Death and Preservation in the Ur Elite Cemetery
Sumerian Culture and Funeral Ceremonies
Dec 11, 2008
Woolley’s Excavations
During his excavations in the 1920’s and 30’s, Sir Leonard Woolley discovered the elite cemetery of the Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2660-2500 BCE). The rulers of the city were buried in deep pits, where they lay surrounded by treasures. But they were not alone.
Human Sacrifice in the Ur Elite Cemetery
Alongside them, and outside their burial chambers, were scores of other bodies, also richly dressed. These included young women and men, musicians with their harps and soldiers equipped with helmets and weapons. There were even carts, drawn by oxen equipped with elaborate silver harnesses, and their human drivers.
Woolley thought they had assembled in these areas, before drinking poison from gold cups found nearby. In the Sumerian poem ,"The Death of Gilgamesh", this legendary king has his whole family and court buried before entering the tomb and drinking poison. However, it now appears that the method of sacrifice at Ur was more bizarre .
Re-evaluating the Elite Cemetery Material
A major reevaluation of materials from Woolley’s excavation, in the British Museum and University of Pennsylvania Museum, is now taking place, in conjunction with a re-desgined gallery at the University Museum and travelling shows from the British Museum in Boston and New York. Up-to-date findings were presented this November at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Boston.
The skeletons excavated by Woolley and his team were extremely fragile, owing to the acidity of the soil. Most of the material was not removed and, after documentation, was lost to further study. However, a small number of the upper body parts, with elaborate headgear and jewelry, were preserved by coating them with paraffin wax and removing them as a unit after it hardened. These objects, affectionately known as “deadheads,” are found in both the University Museum and the British Museum.
New Evidence from CT Scans
Aubrey Baadsgaard of the University of Pennsylvania was astounded by the results of to CT scans and forensic analysis of two of these specimens. Both of the subjects had been subjected to “blunt trauma” on the head, with something like an icepick. The heads in the British Museum told the same story.
Extensive evidence of carbonization led Baadsgaard to concluded that the bodies had been heated to retard putrefaction. In this treatment, found throughout ancient western Asia, bodies were heated to around 200 degrees centigrade, unfortunately rendering them black and crispy on the outside. The CT scan also revealed the presence globules of mercury its raw mineral form, Cinnabar, a rare, precious substance long prized as a red pigment, and available to the Sumerians through trade routes into central Asia.
Conclusion: New Light on Sumerian Funeral Ceremonies
Baadsgaard thinks that the deceased’s followers were killed above ground, before being heat-treated, dressed in their finery and sprinkled with Cinnabar to be part of a display that provided the setting for elaborate feasting and ritual that accompanied elite Sumerian funerals. After the principal burial took place, they were moved to the pits and placed in the positions they were found in.
The current reevaluation of material from the Royal Cemetery at Ur suggests that the remote past is not just another country, but perhaps another planet.
References:
“The Death of Gilgamesh,” Benjamin Foster, The Epic of Gilgamesh (New York: Norton, 2001), pp. 143-154.
Leonard Wooley, Ur of the Chaldees (London: Norton, 1956).
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