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Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur, edited by Richard L. Zettler and Lee Horne. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1998. xv + 195 pp., 52 figures, 157 color plates, 2 maps. Cloth: $49.95. Paper: $34.95.
This lavishly illustrated volume was produced on the occasion of a traveling exhibit of objects from the University of Pennsylvania Museum's collection from the Royal Cemetery of Ur. As one of the two sponsors-along with the British Museum-of the 12-year excavations at Ur, the University Museum received a substantial share of the artifacts that C. Leonard Woolley recovered from the cemetery. A unique find at the time of its excavation in the 1920s and early 1930s, the Royal Cemetery remains in a number of respects unparalleled and hence just as intriguing today as when it was excavated.
The title of the book is, I am happy to report, something of a misnomer. Although many of the items illustrated and discussed are indeed from the 16 Royal Tombs (so-called because Woolley believed them to be the burial places of kings and queens), others come from the remaining graves, labeled by Woolley with the unfortunate term "private graves." The decision of the authors to include some objects from other graves can only be welcomed, as neither they nor the cemetery as a whole can be adequately understood by examining the tombs in isolation.
The book is divided into two parts. The first section includes four chapters that offer general introductions to Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (the period to which the most spectacular burials from the cemetery date), the discovery and excavation of Ur in the early decades of the 20th century, the cemetery itself, and two of the most famous of the Royal Tombs, thought by Woolley to be the graves of a king and his queen, Puabi. The second part of the book, entitled "The Catalog," contains seven sections. The first of these is devoted to an overview of the "art" of the Royal...