It's been a long time since I've updated this journal about the current workings of the Ur project. We've gotten a generous continuation grant and will thus be working for at least two more years. I'm writing several articles and of course museum blog entries, several of which are already out:

Most recently, I wrote an article for the Center for ( Read more... )

I've put a new blog entry up at the museum site (click the picture to be taken to that entry). This one is about a silver pin from the Royal Cemetery, PG165, at Ur. It was used to fasten a garment or cloak and probably had beads and a cylinder seal hanging from it.


( Read more... )

This month's object is a cylinder seal that was giving us trouble, an example of many which have been giving us trouble lately. We are trying to identify all seals from Ur, connect them back to their field records, but it has been challenging. Read about it here.

( Read more... )

My latest artifact of the month post is up at Penn Museum blog. This one centers on a single gold ring, then moves outward to the larger context of that find (with five other rings on one body, as well as much other jewelry and many other bodies with much more jewelry). The context is known as "the Great Death Pit" because there are so many bodies ( Read more... )

I recently had the honor and privilege of having dinner with perhaps the most inspiring couple I've ever met, Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman (I say perhaps because that award should equally go to Jennifer Summerfield and Kyle Cassidy, who were also at the dinner). Amanda is a singer/song-writer/musician whose kickstarter for her new album and art ( Read more... )

...a workshop, probably for a jewelry maker.

Notice the mud brick sitting in the corner near the threshold block into the room (and remember that’s not a true corner--one side is a wall with a door in it leading into the room over the threshold block, but the other is a baulk into Op 111 that we will have to take down next season). The brick is ( Read more... )