Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T04:11:20.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human sacrifice and intentional corpse preservation in the Royal Cemetery of Ur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Aubrey Baadsgaard ,
Janet Monge ,
Samantha Cox  and
Richard L. Zettler
Aubrey Baadsgaard*
Affiliation:
Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA19104, USA
Janet Monge
Affiliation:
Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA19104, USA
Samantha Cox
Affiliation:
Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA19104, USA
Richard L. Zettler
Affiliation:
Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA19104, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Royal Tombs at Ur have been long famous for their chilling scenario of young soldiers and courtesans who loyally took poison to die with their mistress. The authors investigate two of the original skulls with CT scans and propose a procedure no less chilling, but more enforceable. The victims were participants in an elaborate funerary ritual during which they were felled with a sharp instrument, heated, embalmed with mercury, dressed and laid ceremonially in rows.

Keywords

IraqUrBronze Ageburial ritesinhumationcremationritualhuman sacrifice
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 327 , March 2011 , pp. 27 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arbour, L. 2008. Blunt force trauma, in Kimmerle, E.H. & Baraybar, J.P. (ed.) Skeletal trauma: identification of injuries resulting from human rights abuse and armed conflict: 151-95. Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.Google Scholar
Aufderheide, A.C. 2003. The scientific study of mummies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berryman, H.E. & Symes, S.A. 1998. Recognizing gunshot and blunt cranial trauma through fracture interpretation, in Reichs, K.J. (ed.) Forensic osteology: advances in the identification of human remains: 333-52. Springfield (IL): Charles C. Thomas.Google Scholar
Borisenko, A.S., Naumov, E.A., Pavlova, G.G. & Zadorozhny, M.V. 2004. Gold-mercury deposits of the Central Asia: types of deposits, regularities of localization genetic models. Available at: http://www.idm.gov.vn/nguon luc/Xuat ban/2004/B23/b42.htm (accessed 30 July 2010).Google Scholar
Cabo-Perez, L., Symes, S. & Dirkmaat, D. 2008. Ur remains. Unpublished preliminary report. Mercyhurst College, Erie (PA).Google Scholar
Calce, S.E. & Rogers, T.L. 2007. Taphonomic changes to blunt force trauma: a preliminary study. Journal of Forensic Sciences 52:519–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cassman, V., Odegaard, N. & Powell, J. (ed.) 2008. Human remains: guide for museums and academic institutions. Lanham (MD): AltaMira.Google Scholar
Charvát, P. 2002. Mesopotamia before history. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cohen, A.C. 2005. Death rituals, ideology and the development of early Mesopotamian kingship. Leiden & Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Dickson, B.D. 2006. Public transcripts expressed in theatres of cruelty: the royal graves at Ur in Mesopotamia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16:123–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fletcher, A., Collins, S. & Curtis, J. 2008. Partners through time: current research about Ur at the British Museum, London. Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Boston (Archaeology of Mesopotamia 2). Boston (MA): ASOR.Google Scholar
Frankfort, H. 1955. Stratified cylinder seals from the Diyala region. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hall, H.R. 1928. The discoveries at Ur and the seniority of Sumerian civilization. Antiquity 2:56–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanson, M. & Cain, C.R. 2007. Examining histology to identify burned bone. Journal of Archaeological Science 34:1902–1913.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irving, A. & Ambers, J. 2002. Hidden treasures from the Royal cemetery of Ur: technology sheds new light on the ancient near east. Near Eastern Archaeology 65:206–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jagersma, B. 2007. The calendar of the funerary cult in ancient Lagash. Bibliotheca Orientalis 64:289–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, D. 2007. Sumerian funerary rituals in context, in Laneri, N. (ed.) Performing death: social analyses of funerary traditions in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean: 167-88. Chicago (IL): The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1934. Report on the human remains, in Woolley, C.L. (ed.) The Royal cemetery: a report of the predynastic and Sargonid graves excavated between 1926 and 1931 (Ur Excavations 2): 214-40. London: Trustees of the British Museum & Museum of the University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Koon, H.E.C., Nicholson, R.A. & Collins, M.J. 2003. A practical approach to the identification of low temperature heated bone using TEM. Journal of Archaeological Sciences 30:1393–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovell, N. C. 1997. Trauma analysis in paleopathology. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 40:139–70.3.0.CO;2-#>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marchesi, G. 2004. Who was buried in the royal tombs of Ur? The epigraphic and textual data. Orientalia 73:153–97.Google Scholar
