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culture

of the terraces were not vertical but slightly
inclined. The ziggurat has three central
perpendicular stairs from the base to the
summit, joined at levels one and two by two
convergent side stairs. Rectangular holes over
the structure helped drain rain water.
The Royal Palace of Ur-Nammu and Shulgi is
situated near the Royal Cemetery and south-
east of the ziggurat. Construction was initiated
by king Ur-Nammu and completed by his
son Shulgi. The kings’ names are stamped
on the fired bricks of the palace. The site was
restored in 1963 using fired bricks similar to
the originals.

“house of Abraham”
The cemetery located to the south-east of the
Clay cuneiform history as a city state from the 26thcentury Royal Palace is attributed to Shulgi and to his
tablet with rules BCE under the First Dynasty of Ur. Although son Amar-Sin, kings of the Ur III Dynasty
for the Royal it must already have been a growing urban according to their names stamped on the
Game of UR center during the 4th millennium, visible bricks. Over the burial chambers, a funeral
dated 177 BC remains date mostly from the 3rdmillennium temple with several rooms opened on a central
when the city experienced a renaissance under courtyard. The tombs were built up of tar,
the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2120-2000 BCE). fired and mudbricks. Excavations conducted
The archaeological site is surrounded by a outside the sacred precinct, that is in the area
mudbrick wall of oval shape. Inside, an almost included in the buffer zone of the component of
rectangular temenos or sacred precinct (400 x the property, uncovered extensive residential
220 m) built of fired bricks with the external areas from the Paleo-Babylonian, Kassite and
facades covered with glaze encircles a number Neo-Babylonian periods of which parts of
of religious, royal and public buildings. walls are still visible on the site. This includes
the so-called “House of Abraham” identified
The ziggurat is the most outstanding building as such by L.Woolley (in spite of the absence
with remains clearly visible. It is situated in of any scientific evidence).
the northeastern part of the sacred precinct.
Dedicated to the moon god Nanna, it was Most of the treasures excavated at Ur are
built on a platform 4-5 m height during the in the British Museum and the University
reign of Ur-Nammu and his son Shulgi and of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
reconstructed in the the 6th century BCE and Anthropology. At the UPenn Museum
by Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo- the exhibition “Iraq’s Ancient Past”, which
Babylonian Empire. The ruins cover an area included many of the most famous pieces
of 1,200 m northwest to southeast by 800 m from the Royal Tombs.
northeast to southwest and rise up to about 20
(Material is m above the present plain level. Structurally, Since 2016, the city of Ur and its archaeological
prepared by the the ziggurat is made up of a mudbrick core site, along with the achaelogical sites of Uruk
Editorial Board covered with fired brick walls moved by a and Tell Eridu, is included by UNESCO in the
of the magazine) sequence of buttresses and niches. The walls World Heritage List.

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