1. Texts and archaeology: The Third Dynasty of Ur
Introduction to the Ancient Near East
Brown University ~ Fall 2009
October 22, 2009

2. When the house is on fire
and the children are gone
Ur-Utu’s house and archive
in Sippar-Amnanum (Tell ed Der)
17th c. BC
Ur-Utu was a landholder and the
“kalamahhum-priest of Annunitum”
(chief lamentation priest)
the house 225 m2
was excavated in mid 1970s by Belgian
archaeologists
ca 2000 tablets burnt with the house

3. In 1975 the house was fully exposed
In 1975 the house was fully exposed. In four rooms to the northwest tablets were found, many belonging to distinct "archives," which were sealed by the fire that destroyed the building.
Altogether about 2,000 documents were found in the "house of Ur-Utu," mainly dating to the last phase of occupation (IIIb), Ur-Utu's house renovation.
Some tablets were, however, archived in distinct groups for several hundred years texts have been dated.
Most of these tablets in this large house were found in room 22 (which could have served as a [sealed] storeroom), to the northwest of the central court, while the rooms 17 and 18 (forming one large residential room in phase IIId, but apparently not communicating with each other in IIIb) contained "archived" material....

4. Archaeology and Text a difficult relationship
texts as archaeological artifacts – information about their findspot, archaeological context is vital
for their proper interpretation
this fact is often denied and challenged by certain antiquities collectors, dealers and museums in the West.
treating texts as excavated artifacts helps us avoid the 19th century prioritization of texts over other artifacts, and archaeology as a subservient to history
holistic histories: integration of text and material culture
texts, pictorial representations and archaeological artifacts- they are all residues of past cultures and they speak to that past in their own way, always incomplete.
Tell Ta’yinat- uncovering a tablet
agenda: texts as material culture, material culture as text

5. an unfortunate statement
... the texts on clay tablets are far more valuable, far more relevant, than the monuments
that have been discovered, although the latter, especially the famous reliefs on
the walls of Assyrian palaces and the countless products of glyptic art, offer welcome
illustration to the wealth of factual information contained on clay tablets, stelae, and
votive offerings...
Leo Oppenheim

6. Gudea, king of Lagash ruled 11 years at Girsu,
sponsored many temple building projects
probably a contemporary of
Ur III king Ur-Namma (ca BC?)
construction of several temples
sponsoring lengthy literary compositions
making of his kingly image, many diorite
sculptures to be placed in temples

7. Gudea’s Cylinder A
Lengthy royal hymnic compositions inscribed on monumental clay cylinders and commemorate Gudea’s rebuilding of é-ninnu (temple) dedicated to Ningirsu in Girsu.
Gudea’s Cylinder B
Otto Edzard, Gudea and his dynasty

8. Strong armed Gudea...

9. King of Lagash Gudea and his inscribed bodies

10. Gudea’s inscribed statue with a tablet on his lap featuring an architectural plan

13. The Third Dynasty of Ur
Conventional (high) chronology:
BC.
Low Chronology BC
Kings:
Utu-hegal BC (low chr.)
Ur-Namma BC
Shulgi BC
Amar Sin BC
Shu Sin BC
Ibbi Sin BC
The king as builder:
Foundation figurine of Ur-Namma

14. Ur: Tell al Mugayyar

15. Three moments in the urban/archaeological history of Ur:
The royal tombs of the Early Dynastic Period city (early to mid 3rd millennium BC)
The sanctuary of Nanna complex and the massive urban construction in the city at the time of the Third Dynasty kings (late 3rd millennium BC)
Residential neighborhoods (early 2nd millennium BC)

18. Ur III Period ziqqurat in Ur, built at the time of Ur Namma (2047-2030 BC)

19. Bitumen Baked brick on the facade with cuneiform Sumerian inscription
Baked brick on Ur Namma’s ziqqurat facade

21. Ziqqurat of Ur and contemporary imaginations

22. Ziqqurat of Ur and
military tourism

23. Stele of Gudea, limestone fragment, from Girsu (Tello)
Ca 2090 BC.

24. Stele, From Ur (Tell al Mugayyar)

27. Disk of Enheduanna, Calcite, found at Ur (Tell al Mugayyar)
University of Pennsylvania Museum

28. Nippur dur.an.ki=“Bond of Heaven and Earth”
pan-Mesopotamian ceremonial/cult center: residence of Enlil
(DINGIREN.LILKI = URUNIB.RUKI = Nippur)
city of decisions: place of divine and human assemblies
ukkin : divine assembly
èš nam tar.ra : “shrine where destinies are decreed”
(puhrum at Nippur’s Ubsu-ukkinak).
center of the Kengir league: supra-political center
city of scribes and scholars: a giant library, a center of learning

29. Nippur : cities and imagination
Nippur Kassite map superimposed with topography
and excavated areas.
Nippur Kassite map
of the city on clay tablet.

