Gates Charles. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome
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42 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
The ED period and the first era of Sumerian supremacy came to an end with the victory of
Sargon the Great, the Semitic ruler of Akkad, over Lugalzagesi, the powerful ensi of Uruk, and
Sargon’s subsequent conquest of the entire region (see Chapter 3).
To illustrate selected aspects of ED city life, we shall examine the Temple Oval at Khafajeh
and evidence for temple decoration and religious practice from Ubaid and Tell Asmar, and an
important cemetery at Ur, the so-called “Royal Tombs.”
EARLY DYNASTIC RELIGIOUS LIFE: THE TEMPLE OVAL
AT KHAFAJEH
Sumerian cities of the ED period were located on a watercourse and protected by fortification
walls. As before, temples to the patron deity, his or her spouse, and their children occupied
Figure 2.11a Obverse, Stele of the Vultures, ED III, from Telloh (Girsu). Louvre Museum, Paris.
EARLY SUMERIAN CITIES 43
a prominent position in the town. Smaller shrines, popular as well as official, were scattered
throughout the city, in residential quarters marked by cramped and winding streets. Construc-
tion of huge palaces began in the ED III period, reflecting the increasing power and wealth of
the ruler. These palaces, of which good examples can be seen at Eridu, Ubaid, Kish, and, to the
north-west, Mari, served both as residence of the king and as the administrative and bureaucratic
headquarters. But it is the religious buildings that continue to be so distinctive of Sumerian
cities.
The coexistence of a “high temple” with “ground-level temples,” which we have seen at Pro-
toliterate Uruk, is a pattern that is maintained in the layout of a Sumerian city’s religious build-
ings. One of the most striking of all ED “high temples” was the Temple Oval, uncovered at
Khafajeh (ancient Tutub), north-east of Baghdad in the Diyala River basin (Figure 2.12). Since
the identity of the god worshipped here is unknown, the modern name of the complex reflects
its most distinctive trait, the unusual oval contour of its outer walls. In addition to this “high
Figure 2.11b Reverse, Stele of the Vultures
44 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
temple,” the city of Khafajeh also contained an imposing complex of “ground-level” temples,
the main one of which was dedicated to the moon-god, Sin.
Although the Temple Oval was poorly preserved, with only a few brick courses of the ground
plan surviving, three stages of construction and remodeling during ED II and III could be docu-
mented. Before the construction of the walls, the entire sacred area, approximately 100m across,
was cleared to a depth of 4.6m and filled with clean sand. The excavator, Pinhas Delougaz of
the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, estimated the quantity of sand at 64,000 m
3
.
After this ritual preparation, intended to create a pure environment for the god’s residence, the
area was bounded by an oval wall. Plano-convex bricks were used, bricks with a flat bottom and
a curved top, a shape that enjoyed great popularity only in ED Mesopotamia. They were set
diagonally in a herringbone pattern: one course tilted to the right, the next course tilted to the
left, and so on.
An inner oval enclosed a rectangular court lined with rooms serving for workshops and for
storage. Such non-religious concerns in the heart of the temple complex remind us of the multi-
faceted concept of the temple as an economic and administrative as well as spiritual center. At
the rear of this court the temple proper stood on a platform. Only the outline of the platform
and a trace of the stairway leading up to it have survived. The temple plan is uncertain. It would
not, however, have repeated the familiar tripartite plan with exterior indentations; that type had
disappeared in early ED I. The reconstruction drawing presents a simple temple based on evi-
dence from a nearby city, Tell Asmar.
