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Some Notes on Pottery from Ur
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
Extract
While the astounding work in the cemetery of Ur continues, Mr. Woolley has embarked on yet another investigation which, though less spectacular, is nevertheless of great scientific importance. An attempt has been made to obtain direct stratigra-phical evidence as to the succession of early civilizations in Mesopotamia and of their connexion with the earliest remains which are definitely Sumerian. Till now these problems have only found provisional solutions in a co-ordination of the discoveries made on several sites by means of more or less complicated cross-datings. Whether the new attempt will succeed is, of course, dependent on factors beyond the excavator's control, for the work has only just begun. But I comply gladly with Mr. Woolley's request to add now some remarks on the pottery recovered in the pits, because these discoveries illustrate once more the necessity of a change in method in discussing this kind of material. It is not only that the time of comfortable generalizations is past; the fact has to be faced that the rapid increase of our material during recent years makes terminology as well as theories obsolete almost as soon as they are put forward. The result threatens to be chaos; but the cure is not a merely sceptical attitude, such as that adopted in some recent histories, where the possibility of deriving anything from ceramic evidence at all seems to be doubted.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1929
References
page 345 note 1 Antiquaries Journal, viii, 217 ff. See also Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, art. Vase—Vorderasien.
page 345 note 2 Illustrated London News, 05 25, 1929, p. 893.Google Scholar
page 345 note 3 Archiv für Orientforschung, v (1929), 162 ff.Google Scholar with pl. xvi b. Dr. Speiser's finds at Tepe Gaura.
page 345 note 4 Antiquaries Journal, viii, pl. xli, I.
page 345 note 5 Irrespective of the details of the stratification it is clear that the bulk of the material of Susa I represents an early stage of the Highland culture, and the bulk of Susa II a late stage of the Lowland culture, if this prevails there at all. These conclusions are not based on stylistic considerations alone. The big copper axes with parallel sides from Susa I are of a more primitive type than any known in Mesopotamia or farther east. The weapons found in Susa II, where monochrome pottery of the latest type predominates, correspond with those found in Cemetery A at Kish; those from the cache in the monochrome jar are even of Sargonid type. In accordance herewith is the occurrence in Susa II of two of the handles (really debased spouts) in the shapes of a goddess which we know so well from Kish A (Revue Syria, 1927, p. 198Google Scholar , figs. 2, 3). At Tepe Aly Abad, on the other hand, where the polychrome pottery prevails and the monochrome ware of Susa II is not found, where, in other words, we find the Lowland culture in the Jemdet Nasr stage, the tools and weapons are such as Mr. Woolley i s finding in the ‘prehistoric’ graves at Ur. It is not possible here to enter into the conclusions which can be drawn from these observations but merely to point out the consistency with which other material corroborates the results obtained by an analysis and classification of the pottery.
page 347 note 1 Prähistorische ZeitscArift, 1928, 280 ff.Google Scholar
page 347 note 2 Mitt. Anthrop. Ges. Wien, lviii.
page 348 note 1 Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, xiii, pl. xxxii.
page 348 note 2 Hall-Woolley, , Al-'Ubaid, pl. livGoogle Scholar, left-hand bottom corner.