30. What does one represent on a city map?
“Nergal Gate”
“Ekur”
“Gate of the Ritually
Impure Woman”
“Gate Facing Ur”
“Canal that
runs through the city”
“Exalted Gate”
“Gate Facing Uruk”
“Gula Gate”
“(Enclosure of)
An.nigin.na”
“Gardens
in the city”
Nippur Kassite (Late Bronze Age) map
of the city on clay tablet.

31. Nippur The archaeological site. Excavated areas
Area WA
Temple to Gula?. Excavated
by University of Chicago in mid 1970s. Founded in 21st c. BC, several rebuildings down to 7th c. BC.
Dur-an-ki:
(Bond of Heaven and
Earth)
Sacred Quarter
Tablet Hill/East mound
(Areas TA – TB):
Scribal quarter
Area TB Level VII
Administrative complex
with large quantities of
tablets of agriculatural
production, esp. beans
and flax
Euphrathes
canal
Mound X:
Private houses, residential quarter.

32. E.kur (House, the Mountain) Sanctuary of Enlil
Archaeological Projects at Nippur: A frustrated Austin Henry Layard (1851) dug some holes.
University of Pennsylvania ( ), Oriental Institute, University of Chicago ( )
E.kur (House, the Mountain)
Sanctuary of Enlil
[Construction activity by Kings of Ur: Ur-Namma, Shulgi, Amar-Suen late 21st c. and early 20th BC]
E.bara.dur.gar.ra
Sanctuary of Inanna
Shulgi ( )
Fortification walls.
Begun by Ur-Nammu ( BC), repaired by Ibbi-Suen ( BC)
Euphrathes canals.

33. E.kur (House, the Mountain)
Sanctuary of Enlil
[Construction activity by Kings of Ur: Ur-Namma, Shulgi, Amar-Suen late 21st c. and early 20th BC]
Kitchen temple (food offerings, storehouse)
Ziqqurat

34. Construction activity by the king of Ur Shulgi (2029-1982 BC)
E.bara.dur.gar.ra
Sanctuary of Inanna
Construction activity by the king of Ur Shulgi ( BC)
“The plan looks better on paper than in
actuality and is a reconstructor’s dream...
I have never seen a building where so little
will look like so much after it is drawn in
good black ink”
Richard C. Haines, architect at
Nippur excavations 1956

35. E.bara.dur.gar.ra Sanctuary of Inanna Stratigraphy
Levels XXI-XV. Private houses.
Levels XIV-IX. Neighborhood shrine with some continuity in plan
Level VIII (ED II). Slightly monumentalized temple.
Levels VII (ED IIIA-B). Temple complex massive and complex in design, layout, architectural technologies, with a series of phases. Long time span.
Levels VI-V. Akkadian period levels of the temple, mostlt destroyed by late building phase.
Level IV. Shulgi’s reconstruction of the temple (Ur III Period). In the 20th year of his reign (2009 BC), rebuilding with an extraordinarily regularized orthogonal layout, razing two levels beneath the foundation surface.
Finds: texts in context
Clay sealings (over a hundred) and 200 Sumerian texts
(ca 1100) in the administrartive archive of the temple.
Zettler’s analysis of the finds shows the monopolization of
the temple institution by one of the Nippur families during
the Third Dynasty of Ur

36. E.bara.dur.gar.ra Sanctuary of Inanna Stratigraphy
Levels XXI-XV. Private houses.
Levels XIV-IX. Neighborhood shrine with some continuity in plan
Level VIII (ED II). Slightly monumentalized temple.
Levels VII (ED IIIA-B). Temple complex massive and complex in design, layout, architectural technologies, with a series of phases. Long time span.
Levels VI-V. Akkadian period levels of the temple, mostly destroyed by late building phase.
Level IV. Shulgi’s reconstruction of the temple (Ur III Period). In the 20th year of his reign (2009 BC), rebuilding with an extraordinarily regularized orthogonal layout, razing two levels beneath the foundation surface.

37. (Probably house of the asu, the healer and the asipu, the magician)
Area WA Temple to Gula.
(Probably house of the asu, the healer and the asipu, the magician)
Excavated by University of Chicago in mid-1970s to 1990s. Dedication uncertain. Founded in 21st c. BC, several rebuildings down to the Neo-Babylonian period. Kassite level architecture shown here (ca 1250 BC).
Several clay figurines were found in the temple.
Area WA. Temple. Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines, especially dogs buried in walls, as well as found on floors.