The decoration of the Temple Oval has entirely disappeared, but some idea of the elaborate
architecture ornament is supplied by a large bronze lintel discovered at another oval temple
complex, dated to ED III (ca. 2550
BC), at Ubaid. The lintel, 1.07m high, consisting of cop-
per sheeting over a wooden core, carries in high relief depictions of the ferocious lion-headed
bird Imdugud (also known as Anzu) flanked by two stags with spiky antlers (Figure 2.13). Such
Figure 2.12 The Temple Oval (reconstruction), Khafajeh
EARLY SUMERIAN CITIES 45
monsters had a magical protective role in Mesopotamian antiquity. This lintel, it is conjectured,
graced the top of the main doorway into the temple to the mother goddess Nin-Khursag. Frag-
ments of similar relief sculptures sheathed in copper have been assigned to other walls of the
temple. Other decorations included inlaid columns in the form of date palm trunks and friezes
inlaid on the walls. Because the building itself has disappeared, the exact deployment of the
decorations is not known.
The appearance of Sumerian worshippers at such temples survives in sculpture, for example
in a group found at the Square Temple at Tell Asmar (capital of the ancient state of Eshnunna
of which Khafajeh was a part) (Figure 2.14). They date to ED II, ca. 2700 BC. According to
the inscriptions on similar examples of later (ED III) date, these statues are votives, that is, gifts
Figure 2.13 Bronze Lintel with Imdugud (Anzu) and stags, from Ubaid. British Museum, London
Figure 2.14 Worshippers, stone figurines, from Tell Asmar. Iraq Museum, Baghdad; and Oriental
Institute, University of Chicago
46 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
offered by worshippers to the deities. The tallest of the statues are 0.75m, half life-size. They
represent the worshippers themselves, not gods, all clasping their hands in front of their chest
in the proper position for prayer. The large eye sockets and grooves for eyebrows, filled with
bright white and black paste, shell and lapis lazuli, and the square shoulders and pointed elbows
give them a distinctive appearance. The women dress in a simple garment that passes diagonally
across the breast and is draped over one shoulder, whereas the men choose wool skirts with
fringe on the bottom. Priests can be recognized by their clean-shaven heads and faces. Lay peo-
ple also have distinctive hair styles: women feature a braid encircling the head with a knot in the
rear, while men wear their hair long and have squared beards. These squared beards which fall in
tiers will remain a favorite fashion throughout Mesopotamian civilization (see the Neo-Assyrian
reliefs of the first millennium BC). One wonders if the wave patterns of the beards resulted from
special treatment, such as curling with hot irons or waxing.
UR: THE ROYAL TOMBS
Ur is the most extensively explored of the great Sumerian cities, revealed notably by the excava-
tions conducted in 1922–34 by the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley on behalf of the
University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum. Modern interest
in this ancient city has been sparked not only by Woolley’s discoveries, but also by the site’s apoc-
ryphal identification with Ur of the Chaldees, the home of the biblical patriarch Abraham.
Like so many cities of southern Mesopotamia, Ur was inhabited for several thousand years,
from the fifth well into the first millennia BC. Here we shall examine the most famous part of the
ED city, the Royal Tombs. In the next chapter our attention will focus on aspects of Ur in a later
period, during the reign of the city’s greatest ruler, Ur-Nammu: the city walls, the city center with
its ziggurat, and the private houses (Figure 2.15).
Figure 2.15 City plan, Ur
EARLY SUMERIAN CITIES 47
The sixteen Royal Tombs of the ED III period were among the earlier burials in a centrally
located cemetery containing some 2,000 interments ranging in date from Ubaid to Neo-Sume-
rian times. The names of some of the persons buried here are known, written on objects found
in the tombs: a queen or priestess Pu-abi (called Shubad by Woolley), and two kings of Ur,
Akalamdug and Meskalamdug. The unknown may well include high-ranking administrators or
religious figures.