Miller, N.F. 2000. Plant forms in jewellery from the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Iraq 62:149–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molleson, T. & Hodgson, D. 2003. The human remains from Woolley's excavations at Ur. Iraq 65:91–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moores, C.F.A., Fanning, E.A. & Hunt, E.E. 1963. Age variation of formation stages for ten permanent teeth. Journal of Dental Research 42:1490–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorey, P.R.S. 1977. What do we know about the people buried in the royal cemetery? Expedition 20:24–40.Google Scholar
Moorey, P.R.S. 1978. Kish excavations 1923-1933. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Moortgat, A. 1988. Vorderasiatische Rollsiegel: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Steinschneidekunst. Berlin: Gebr. Mann.Google Scholar
Morris, E.F. 2007. Sacrifice for the state: royal funerals and the rites at Macramallah's Rectangle, in Laneri, N. (ed.) Performing death: social analyses of funerary traditions in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean: 15–37. Chicago (IL): The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Muscarella, O.W. 1988. Bronze and iron: ancient Near Eastern artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.Google Scholar
Nissen, H. 1966. Zur Datierung des königsfriedhofes von Ur. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt.Google Scholar
Pfälzner, P. 2007. Archaeological investigations in the royal palace of Qatna, in Bonacossi, D.M. (ed.) Urban and natural landscapes of an ancient Syrian capital (Studi Archeologici su Qatna 1): 29–64. Udine: Editrice Universitaria Udinese.Google Scholar
Pollock, S.M. 1991. Of priestesses, princes and poor relations: the dead in the royal cemetery of Ur. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1:171-89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, S.M. 2003. Feast, funerals and fast food in early Mesopotamian states, in Bray, T.L. (ed.) The archaeology and politics of food and feasting in early states and empires: 17–38. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, S.M. 2007. The Royal Cemetery of Ur: ritual, tradition, and the creation of subjects, in Heinz, M. & Feldman, M.H. (ed.) Representations of political power: case histories from times of change and dissolving order in the ancient Near East: 89–110. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Pope, E.J. & Smith, O.B.C. 2004. Identification of traumatic injury in burned cranial bone: an experimental approach. Journal of Forensic Sciences 49:1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potts, T. 1994. Mesopotamia and the east. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Reade, J. 2001. Assyrian king-lists, the royal tombs of Ur and Indus origins. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 60:1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, M. & Kunter, M. 1998. Erste Ergebnisse der anthropologischen und palaopathologischen Untersuchungen an den menschlichen Skeletfunden aud den neuassyrischen Königinnengrabern von Nimrud. Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseums Mainz 45:85–128.Google Scholar
Strommenger, E. 1964. 5000 years of the art of Mesopotamia. New York: Harry K. Abrams.Google Scholar
Sürenhagen, D. 2002. Death in Mesopotamia: the royal tombs of Ur revisited, in Werr, L. al-Gailani, Curtis, J., Martin, H., McMahon, A., Oates, J. & Reade, J. (ed.) Of pots and plans: papers on the archaeology and history of Mesopatamia and Syria presented to David Oates in honour of his 75th birthday: 324-38. London: Nabu.Google Scholar
Tengberg, M., Potts, D.T. & Francfort, H.-P. 2008. The golden leaves of Ur. Antiquity 82:925–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, T.J.U., Gauthier, M. & Islam, M. 2009. The application of a new method of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy to the analysis of burned bone. Journal of Archaeological Science 26:910–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, T.D. 2000. Human osteology. San Diego (CA): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wieberg, D.A.M. & Wescott, D.J. 2008. Estimating the timing of long bone fractures: correlation between the postmortem interval, bone moisture content and blunt force trauma fracture characteristics. Journal of Forensic Sciences 53:1028–34.Google ScholarPubMed
Witzel, C. & Kreutz, K. 2007. First results of the anthropological and paleopathological examination of the human skeletal remains recovered from the royal tomb of Tell Mishrifeh/Qatna, in Bonacossi, D.M. (ed.) Urban and natural landscapes of an ancient Syrian capital (Studi Archeologici su Qatna 1): 73–87. Udine: Editrice Universitaria Udinese.Google Scholar
Woolley, Sir L. 1923. Excavations at Ur of the Chaldees. Antiquaries Journal 3:311–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, Sir L. 1928a. Excavations at Ur, 1926-7. Part II. Antiquaries Journal 8:1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, Sir L. 1928b. Excavations at Ur, 1927-8. Antiquaries Journal 8:415–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, Sir L. 1928c. Wholesale human sacrifice at Ur. The Illustrated London News 23 June 1928, p. 1171-6.Google Scholar
Woolley, Sir L. 1929. Ur of the Chaldese: a record of seven years of excavation. London: Ernest Benn.Google Scholar
Woolley, Sir L. 1934. The Royal Cemetery (Ur Excavations 2). London: Trustees of the British Museum & Museum of the University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Woolley, Sir L. 1955. The early periods (Ur Excavations 4). Philadelphia (PA): Trustees of the British Museum & Museum of the University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, P. 1998 A critical re-examination of the Early Dynastic royal tomb architecture from Ur. Unpublished MA research paper, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar