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| Ur |
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| Reconstructed Ziggurat |
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| What the Ziggurat would have looked like in antiquity. |
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| Google Earth image of the Ziggurat |
Ur was a costal city before it was lost in what is now current day Iraq. The main part of the site is a large ziggurat, or what is now the remains of the “Great ziggurat of Ur”. The temple was built in the twenty first century BC and was rebuilt or reconstructed in the sixth century BC. It once was along the Persian Gulf near the Euphrates but now lays well inland from where it once was. Ur was absorbed into a few different empires along the way the most notable was that of Hammurabi, under this empire they were still quite prosperous until his death and the inevitable revolt and like most the stories in this class… a crazy son who has no idea what’s going on took over the throne.
Ur began excavations in 1853 by Leonard Wooley who was there on behalf of the British Museum. The first thing that was seen were some bricks that were stamped with symbols that were not recognizable to him. There were also some slabs of black marble in the mix. During the excavation there was a considerable amount of damage and the bricks that were now sitting around seemingly unwanted and used them for construction purposes while they lay unwatched and unprotected. It was later figured out that the writing on the bricks was cuneiform sometimes it was about the current king or ruler.
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| Excavation of the Ziggurat |
Another large find was a series of tombs from one believed to be a queen to a few mass graves. The queen’s grave is thought to be that of Puabi from about 2600BC. Her grave had remained un looted and there for had a variety of artifacts that survived. Among them were many bodies of what are thought to be human sacrifices. About 16 of the tombs unearthed were labeled as the royal tombs one being the queen. Out of the different graves the Wooley realized there was at least three classes of people living in Ur. The royals who were buried with extensive riches, then the people who were wealthy who had some of their riches, and then low class or slaves that had been caught during battle.
Looking at the bodies found in the non-royal part of the tombs excavation at Ur they found interesting things happening with the bones. The bones showed wear that could only come from hard physical labor, however the skeletons were that of children showing that there was most likely hard child labor as part of the work force at the time, possibly even going as far as slavery. However out of all the graves that were found none of the bones could be dated back any farther than about 1700BC.
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| Excavating the graves |
At any given time there could be at least one hundred and fifty workers excavating parts of Ur. The tomb that is thought to be that of the queen Puabi was at its lowest point seven meters or about twenty-three feet below the surface.
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| Excavations at Ur |
Currently the Iraqis’ want to be able to turn it into a place for tourism but at the same time there is a preservation group trying to protect it from further wear. Many places in Ur are covered with modern graffiti weather with marker paint or carved into the stone. The addition of more people coming through is only going to add to the problems they are already currently having and it seems things have come to a stand still as to what is going to happen with the site. However before anything can happen it needs to be re enforced due to the excavation methods and the loss of so many of the bricks a lot of the site is too structurally unsound to let tourists in, and archeologists should probably even stay clear until it is stabilized.
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