In November, Howard Carter discovered the first steps leading down to the intact tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamun.
It was also the year when Sir Leonard Woolley made one of archaeology’s greatest discoveries, the intact tomb of Queen Pu-Abi, along with 15 other graves known as the royal cemetery of Ur, dating to about 2600-2500 BCE.
That of Pu-Abi was linked with the title "Nin", meaning queen. She died as a mature woman, laid in a chamber separated from a hall reached by a downward sloping ramp, on the floor of which lay the skeletons of guards still wearing copper helmets, funerary carts drawn by oxen, grooms and court ladies.
Pu-abi wore a wealth of jewellery fashioned from gold, silver, lapis lazuli, turquoise and carnelian, transported from as far afield as India.
The golden leaves on her headdress represented willow and rosewood trees. Many of the court women wore equally ornate headdresses. Food was placed with the dead, including barley, chickpeas and strings of apple segments.
The death attendants, members of her court, either took poison — a cup was found beside each — or were killed with a blow to the head, probably from a copper battle axe. Music accompanied the funeral rites, played on a lyre.
The tomb of Mes-kalam-Dug provides insight into the possessions of a king. A man of under 30 years of age, he was robustly built and found with a magnificent golden helmet, golden vessels, gold-bladed daggers with silver hilts and a silver belt.
I have a personal interest in Ur.
Sir Max Mallowan was one of my teachers when I began my studies in archaeology in 1957, and he was there as Woolley’s right-hand man. He met his future wife, Agatha Christie, when he worked at Ur and she used to come into our archaeology department for a cup of tea from time to time. Sir Max told us that he earned in a year what his wife did in a week.
