and new building principles and thus to manifest their new order. Those responsible
for the ‘New’ thus had the power to control the human and material resources in
Khafajah necessary to dismantle the old buildings, to deconstruct aspects of the
materialised, visible former ruling order and to build the New, in this case the Oval.
That a powerful elite was responsible for the break with the rules seems unquestionable- but who exactly the builders, that is to say the clients who initiated the construction
were, is less clear. Whether they were a local elite, competing for power, who had seen
their chance, or actors coming from ‘another’ cultural context cannot be determined yet.
The same applies to the explanation of where the new building form had come from.^1
The heterogeneity and ambivalence of the signs sent by the formal features of the
Temple Oval reflect the needs and intentions of their builders and would have supplied
the building with an arcane aura that certainly increased the significance of the Oval.
The ambivalent information given by the figurative language of the Oval makes it
more difficult to find a clear answer to the question ‘who were the users of this monu-
mental complex?’ They may be inhabitants living in the immediate neighbourhood,
perhaps, or exclusive circles, gaining access only after they had passed an inspection,
as possibly suggested by the massive demarcation and the narrowing of the access.
Again, the question remains open: how important was public architecture for the
population, what did it mean for the local inhabitants of Khafajah and what func-
tional, ideological and psychological relevance did it have for those living in its
immediate surroundings?
UR: CENTRE OF THE ‘SUMERIAN RENAISSANCE’(?)
At the very end of the development summed up here as the Sumerian world, this
‘world’ experienced a renaissance, an active recollection of aspects of the culture that
had been handed down by the societies of Southern and Middle Mesopotamia for
about a thousand years, but had experienced a sharp interruption when the ‘Akkadians’
took over political power in Mesopotamia ( 2317 – 2191 BC): this power, whose repre-
sentatives spoke another language, worshipped other gods and covered the land with
a very different social and political order. Shortly after this political system collapsed,
Ur, a neighbour of Uruk where the first insights into the Sumerian world had been
possible more than thousand years before, became the last centre of this ‘Sumerian
world’ ( 2112 – 2006 BC).
Ur – and its beginnings at the end of the ‘Sumerian world’The development of architecture and spatial design in Ur at the end of the period that
we call Sumerian was characterised by the creation of the New (Figure 9. 5 ). The New
developed continuously throughout the rule of all the kings of the local dynasty, the
so-called third dynasty of Ur. Unlike the situation at Uruk and Khafajah, the
architectural development of Ur was not interrupted by severe changes or breaks
(Heinrich 1982 a, b; Woolley 1974 ). The building activities resulted in a common
building programme. However, it did not lead to a homogenous layout of public
architecture or the formation of standardised building types. On the contrary, every
building seems to have been built individually according to the needs of its builder,
users and functions. Together, the kings of Ur created a new centre for religious and
–– Marlies Heinz ––