Standard of Ur
| The Standard of Ur | |
|---|---|
The Standard of Ur in the British Museum | |
| Material | shell, limestone, lapis lazuli, bitumen |
| Length | 21.59 cm (8.50 in) |
| Width | 49.53 cm (19.50 in) |
| Created | c. 2550 BC |
| Discovered | 1927 or 1928 Royal Cemetery at Ur 30°57′41″N 46°06′22″E / 30.9615°N 46.1061°E |
| Discovered by | Leonard Woolley |
| Present location | British Museum, London |
| Identification | 121201 Reg number:1928,1010.3 |
| Culture | Sumerian |
The Standard of Ur is a Sumerian artifact of the 3rd millennium BC that is now in the collection of the British Museum. It is thought to have decorated the outside a hollow wooden box measuring 21.59 cm (8.50 in) wide by 49.53 cm (19.50 in) long, inlaid with a mosaic of shell, red limestone, and lapis lazuli.[1] It comes from the ancient city of Ur, located in modern-day Iraq west of Nasiriyah. It dates to the First Dynasty of Ur during the Early Dynastic III period and is around 4,600 years old.
The standard was probably constructed in the form of a hollow wooden box with scenes of war and peace represented on each side through elaborately inlaid mosaics. Although interpreted as a standard by its discoverer, its actual purpose is not known. It was found in a royal tomb in Ur in the 1920s next to the skeleton of a ritually sacrificed man who might have been its bearer "entirely covered with thousands of minute lapis-lazuli ball beads, they lay over and under the broken skull and were thick in the surrounding soil; it appeared that he had worn a cap which was parsemé with beads".[2] A shell cylinder seal with the name "é-zi" was found with the body.[3]
- ^ Hauptmann, Andreas, Klein, Sabine, Paoletti, Paola, Zettler, Richard L. and Jansen, Moritz, "Types of Gold, Types of Silver: The Composition of Precious Metal Artifacts Found in the Royal Tombs of Ur, Mesopotamia", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 108, no. 1, pp. 100-131, 2018
- ^ [1] Woolley, Leonard, "The Royal Cemetery: a report on the predynastic and Sargonid graves excavated between 1926 and 1931", Ur Excavations II, Publications of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, to Mesopotamia, Oxford University Press, 1934
- ^ Marchesi, Gianni, "Who Was Buried in the Royal Tombs of Ur? The Epigraphic and Textual Data", Orientalia, vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 153–97, 2004