Standard of Ur (War)

Introduction

“In the largest of all the stone-built royal tombs, which had been entered by robbers and most thoroughly plundered, there remained only one corner of the last chamber to be cleared, and we had given up expectation of an ‘finds’ when suddenly a loose bit of shall inlay turned up, and the next minute the foreman’s hand, carefully brushing away the earth, laid bare the corner of a mosaic in lapis lazuli and shell.”[1]

Leonard Woolley

 

As Britain consolidated their colonial power in the wake of the first world war, other agents of the Empire were engaging in other operations, including imperial excavation. Between 1922-1934, British archeologist Leonard Woolley would conduct his most famous excavations for the British Museum in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Museum. In twelve years, Woolley would undertake extensive excavations of what is thought to be the City of Ur, known as “Urim” in antiquity, referred to in the Old Testament as the home of Abraham.[2] Woolley would discover a large number of historically important sites from the Early Dynastic and Akkadian period of Mesopotamia at a time when Ur was the capital of an empire spanning southern Mesopotamia. Among Woolley’s finds would be a number of religious buildings, dedicated to the patron god of the city, Nanna, the god of the moon, including one of the best preserved ziggurats from the period.

These buildings date to the early Akkadian period, 2100-1800BC, but it is no a number of earlier discoveries, and one item in particular, that we shall focus on.[3] Towards the back of the site, Woolley discovered a  number of “Royal Tombs,” sixteen in all, shaft graves constructed from stone and brick that were separated off from the rest of a cemetery. While many of the graves had been robbed, in the most complete of the tombs, a number of exciting artefacts were unearthed. A seal in the grave revealed it belonged to Ur-Pabilsag, a king of the city who died around 2550 BC.[4] Of The items discovered would be a mysterious box, decorated by the brilliant blue of lapis lazuli and white shell.

This was the famous “Standard of Ur.” The title of standard was applied later and its use will be discussed further later. As Woolley recalled, at the time they had little idea of what the item was due to its condition. The wood on which the mosaic had been mounted had “perished entirely, and the tiny pieces of inlay, though they kept their relative positions in the soil, were all quite loose.” To make reconstruction more difficult, the box itself had been damaged, as “falling stones had been bent and twisted the once flat panel.” The bitumen that had once acted as glue had disintegrated, leaving the pieces precariously placed in the dirt where they had been buried.

The preservation of the ‘standard,’ carefully reconstructed on site by Woolley and his team using wax and glass, provides a fascinating insight into the development of the Sumerians at this point in time. Consisting of two main panels, one depicted a scene of peace, on of war, the standard also tells us much about both the power of the King at the time, as well as how the King wished to be seen by his subjects. This project looks at the depiction of war on the standard, as well how it was constructed, to demonstrate that the standard was purposefully designed to show off the power of the king. For while the design itself demonstrates his importance, the materials that were used to construct the item demonstrate how far the power and influence of the empire reached. While this rationale fits in with the description of the item as a ‘standard’, a display of the power of the army and the city-state, as mentioned the classification as the item as a standard has been challenged and will be explored in greater depth late below.

The Power of the King

The annotations provided on the map above break down the individual parts of the Standard, but it is when taken together that we get a sense of what the Standard was meant to convey. When taken holistically, it can be seen as a demonstration of the power of the king. The technical advancement both in terms of artisanal skill to create the object, through to the depictions of the standing army and the engineering of the chariots, demonstrates the level of development seen under the king at this point in time. The Standard is showing off in multiple ways just how advanced the civilization is.

How does this link back to the King? We know that in Sumerian society, the position of King did not carry the full connotations as it does today. As… highlights, the idea of the King very much developed through the third millennium BC, and “neither among the gods nor among men did the title “king” denote the summit of a rigid hierarchical structure.[5] Here, however, the King can be physically seen at the summit of the Standard. His enlarged figure, breaking through the border is unusual: as… outline in his/her discussion of the stele of victory, the King in this way “outstrips all other figures in size, a differentiation usual in Egyptian but not in Mesopotamian art.”[6] His position is further enhanced by the way in which prisoners are being brought towards him, demonstrating his command and ultimate superiority. In this way, the Standard of Ur can be seen as a piece of propaganda for the rule of the King, demonstrating not only to his enemies, but also to his subjects, his position in the hierarchy.

Purpose

What exactly the ‘Standard’ of Ur was used for has been somewhat debated. The descriptor of ‘standard’ was applied by Wooley upon discovery: at first, Wooly confessed that they had little idea what it was when it was first unearthed.[7] After reconstruction, however, Wooly believed that the “whole thing was fastened on to the end of a pole, and would seem to have been carried in procession.”[8] Extrapolating from this, Wooly believed that the shoulder of the man they found the object lying against belonged to the then king’s standard-bearer. This interpretation has since been contested. First, there is no direct evidence to suggest that the remains the the object was discovered next to was the king’s standard bearer. It is also an unusual shape and size to be carried atop a pole, and the detail would have been difficult to make out.

Just what was the purpose of this strangely shaped, rectangular box then? Looking at the construction of the item, it seems more likely that it would have been the sounding box of a music instrument, possible a lyre. Other instruments have been discovered with similar shaped attachments. For instance, “the queen’s lyre” also discovered at the royal graves features a similarly shaped receptively attached to the bottom of the instrument, which the “Standard’ could also fit. In addition, the depiction of the scenes of banquet and of war would be very apt for singing the tales of the heroics of the king.

The Queen's Lyre (image credit: Khan Academy) 

Conclusion

While we can only speculate as to what the Standard was truly used for, the purpose of the object remains the same: to impress the image of the power of the King onto those who see it. The way in which the advancement of Sumerian society is so elaborately depicted, with the King top and center of it all, breaking with Mesopotamian artistic norms by breaking through the border, demonstrates how the Standard was to display the supremacy of the King. The fact that this was found in a Royal Grave is significant. The burial of such an item meant that not only was the power of the King known throughout the Sumerian land, but also through the ages.