corpses on the battlefield. It has to remain unclear whether this pile on the Stele of
Vultures was meant to indicate dead enemies or fallen men of the army of Lagash. Piles
of corpses in the context of war are also documented elsewhere (Richardson 2007 :
193 – 196 ).
In the following I will take a closer look at the various forms of the burials in the
Royal Cemetery of Ur. The 660 grave pits of the “private cemetery” that were laid out
at the same time as the Early Dynastic Royal Tombs measured on average 1. 5 x 0. 7 m;
only a few graves, for example PG 755 , were larger than this. In rare cases, Woolley
found several bodies placed next to each other in a grave pit. Inside the grave, the dead
were laid on top of or wrapped into mats. At times, people were buried in coffins made
from wood, clay, or wickerwork. The sixteen Royal Tombs had shafts that were
approximately 8 – 10 m deep instead of the pits that were typical of the private graves.
The shaft walls were either plastered or lined with mats. Each of the shafts of the Royal
Tombs was different in size (between 10 and 120 m^2 ), but all of the Royal Tombs were
substantially larger than the “private graves.” There were ramps that led down to the
shafts, but they could not always be identified archaeologically. The single- or multiple-
chamber constructions, which could be found in each shaft, covered the surface of the
shaft either entirely or only partly. The tomb chambers were roofed with corbel or
barrel vaults. When the chambers did not fill out the shaft completely, the remaining
area was covered with mats. Mats covering the surface were also found in the “death
pits,” which are burials that did not have a proper chamber construction but still had
the “mass co-interments” and rich funerary objects that are so typical for the Royal
Tombs. The tomb chambers had stonewalls, which measured up to 1 m in diameter.
On the inside, the walls were plastered with fine mortar. In the chamber of grave RT
779 , the excavators found traces of paint, while the chamber of RT 800 had wall
shelves. Very high up in the shafts of three Royal Tombs (RT 1054 , RT 1050 , and RT
337 ), Woolley found structures made of mudbrick. Several of these contained burials,
“co-interments,” or other skeletal remains. It is unclear whether there existed a direct
connection between these mudbrick structures and the burials found on the bottom of
the shaft.
During the Ur III period, inside the area of the Early Dynastic Royal Cemetery,
buildings with altars and libation facilities were constructed above the underground
crypts of the deified kings Shulgi ( 2094 – 2047 ) and Amar-Sîn ( 2046 – 2038 ). Woolley
found the crypts and the above-the-ground buildings plundered. It can be assumed
that the buildings, which we should imagine decorated with paint as well as with
precious metals and precious stones, were used for the worship of the deified rulers of
this dynasty (Woolley 1974 ; see also Moorey 1984 ).
This short overview illustrates that a variety of burial types existed in the third
millennium BCin Mesopotamia. While burials can reflect the social standing of the
deceased, the specific characteristics of each burial are also indications of individual
practices whose meaning we cannot easily decipher today. Textual sources suggest that
graves may have been furnished. For example, the aforementioned text from Adab lists
objects made from wood (a bed and a chair?) for the grave of the temple administrator
and for that of his wife (Gelb, Steinkeller, and Whiting 1991 : 101 ii 2 – 3 , iii 3 – 4 ). Texts
from the Ur III period also mention beds and chairs that were part of the inventory of
graves (Sallaberger 1995 : 20 ). A chest for clothes that was found in the grave of Pû-abı ̄
should be mentioned here as well (Woolley 1934 : 80 ).
–– Death and burial ––