volume published after Woolley's death, notes that many of these tablets actually date to the reigns of Shulgi and Amar-Sin. According to Woolley, some of the tablets were twisted together as if in the process of being recycled to reuse their clay for new tablets. He also suggests, very tentatively and based only on a few minor and out-of-place bricks, that this building was originally a temple to Nin-Ezen.42http://www165.123.244.137/location/42/TTCAreaUrSeason Number04: 1925-1926Context TitleTTCContext Name (Excavation)Trial Trench CContext DescriptionTTC is shorthand for Trial Trench C, a trench dug in season 4 to explore a low-lying part of the temenos zone not yet excavated (later extended as area FH). The trench was never mapped, few artifacts were recorded from it and it does not appear in publication. Locating it relies on the few catalog cards that mention it and on an aerial photo from 1926. Catalog card references mention the "back of Hall's excavation" and "alongside mud brick wall running NE by SW, S of EgigPar and parallel with Temenos wall." South of the giparu there is no good candidate for the wall mentioned, but south of the ehursag there is and it is likely that egigpar was written when ehursag was intended. Furthermore, the area known as FH shows that the 'Front of Hall's excavation' was north-northwest of this building. Therefore, TTC at the 'back of Hall's excavation' should be south-southeast. The aerial photo shows a trench about 3.5 meters wide and 30 meters long that sits east-southeast of the ehursag and is very likely to be TTC. The only other possible candidate is a trench almost exactly the same size located southwest of the giparu, north of area EM. This trench, however, is mentioned in a season three field report (not given any abbreviation) as an exploration of an area to be dug the following season (area EM). Since that trench was dug in the season before artifacts are recorded as coming from TTC, the only trench that could be TTC is the one near area HT (ehursag).