Abstract
MR. LEONARD WOOLLEY'S first report on the current season's work at Ur, which appeared in the Times for Feb. 12, chronicles inter alia the discovery of a burial of a type “quite out of the ordinary”. It has the additional interest that it belongs to the Second Dynasty of Ur, about 2800 B.C., a period and dynasty about which at present nothing is known. The Joint Expedition of the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania is now engaged in endeavouring to trace the earlier history of the sacred area on which stands the famous ziggurat of the Third Dynasty. In the first month's work the complete ground plan of a range of buildings on the north-west side has been brought to light. The buildings belong to the First Dynasty. The burial to which reference has been made was not discovered here, but in the course of excavating a patch of ground between the predynastic cemetery and the mausoleum of Bur Sin. Eighteen people were found buried at the foot of a rectangular shaft originally at least 20 ft. deep, but of which the bottom is now 30 ft. below the surface. All the bodies, which were bedecked with gold ornaments and beads, had been buried independently, although the burials were contemporary, and the same elaborate ritual had served them all. Above the graves a clay floor had been spread, and on this were fireplaces and a brick-walled enclosure containing traces of food. Above this were two floors, at different levels, with altars, and the shaft was closed finally with rubble and brick packing. Evidently, Mr. Woolley notes, the burial had been by stages, each marked by ceremonies of fire and sacrifice.
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Second Dynasty Burial Rites at Ur. Nature 129, 273 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129273b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129273b0