The Ur tombs with the death pits were, and remain, unique. So who was so special to be buried in such horrific grandeur?
Woolley's conclusion that the sixteen extraordinary tombs were of mortal kings and queens stemmed from the accepted notion that gods and goddesses were just a myth and did not physically exist. But the abundant use of gold, the extraordinary artistic and technologically advanced aspects of the objects, and other features that we have pointed out, lead us to conclude that demigods, and even gods, were buried there; and this finding is boosted by the discovery of inscribed cylinder seals.
* * *
Woolley's excavators found cylinder seals both inside tombs and away from them; several seals and seal impressions were found in a pile of discarded stuff that Woolley called the Seal Impression Strata, or SIS for short. All depicted some scene; some were inscribed with names or titles, identifying them as personal seals. If a name-bearing seal was found on or beside a body, it was logical to assume that it belonged to that person; and that could tell us a lot. The assumption has also been that the loose 'SIS' seals came from tombs that had been entered and looted in antiquity, the looters keeping valued objects and discarding 'valueless' pieces of stone; to modern researchers, even the SIS seals are invaluable; and we will use them as clues to be followed in unraveling the biggest mystery of the Royal Tombs: Who was buried in PG-800.
On six of those seals the central depicted scene was of lions preying on other animals in the wild. One such seal was found in PG-1382 (a one-person grave), another by the side of a sole skeleton in PG-1054. Though these seals left their owner's identities unknown, they did suggest that the owners were males with heroic attributes—an aspect that becomes evident from the third such seal, in which a wild man—or a man in the wilderness—was added to the depicted scene. It was found in PG-261, which Woolley described as a "simple inhumation that had been plundered." And this seal had its owners name inscribed on it in clearly legible script (Fig. 126): LugalAn.zu Mushen.
In his report Woolley did not dwell on this cylinder seal, though it plainly identified it as the tomb of a king. Subsequent scholars have
Figure 126
also ignored it because since Lugal meant 'king' and Mushen meant 'bird', the inscription makes little sense when read "King Anzu, Bird." The inscription, however, becomes highly significant if it is read— as I suggest—"King/Anzu Bird," for it will then suggest that the seal belonged to the King of 'Anzu bird'fame—it would identify the owner as Lugalbanda, whose way to Aratta, the reader will recall, was blocked at a vital mountain pass by the monster Anzu mushen ('Anzu the Bird'). Challenged to identify himself, that is what Lugalbanda answered:
Mushen, in the Lalu I was born;
Anzu, in the 'Great Precinct' I was born.
Like divine Shara am I,
the beloved son of Inanna.
Could the demigod Lugalbanda—a son of Inanna, spouse of the goddess Ninsun, and the father of Gilgamesh—be the VIP who was buried in the violated and plundered tomb PG-261?
If we are right in suggesting so, other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle will begin to form a plausible picture never before contemplated.
Though no telltale golden objects were found in it, strewn about in PG-261 were (per Woolley) "remnants of an assemblage associated with military men"—copper weapons, a bronze ax, etc.—objects befitting Lugalbanda who came to fame as a military commander for Enmerkar. Since the tomb had been entered and plundered by ancient grave robbers, it could well be that there had been in it varied precious artifacts that were carried off.
To envision how PG-261 might have been originally, we can take a closer look at the very similar tomb PG-755, where the golden helmet and golden dagger were found (see Figs. 115, 116). We do know who owned them, because among the artifacts inside the coffin two gold bowls, one actually held by the hands of the buried occupant, were inscribed with the name Mes.kalam.dug—the name, no doubt, of the buried person. His name, with the prefix Mes (= 'Hero'), as explained by us earlier, meant 'Demigod'. Not 'deified' as Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh were, his name does not appear in the God Lists (in fact, the only instance throughout the God Lists of a name that begins with Mes—a partly legible name that reads Mes.gar.?.ra—is found among the sons of Lugalbanda and Ninsun). But Mes.kalam.dug (= 'Hero who the Land held') is not a complete unknown: We know that he was a king from a cylinder seal bearing the inscription Mes.kalam.dug Lugal ('Meskalamdug, king') that was found in the SIS soil.
