Still more Ur
This month's museum blog entry about the Ur project covers the idea of a 'standard house' at the site in the Old Babylonian Period. In fact, there is a lot of debate about just what the 'ideal house' was. There is a good deal of difficulty in reconstructing a house above the remains that still exist. Just how high was the roof? Was there a second floor? How many people lived in the typical house? These questions are far from answered. For example, the bottom of stairs often appear in Ur houses, but did they lead to the roof or to upper floor rooms? There is competing evidence.
Regardless, Sir Leonard Woolley felt he had enough evidence to suggest the standard type of house for the period. He even had his architect, A.S. Whitburn, make a watercolor image of what he felt that house looked like and I include the image in the museum blog entry. In his mind, the house had two floors with a gallery walkway around the upper courtyard to provide access, looking much like a standard townhouse in Baghdad in the 1920s. Although possible, it is far from certain that this was the case. Check out the blog entry for more.
And for more information about the project and its progress so far, you can watch my presentation from this year's Archaeological Institute of America meeting. It was held in Seattle from Jan 3-6 and the presentations from the digital session were recorded and placed on youtube.