SUMERIAN TECHNOLOGY—BOBULA 643 
gem seals have preserved pictures of the reed houses. It is prob- 
able that the airy, cool reed house was the usual habitat of the poor 
people, and perhaps some of the wise, simple priest-princes, the Magi, 
also preferred it on hot Mesopotamian nights. 
In the marshes of the lower Tigris and the Euphrates, Marsh-Arabs 
are still building beautiful large halls as well as small huts from giant 
reeds, artfully bound and fashioned into columns and arches. Small 
streamers sometimes hang on top of the reed columns of such build- 
IY TAS tel 
Ficure 11.—Archaic seal with drinking ritual, before a door, possibly a marriage ceremony. 
Eagle and stags in the lower register. 
ings, and one cannot ignore the fact that the symbol of Innin-Ishtar, 
the great goddess, was a doorpost or column with a streamer. A 
doorpost with a streamer, a piece of woven material, may have been 
the age-old symbol of a home, a habitation in which there is a woman 
who weaves, and a hearth, under a roof held up by a column, sym- 
bolizing the protection of Ishtar-Hestia- Vesta. 
Private dwellings, originally built of bricks and wood, were found 
and reconstructed on the streets of the ancient cities. Such houses 
seem to have been mostly built around an open court, giving to families 
and individuals the privacy which was neglected in later millennia. 
Modern architecture is making an effort today to recapture this 
lost value. 
Judging from the remnants of these houses, their walls were thick, 
the rooms not too large, but lofty; there were brick stairs, domestic 
chapels, kitchens, and lavatories with efficient drains of terracotta 
pipes. The builders seem to have respected the contemporary omen, 
probably inspired by a regard for privacy, inscribed on a tablet: 
“Rooms opening out of each other are unlucky but those opening 
on the court bring good luck.” According to the excavator, “The 
houses bespoke comfort and even luxury.” Considerable knowledge 
of architecture must have been evolved in Ur, even for the building 
of galleries and two-story houses, but of course more of it is evident 
in the planning and execution of the public buildings. 