We know something about his family: Metal vessels, lying near his coffin in PG-755, bore the names Mes.Anne.Pada and Nin.Banda Nin, suggesting that they were related to the deceased; and we know who Mes.anne.pada was: He is listed in the Sumerian King List as the all-important founder of the First Dynasty of Ur And he did not earn this honor without the highest qualifications: As stated in a British Museum text that we have quoted earlier, his "divine seed giver" was Nannar/Sin himself. Being only a demigod meant that his mother was not Nannar s official spouse, the goddess Ningal; but his genealogy still made him a half-brother of Utu and Inanna.
We also know who, in this context, the female Nin.Banda.Nin was: A two-tiered cylinder seal (belonging to the 'man and animals in the wilderness' series) found in the SIS pile (Fig. 127) was inscribed Nin.banda Nin/Dam Mes.anne.pada—'Ninbanda, goddess, spouse [of] Mesannepada'—identifying her as the spouse of the founder of the 'Ur I' dynasty.
How was Mes.kalam.dug related to this couple? While some researchers hold that he was their father (!), to us it is obvious that
Figure 127
a demigod could not have been the father of a Nin—a goddess. Our guess is that Nin.banda-Nin, was the mother of Meskalamdug, and Mes.anne.pada was his father; and we further suggest that the discovery of their seals in the SIS soil undoubtedly means that they too were buried in the 'Royal Tombs' group, in tombs that had been entered and robbed in antiquity.
It is at this point that one must clearly and emphatically put an end to the continued scholarly reference to Ninbanda as 'queen'. Nin, as in Ninharsag, Ninmah, Ninti, Ninki. Ninlil, Ningal, Ninsun, and so on, was always a divine prefix; the Great God List includes 288 names or epithets whose prefix was Nin (sometimes also for male gods, as in Ninurta or Ningishzidda, where it indicated 'Lordly/divine Son'). Nin.banda was not a 'queen', even if her spouse was a king; she was a NIN, a goddess; as the inscription doubly stated, she was "Nin.banda, Nin"—confirming that Mes.anne.pada was her husband, and leading to the conclusion that the VIP entombed in PG-755— Mes.kalam.dug—was the son of that goddess + demigod couple who started the First Dynasty of Ur.
The relevant section in the Sumerian King List states that Mesannepada, the founder of 'Ur-I' dynasty, was succeeded on the throne in Ur by his sons A.anne.pada and Mes.kiag.nunna. They both bore the Mes prefix, thereby confirming that they too were demigods— as of course they were if their mother was the goddess Nin.banda. The firstborn son, Mes.kalam.dug, is not included in the 'Ur I' list; his title Lugal suggests that he reigned elsewhere—in the family's ancestral city Kish.
Could it be that the only one of this group of 'Ur-I' kings who was 'royally' buried in Ur was Meskalamdug, the one who did not reign in Ur? Not only the discarded cylinder seals listed above, but also a damaged seal imprint (with the familiar heroic scene, Fig. 128) found in the SIS soil bearing the name Mes.anne.pada, founder of the dynasty, suggest that ancient robbers found his grave, robbed it, and threw away (or dropped) the seal that was with the body. Which grave? There are enough unidentified tombs to choose from.
Figure 128
As the jigsaw puzzle of the first 'Ur-T family and its burials « emerges, it behooves us to wonder who the mother—Nin.banda-Nin— was. Was there a connection between Lugal.banda ('Banda the king') and Nin. banda ('The Goddess Banda')? If Lugal.banda, as we have suggested, was buried in Ur, as were Nin.banda's spouse, Mes.anne.pada, and three sons—what happened to her? Did she, with her Anunnaki longevity, need no burial—or did she herself, at some point, die a
nd was also buried in this cemetery ?
This is a questions to be kept in mind as we unfold, step by step, the
amazing secret lurking in the Royal Tombs of Ur.
