Companions of the dead
Why was Pu – Abi buried so elaborately, and her companions
sacrificed so wantonly? Was she in fact a queen at all? Sir Leonard Woolley,
the british archaeologist who excavated her grave 40 years ago, had no doubt
that she was, even though some scholars disagreed with his view. Nor did he
doubt that the principal occupants of the 15 similar burial chambers that he
unearthed were also kings and queens. In 1944 a Sumerian document written in
cuneiform script on a clay tablet came to light. When deciphered, it seemed to
justify Woolley’s belief, for the message ran: ‘On the bed of Fate he lies, he
rises not… The standing are not silent, the sitting are not silent they set up
a lament.’ (For the king is accompanied by) ‘his beloved concubine, his
musician, his beloved entertainer, his beloved chief valet, his beloved household,
the palace attendants, his beloved caretaker, whoever lay with him in that
place.’
Why so many important people apparently went willingly to
unnecessary deaths, we may never know. Sumerian accounts of their beliefs in
life after death are fragmentary, and the next world appears as a shadowy
place, barely defined. According to a Sumerian text, the dead went to ‘The
house where they sit in darkness, where dust is their food and clay their meat,
they are clothed like birds with wings for garments…’ The Sumerians believed
that their deities dwelt not in far distant heavens, but on this earth. The deities
personally owned and ruled cities, but delegated the day – to – day running of
affairs to kings, whom they chose and appointed.
Ur was the property of
Nannar, the moon god, and the raised and walled north – western quarter
of the city was his administrative headquarters. The whole of this area was
sacred, and it contained the Ziggurat, a high staged tower capped by the
abode of Nannar himself. To Nannar and his wife, the goodness Nil – gal, the
citizens of Ur brought not only sacrificial offerings, but their rents and
taxes. They also brought their disputes, and expected Nannar to dispense
justice. Temples to Nannar and Nil – gal covered most of the sacred area, and
each temple had its administrative offices and stores. The Ziggurat loomed
large over the city. Farmers working in the fields 20 miles or more distant
could see the sacred tower and take comfort or fright from the knowledge that
Nannar, their god, owner and master watched over them constantly.
The inner city of Ur was roughly oval in shape, three –
quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide. Enclosing the inner city was a
massive rampart surmounted by houses and
temples, which served as towers when the city was under attack. But the
city extended far outside the ramparts and covered more than two square miles. More
than a third of a million people crammed
its blind alleys and narrow unpaved streets. Most people wre middle class, or
lower middle class. Traders and shopkeepers jostled with priests and scribes in
the prosperous bazaars. In Sumerian times, Ur (today well over 100 miles
inland) lay on the Persian Gulf, and was a substantial port. Wharves teemed
with ships bringing diorite, lapis lazuli and other imports from abroad.
The middle classes lived in bricks houses, usually of one or
two storeys. Each house had a square central courtyard from which several rooms
led off. From the ground floor stirs led to a wooden balcony that gave access
to rooms arranged on the same pattern as those below. The roofs sloped slightly
inwards so that rain – water emptied into a central drain piped to a sump pit. Each
middle – class house had its burial vault. It also had its own chaple, for the
family’s private god, who watched over its domestic life and interceded with
the great gods on its behalf. Stone was rare and wood costly, in Ur. But the
city stood on clay and clay, either sun – dried or kiln baked, made excellent building
bricks.
The Sumerians of Pu – Abi’s time were the descendants of many
peoples. Some time before 4000 BC, waves of dark – skinned migrants came into
Mesopotamia (‘the land between the rivers’) from the east. There they
intermarried with earlier migrants and settled in the hot, humid windy plain
formed by clay deposited over thousands of years by the Euphrates and Tigris
rivers flowing southwards into the Persian Gulf. The early settlers endured
five months of enervating heat and drought each year, but the spring rain made
the land fertile, the rivers supplied good water and date – palms provided
food. They settled in the plain and developed a methodical pattern of
agriculture, being among the first peoples to do so. Barley was an important
crop and land provided rich pasture for sheep and goats.