The organisation of a Sumerian townthe organization of rooms and courts are located in the far northeastern part of the site,
as far away from the main temple as possible (Stone forthcoming). A similar situation
is seen at Uruk, where the Sin-kashid palace is again located near to the edge of the
settlement (Finkbeiner 1991: Beilage 7). The exception is the so-called Nur-Adad palace
at Larsa which was located near the main temple (Margueron 1970,1971: 283-284,1982:
381-389; Parrot 1933: 177-178, 1968: 211-212), but the pattern of square court and
throne room, sometimes with another room leading to it as at Mari (Parrot 1958) is
missing there, and though the stamped bricks identify Nur-Adad as the builder, they
do not describe the building as a palace (Frayne 1990:138-139). Since it was abandoned
before completion, we will probably never know its exact function, but the residential
part of the Giparku at Ur-again located beside the main temple and housing the high
priestess-shares some similarities in architecture with the Nur-Adad “Palace.”
Analysis of the organization of domestic space over broad areas of early second
millennium sites is only possible based on excavations at Ur and, when available, from
high-resolution satellite imagery. Three different but contemporary domestic areas
were excavated at Ur. Although they differ in character-EM housing those associated
with the temple (Charpin 1986) and AH a more entrepreneurial population (Van De
Mieroop 1992) — there is no evidence from either textual or archaeological data that
there were any significant differences in either wealth or status between them, and the
architecture is similar in scale (Woolley and Mallowan 1976). High-resolution satellite
Figure 8.7 Comparative plans of third millennium Khafajah and second millennium
Ur showing the distribution of religious buildingsFortification Wall
Religious Buildings
Secular Buildings
Occupied AreaKhafajah^0 50 100 200 300 400 500 Meters Ur
Legend