* * *
The sixth 'wilderness scene' cylinder seal that depicts a crown-wearing naked male bears a clear inscription of its owner: Lugal Shu.pa.da
(Fig. 129), 'King Shupada'. We know nothing of him except that he was a king; but that fact alone is significant, because the seal was found next to his body in the pit of PG-800, where he was one of the male attendants. Depicting him naked would be in line with earlier instances in which a naked Lu.Gal served a female deity (see, for example, Fig. 77).
That a king served as a funeral retainer makes one wonder whether the other grooms and attendants and musicians, etc., who accompanied the deceased VIP were mere servants, or rather high officeholders and dignitaries in their own right. That the latter is the case is additionally suggested by another find, near the wardrobe chest in PG-800, of a seal bearing the identification A.bara.ge, which can be translated 'The Water Purifier of the Sanctuary'—the personal seal of an officeholder who, as the deity's cupbearer, was the deceased's most trusted personal aide.
That the attendants of entombed VIPs were high-ranking persons in their own right is further attested by a cylinder seal found in the Great Death Pit of PG-1237. Depicting females banqueting and having beer with drinking straws while musicians are playing (Fig. 130), it belonged to a female courtier and was inscribed Dumu Kisal—'Daughter of the Sacred Forecourt'. This too was a title of no small import, for it linked the title of its holder to a subsequent king named Lugal.kisal.si (= 'The
Figure 129
Righteous King of the Sacred Forecourt'), indicating her royal-priestly genealogy.
While PG-755 yielded an entombed body without its death pit, PG-1237 a death pit without a grave and a body, and PG-789 (the 'King's Tomb') a grave and its pit but no body, PG-800 emerged as the ideal discovery, providing the archaeologists with a body, a grave, and a death pit. Understandably, in Woolley's and all other researchers' opinions, PG-800 was "the richest of all the burials" in the Royal Cemetery of Ur. He also viewed the 'King's' PG-789 and the 'Queen's' PG-800— which sat right against each other—as a special unit, similar in their having the sloping ramp, the bier or coffin carrying wagon, the death pit filled with attendants who themselves were high ranking, and the special separate Tomb Chamber constructed as an underground stone building.
Whoever was buried in such a 'with pit' tomb with attendants who were themselves VIP's—even a king—had therefore to be more important than a mere royal princess or a king; it had to be at least a demigod—or even a fully qualified god or goddess. And that leads us to the
Figure 130
greatest enigma of the Royal Tombs ofUr—the identity of the female who was laid to rest in PG-800.
* * *
We can start unraveling the mystery by taking a closer look at the objects and adornments found with her. We have already described some of the golden abundance in PG-800 (which was not robbed in antiquity), extending to the fashioning out of gold even of utensils in daily use—a bowl, a cup, a tumbler—and we noted the similarity of such use to the specifications for Anu and Antu's stay in Uruk some two thousand years earlier.
The similarity additionally embraces Anu's emblem, the 'rosette' of flower leaves; so it is not without great significance that the same symbol has been found embossed into the bottom of the golden utensils in PG-800 (Fig. 131). This could be possible if the utensils found in Ur were the very same ones from Anu's visit at Uruk, somehow preserved for two millennia as a family heirloom—in this case a feat linked to Inanna, to whom Anu bequeathed the E.Anna temple in Uruk with all in it. If the utensils were made afresh in Ur, then the VIP for whom they were made had to be entitled to display Anu's symbol. Who could that be, other than someone directly belonging to Anu's dynastic family?
Another clue, in our opinion, is an inconspicuous object found in
Figure 131
PG-800—a pair of golden 'tweezers'. The archaeologists assumed that it was made for cosmetic use. Maybe. But we find an identical object depicted on a cylinder seal that (according to its inscription) belonged to a Sumerian A.zu, a physician. We show the 'tweezers' from PG-800 superimposed on the cylinder seal (Fig. 132) to support the conclusion that it was a medical instrument. We don't know whether this symbolic emulation in soft gold indicated the profession of the deceased or was also an inherited family heirloom; in either case, it suggests that the goddess in PG-800 had links to a medical tradition.
