The public precinct was separated from the surrounding neighbourhood by a
boundary wall about 4 m in width. The wall has survived for only about 80 m.
Nevertheless its course excludes the tombs of the kings from the official and public
precinct of Ur at the time.
The builders and their needsThe building types and functions and the arrangement and location of the public
architecture in Ur illustrates the demands and needs of the new political power. As the
inscriptions show, the precinct united several dissimilar ‘public functions’. It was a
venue for cultic activities, for storage, for the court, for public administration and royal
representation. Every building was designed individually, every function given its
specific formal expression. Uniqueness, not conformity, singular forms, not repetition
and standardisation were the design principles and requirements followed by those
responsible for the building activities at the time. All buildings had their corners
oriented to the cardinal points, thus being a result of obviously careful planning.
The builders have been identified – the question remains: who were the users?The textual and architectural evidence from Ur identified the builders responsible for
the public area and clarified the functions of the precinct. The texts do not tell us about
the users of the precinct and the examples of Uruk and Khafajah have shown how
difficult it is to identify the groups of users solely on the basis of physical evidence.
Uruk and Khafajah have, however, also shown that analysis of the location, size and
designs of the buildings, and of their accessibility, may inform us about the potential
of the public architecture to serve as meeting spaces for large crowds as well as the
ability of those in charge to control the coming and going of the people. These features
in turn may contain at least vague suggestions concerning the way the buildings were
used and who the user groups of the public precinct of Ur were.
Entrance design, accessibility of buildings, measures of access control
considered necessaryAs in Uruk and Khafajah, the precinct of public buildings in Ur were visibly fenced off
from their surroundings and segregated from the sphere of everyday life. The boundary
wall of about 4 m wide suggests that the main concern of the builders had not been the
integration of the public precinct into the daily business of the inhabitants of Ur.
Access to the ziggurat precinct (e-temen-ni-gur-ru), itself a spacious area able to allow
large crowds of people to assemble, was heavily protected by the above mentioned
‘Zingel’. This could only be crossed after the visitors had passed two main gate
buildings. These gates were characterised by a remarkable formal contrast, which was
at the same time functionally logical. While the actual gatehouses were monumental,
the passages were strikingly narrow and therefore easy to control. The inestimable
representation of power and the visible power to control access, and thus the visitors
entering the holy precinct, merged in this construction. It cannot be excluded that the
effect (if not the intention) of this visible consolidation of access to the holy precinct
was to scare off the public or at least to raise awareness of the powerful forces connected
with the building. One more solution for reaching the same end, securing protection
–– Public buildings, palaces and temples ––