258 



DISCOVERY 



\'isionalh- known as " B ") which at first was sup- 

 posed, on the evidence of the stamps on bricks of its 

 pavement, to be £-harsag, " House of the Mountain," 

 a palace of the King Shulgi or Dungi, the successor of 

 Ur-Nammu. This evidence is apparently contra- 

 dicted by the discovery in 1923 and identification by 



Fig. 3.— SMAr,!, STATUE OF KUR-I.II,, DOORKEFPER OF THE 



TEMPI,E OF ERECH; ABOUT 3000 B.C. 



Found at el-'Obeid, 1019. 



By co'.irlesy of the Brili-ih Mlise:im. 



Mr. Sidney Smith of a brick with the temple-inscription 

 of Ur-Nammu in the wall of the building. It is not yet 

 decided, therefore, whether this building is a palace or 

 a temple, though Mr. F. G. Newton, speaking as an 

 architect, pronounces in favour of a temple and the 

 authority of Ur-Nammu's bricks over Shulgi's ! 

 Unluckily a foundation-deposit excavated in 1923 

 yielded us no decisive evidence on the point, as the 

 tablet accompanying it, which should have told us the 

 name of the builder, was blank. 



This building " B," if a temple, was no doubt part 

 of the great temple of Nannar. The part uncovered 

 (Fig. 2) may have been chiefly the priestly quarters. 

 It was later on, after it had long been burnt and ruined, 

 reoccupied and then certainly inhabited (in the Assyrian 

 period probably) by priestly families who rebuilt it on 

 a slighter and smaller scale, generally using the ancient 



bricks for the purpose. Some of their domestic addi- 

 tions, such as bread-ovens, wash-places, etc., still 

 remain, and the later walls, either of their time or 

 (some) possibly of even later period, are easily dis- 

 tinguished by their slightness and careless building 

 from those of the original builders, which are splen- 

 didly built and generally 5 ft. thick. In this building 

 pottery and tablets of the Assyrian period were found 

 in 1919, and a few relics of the original builders, in- 

 cluding two fragments of statues (now in the British 

 Museum) of the later Sumerian period, the age of 

 Gudea, whose famous statues are now in the Louvre. 



If " B " is part of the temple, then the palace 

 t-harsag is to be sought elsewhere, possibly near-by, 

 as has been suggested above. In 1919 a foundation 

 tablet of Ur-Nammu was found loose in rubbish 

 against the south wall of " B," which commemorates 

 the founding of E-makh, " the Noble House," a temple 

 of the goddess Ninsun. It is not impossible that 

 " B " may eventually turn out to be E-makh. 



In 1919, and also in 1923, several graves were dis- 

 covered and excavated. The work of 1919 was pur- 

 posely directed to the discover}- and investigation of 

 as many different types of ancient remains, whether 

 temples or tombs or what not, as possible, in order to 

 obtain an idea of what the site was likely to yield in 

 the future. It was intended to " sample " the site. 

 For this reason a beginning was made with the excava 

 tion of the town ruins to the south of the transverse 

 wady (small valley), south of the sacred enclosure, 

 which divides the mounds of Ur into two parts. Among 

 the few ruined streets and houses which were investi- 

 gated were found many pottery coffers or larnakes 

 with burials, always of bodies in the crouched posi- 

 tion, with a few pots, beads of agate and cornelian and 

 amethyst, and perhaps a silver pin or two. Thej' are 

 of comparatively late date, probably of the Assyrian 

 period. Actual tombs of bricks, built up with a keeled 

 roof over the larnax, were also discovered in another 

 part of the mound, near the ziggurat. Another type 

 of burial was in two large round pots, placed mouth 

 to mouth, with vent-holes at the other ends to enable 

 the gases to escape. 



The Shrine of the Moon-god 



In the course of last season Mr. Woolley and his 

 associates completely excavated a second temple 

 (Fig. 2), E-tiun-makh or Ga-niin-mcikh, which was dedi- 

 cated to the Moon-god and his consort. The building 

 stood upon a low platform supported by a brick retain- 

 ing wall, 9 ft. thick and heavily buttressed. The sanc- 

 tuary proper was quite small, consisting of five rooms 

 connecting with each other, and was entered by a 

 single rather narrow door. Round the sanctuary ran 

 a corridor, and between this and the platform wall 