We now come to the jewelry and adornments of the buried "Queen" (as Woolley called her). Every detail about them justifies the adjectives 'unusual', 'remarkable', 'extraordinary'; they definitely deserve extra attention.
She was laid to rest wearing on her torso not a dress, but a cape made entirely of beads (Fig. 133). As already mentioned, there was a large 'wardrobe chest' outside the tomb chamber, indicating that the
Figure 132
'queen' had ample clothing. Yet from the neck down the naked body was bedecked not with a garment but with long strings of beads—sixty of them—made of gold combined in artistic designs with lapis lazuli and carnelian beads. The strings of beads formed a 'cape' that was held in place at the waist by a belt made of golden strings decorated with the same gemstones. There were gold rings on each of her ten fingers, and a golden garter that matched the belt was worn on her right leg. Nearby, on a collapsed shelf, lay a diadem of gold and lapis lazuli adorned with rows of miniaturized animals, flowers, and fruits, all made of gold. Even the pins were artfully made of gold.
Undoubtedly, the most glittering and eye-catching of her accoutrements was the large and elaborate headdress the 'queen' wore. It was found crushed by fallen soil and was restored and placed by experts on a model's head (Fig. 134); it has since been among the best known and
Figure 133
Figure 134
most exhibited objects from the Royal Tombs of Ur. Facing the entrance to the Sumerian Hall in the University Museum in Philadelphia, it usually evokes a 'Wow!' reaction on first sight. That too was my reaction the first time I saw it; but having become familiar with it and where it was found, it seemed odd that the only way to fit it on the head of a mannequin (made to resemble female heads found at Sumerian sites) was by artificially giving the mannequin an immense coif of stiff hair. The weighty headdress was held in place with golden pins and golden ribbons; matching its design and size were huge golden earrings adorned with precious stones.
The disproportion of the headdress is obvious when one looks at the golden headdresses worn by the female attendants who were buried with the 'queen' (Fig. 135). Similar to hers but less elaborate, they fitted perfectly on the heads without resort to a mass of artifical hair. So either the 'queen' wore a headdress that was not hers—or she had an unusually large head.
The 'queen' wore around her neck a choker, a collar, and a necklace, all made of gold combined with gemstones. The choker had at its center a golden rosette (the emblem of Anu); the collar bore a design that consisted of a series of alternating triangles, one of gold, the other of lapis lazuli (Fig. 136, top row); chokers or collars with the same design were also found worn by some of the female attendants in PG-1237 (bottom rows). This is highly significant, for in some of her depictions the goddess Inanna/Ishtar (superimposed image) was shown wearing the exact same collar The exact same design was also deployed at the entrance- way and on ceremonial columns (Fig. 137) in the earliest Ninmah/ Ninharsag temples. Apparently reserved for female deities, this 'cult design' (as scholars call it) suggests some kind of affiliation between the several goddesses involved.
Figure 135
These and previous link-points to Inanna call for a closer look at both the unique bead cape and the exceptional headdress worn by the 'queen' in PG-800. The profuse use of lapis lazuli and carnelian requires reminding that the nearest source for lapis lazuli was Elam (nowad
ays
Figure 137
Iran), and carnelian was found farther east, in the Indus valley. As told in the Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta text, it was to adorn Inanna's abode in Uruk that the Sumerian king demanded from Aratta tribute of carnelian and lapis lazuli. So it is not without significance that one of the few art objects found in the ruins of the Indus Valley centers, a statuette of Aratta's goddess—Inanna—depicts her naked and bedecked only with strands and necklaces of beads and golden pendants, held in place by a belt with a disc-emblem (Fig. 138). The striking similarities to the 'queen' in PG-800 with her beaded cape and belt do not end there: the statue's towering headdress with its large earrings looks as though an artist tried to emulate in clay the headdress in PG-800.
There Were Giants Upon the Earth Page 27
