Texts and archaeology: The Third Dynasty of Ur

Introduction to the Ancient Near EastBrown University ~ Fall 2009

October 22, 2009

When the house is on fire and the children are gone

Ur-Utu’s house and archivein 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

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. 1283 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....

Archaeology and Text a difficult relationship

• texts as archaeological artifacts – information about their findspot, archaeological context is vitalfor 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

Tell Ta’yinat- uncovering a tablet

• 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.

• agenda: texts as material culture, material culture as text

an unfortunate statement

... the texts on clay tablets are far more valuable, far more relevant, than the monumentsthat have been discovered, although the latter, especially the famous reliefs onthe walls of Assyrian palaces and the countless products of glyptic art, offer welcomeillustration to the wealth of factual information contained on clay tablets, stelae, andvotive offerings...

Leo Oppenheim

Gudea, king of Lagash

ruled 11 years at Girsu,sponsored many temple building projectsprobably a contemporary of Ur III king Ur-Namma (ca 2127-2110 BC?)

• construction of several temples

• sponsoring lengthy literary compositions

• making of his kingly image, many diorite sculptures to be placed in temples

Gudea’s Cylinder A

Gudea’s Cylinder B

Lengthy royal hymnic compositions inscribed on monumental clay cylinders and commemorate Gudea’s rebuilding of é-ninnu (temple) dedicated to Ningirsu in Girsu.

Otto Edzard, Gudea and his dynasty

Strong armed Gudea...

King of Lagash Gudea and his inscribed bodies

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

The Third Dynasty of Ur

Conventional (high) chronology:2119-2004 BC.

Low Chronology2055-1940 BC

Kings:Utu-hegal 2055-2048 BC (low chr.)Ur-Namma 2047-2030 BCShulgi 2029-1982 BCAmar Sin 1981-1973 BCShu Sin 1972-1964 BCIbbi Sin 1963-1940 BC

The king as builder:Foundation figurine of Ur-Namma

Ur: Tell al Mugayyar

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)

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

Bitumen

Baked brick on the facade with cuneiformSumerian inscription

Baked brick on Ur Namma’s ziqqurat facade

Ziqqurat of Ur and contemporary imaginations

Ziqqurat of Ur and military tourism

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

Stele, From Ur (Tell al Mugayyar)

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

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 assemblydivine assemblyèš nam tar.ra : “shrine where destinies are decreedshrine 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

Nippur : cities and imagination

Nippur Kassite map of the city on clay tablet.

Nippur Kassite map superimposed with topographyand excavated areas.

Nippur Kassite (Late Bronze Age) map of the city on clay tablet.

“Gate of the RituallyImpure Woman”

“Exalted Gate”

“Gula Gate”

“Gardensin the city”

“Gate Facing Ur”

“Ekur”

“(Enclosure of) An.nigin.na”

“Gate Facing Uruk”

“Nergal Gate”

What does one represent on a city map?

“Canal that

runs through the city”

Euphrathes canal

Mound X:Private houses, residential quarter.

Dur-an-ki:(Bond of Heaven and Earth)Sacred Quarter

Tablet Hill/East mound(Areas TA – TB):Scribal quarter

Area TB Level VIIAdministrative complexwith large quantities of tablets of agriculatural production, esp. beans and flax

Nippur The archaeological site. Excavated areas

Area WATemple to Gula?. Excavated by University of Chicago in mid 1970s. Founded in 21st c. BC, several rebuildings down to 7th c. BC.

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]

Euphrathes canals.

E.bara.dur.gar.ra Sanctuary of InannaShulgi (2029-1982)

Archaeological Projects at Nippur: A frustrated Austin Henry Layard (1851) dug some holes. University of Pennsylvania (1889-1900), Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (1948-2002)

Fortification walls. Begun by Ur-Nammu (2047-2030 BC), repaired by Ibbi-Suen (1963-1940 BC)

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

E.bara.dur.gar.ra Sanctuary of InannaConstruction activity by the king of Ur Shulgi (2029-1982 BC)

“The plan looks better on paper than in actuality and is a reconstructor’s dream...I have never seen a building where so littlewill look like so much after it is drawn in good black ink”Richard C. Haines, architect at Nippur excavations 1956

Finds: texts in contextClay 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 ofthe temple institution by one of the Nippur families duringthe Third Dynasty of Ur

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.

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.

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.