The Royal Tombs, unique to Ur, are striking not only for the splendor of the grave offer-
ings and for the tomb construction, but also for the traces of the elaborate mortuary ritual that
included human sacrifice. In each tomb, the important person, on occasion with companions,
and a magnificent array of objects were placed in one or more burial chambers at the foot of
a steep ramp. The participants in the funerary procession lay neatly arranged on the ramp: the
remains of the draft animals in front of the wheeled vehicles they pulled and the skeletons of
soldiers and female attendants. Although their clothes had disintegrated, adornments of precious
metal survived. Tomb no. 1237, whose occupant remains anonymous, contained the largest
number of bodies: seventy-four, including sixty-eight women still wearing their finest gold jew-
elry. Did these attendants meet death willingly, with resigned acceptance? What purpose did they
believe they were serving? Such practices have been attested at no other city. Textual evidence
offers no convincing explanation.
Grave goods: a bull’s headed lyre and the Royal Standard
Although Sumerian thieves had cleared out some of the graves, many funerary gifts remained
in situ, such as jewelry, vessels of gold and silver, musical instruments, weapons, game boards.
Shown here are two of the finds, a lyre decorated with a bull’s head and inlay on the sound box
and the so-called Royal Standard of Ur.
This lyre, the finest of several examples from the tombs, was discovered in the tomb of King
Meskalamdug (Figure 2.16). Although the wooden parts had rotted away, the shape of the lyre
was preserved in the ground. By pouring liquid plaster
into the cavity, the excavators could accurately reas-
semble the form and the non-perishable decorations.
Measuring 1.22m in height, the instrument consists of
a wooden sounding box on the bottom and an upright
section on either end, all inlaid with colored materials.
A horizontal bar across the top would have held the
strings running up from the sounding box, and tuning
pegs. The golden head of a bearded bull decorated the
front, perhaps an apotropaic image to ward off evil.
Such lyres were not just for show, for on one side of
the Royal Standard of Ur, a priest can be seen pluck-
ing happily on a virtually identical instrument.
The Royal Standard may itself have been an elabo-
rate sounding box for a harp or lyre, or, as originally
thought, a standard placed on a pole and carried
before the king in ceremonial processions (Figure
2.17). The wooden core measures ca. 20cm
× 45cm.
After preparing the surface with bitumen, a tar used
in antiquity as a sealant and glue, the artisan applied
Figure 2.16 Lyre (reconstructed), from
Ur. University of Pennsylvania Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia
48 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
the mosaic, figures and borders of bits of shell against a blue background made of pieces of lapis
lazuli. The Royal Standard is notable not only for the fine preservation of its inlay, one of the
favorite crafts of the Sumerians, but also for its figural scenes, expressions of royal imagery. Each
side has three registers; the scenes are read as a continuous story from the lowest register to the
uppermost. The reverse, “War,” depicts the king, his infantry, and his chariots, with enemies
trampled, whereas the obverse, sometimes called “Peace,” shows banqueting, and the transport
of animals, agricultural products, and booty. Wheeled vehicles are first depicted earlier, in ED
I, typically as war chariots. The animals pulling the ungainly four-wheeled chariots shown in the
scene of “War” on the Royal Standard were thought to be onagers (wild asses). Recent research
in Syria and Palestine suggests they may instead be mules, a hybrid between donkeys and very
small horses. The horse was long considered to have been introduced into Mesopotamia in the
mid-second millennium BC, an import from Central Asia. The issue is now open for discussion.
Roofing techniques: arches and vaults
The roofing of the tomb chambers is of particular interest, because evidence for the roofs of
Sumerian buildings is rare. Stout timbers, reed or palm frond matting, and a sealing of clay
would have created a sturdy roof for a house, strong enough to hold the weight of a person. The
same system could have been used for larger buildings, if interior columns divided the span of a
room into manageable dimensions. In certain cases a more elaborate roofing of mud bricks was
attempted. In the Royal Tombs of Ur, the chambers were vaulted or, rarely, domed with brick
or limestone rubble, using the technique of corbelling (see below). Valuable evidence for vaulting
techniques has come from excavations conducted in the 1960s at the second millennium
BC
site of Tell al Rimah, in north-west Iraq; well-preserved mud brick arches and vaults, some in
the pitched-brick technique, are essential components of a large temple of the early second mil-
lennium
BC.
The progression to the true arch and domical vault (= the dome) is one of the important archi-
tectural developments in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East and will be examined later in
Figure 2.17 “Peace,” the obverse of the “Royal Standard,” inlaid panel, from Ur. British Museum,
London
EARLY SUMERIAN CITIES 49
this book. The early techniques just mentioned, corbelling and pitched-brick, merit explanation.
But first, the distinction between an arch and a vault needs to be appreciated: an arch is a two-
dimensional span, covering a doorway or window, whereas a vault is three-dimensional, covering
a room. The principles of arch construction can often be applied to vaults.
In a corbelled arch, on each of the two sides each successive block projects further inward until
finally the two sides touch at the top (Figure 2.18d). If left by itself, the corbelled arch will even-
tually collapse: the weight pressing down toward the empty center of the arched space is not
sufficiently counterbalanced by the weight of one brick on top of another. To solve this prob-
lem, a counterweight needs to be placed on the outside, to press the outer edges of the bricks
downwards, to direct pressure toward the brick just below. If well incorporated into a sturdy
wall, a corbelled arch could stand. In contrast, vaults made in the corbelling technique never
stand alone, without counterweight, unless the space they cover is small (as in a small room of a
house). Good-sized corbelled vaults are underground, with a packing of earth around and above
the structure to provide the necessary counterpressure.
In the true arch as distinct from the corbelled, stones are specially cut in wedge shapes to fit
into one continuous curve (Figure 2.18a). The form and placement of the keystone, the wedge
Figure 2.18 Diagram: (a) true arch; (b) barrel vault; (c) groin vault; and (d) corbelled arch
50 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
at the top of the arch, illustrates how the pressure from each stone is not directed exclusively
downwards, but also to the side. The vertical struts that support the arch need to be reinforced
in order not to buckle outwards, but the arch itself should not collapse. As with corbelling, the
principles of true arch construction can be extended to three-dimensional forms, the vault (two
are important in Mediterranean antiquity, the barrel vault and the groin vault: Figures 2.18b and c,
respectively) and the dome (a hemispherical vault).
The pitched-brick technique of roofing falls somewhere between the above two methods
(Figure 2.19a–b). The bricks are not specially cut into wedge shapes, nor are they placed flat one
on top of the other. Instead, each successive brick is tilted slightly in order to form a curved line.
The extra space at the top is filled with fragments. Although much more fragile than a true dome,
such a structure can stand on its own.
Figure 2.19 Diagram: The pitched brick vault: (a) view from below; and (b) in cross section
EARLY SUMERIAN CITIES 51
SUMMARY
By 2350 BC, the city was already firmly established in southern Mesopotamia as the center of social,
economic, and political life. Owned by the gods, administered for them by kings, Sumerian cities
controlled their regional agriculture and water supplies, promoted industries, and participated in
the long-distance trade that ensured provisions of raw materials unavailable locally. The cities
themselves were fortified nuclei located on agricultural land and their life-giving watercourses.
Dominating the city, the temple of the tutelary deity was the city’s original religious, economic,
and administrative center. During the ED period the royal palace first appeared, the focus of the
rising rival power of the earthly ruler. The town would be further divided into neighborhoods by
canals, streets, and walls, but not according to any general pattern repeated from one Sumerian
city to the next. Social and economic aspects of the early Sumerian city include – and here we can
remind ourselves of Childe’s list of ten criteria for the true city – a hierarchical society; a variety
of non-agricultural occupations; the development of scientific observation, especially to assist
agricultural practice; an expanded range of monumental architecture; figural art with extensive
royal and religious imagery; and writing, by 2350 BC recording not only the economic data that
inspired its initial development but also myth, ritual, and historical and contemporary events. If
the Neolithic period gave rise to the embryonic city, in southern Mesopotamia in the fourth and
third millennia BC the full-fledged city was born.