Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T18:15:54.450Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The human remains from Woolley's excavations at Ur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Theya Molleson  and
Dawn Hodgson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

A new study of the human skeletal material from Ur, Iraq, has drawn attention to exceptional morphologies of shape, robusticity and muscle development displayed by the bones. It is proposed that these changes result from the intensive performance of restricted activities from an early age, since it is mainly whilst the skeleton is still growing that bones can be so modelled by forces imposed upon them. Some possible activities are suggested. The presence of such tasks in a population implies a role specialisation that amounts to child labour, even slavery. These extreme changes have rarely been observed in other collections.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 65 , 2003 , pp. 91 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angel, J. L. 1964. The reaction area of the femoral neck. Clinical Orthopaedics 32, 130–42.Google ScholarPubMed
Curtis, J. 1983. Late Assyrian bronze coffins. Anatolian Studies 33, 85–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fazekas, I. G. and Kósa, F. 1978. Forensic Fetal Osteology. Budapest.Google Scholar
Hall, H. R. 1930. A Season's Work at Ur. Methuen & Co Ltd, London.Google Scholar
Hall, H. R. and Woolley, C. L. 1927. The Ur Excavations I. Al-'Ubaid. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Irving, A. and Ambers, J. in press. Can we shed new light on the most ancient Near East? Radiography reveals hidden treasure from the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Near Eastern Archaeology.Google Scholar
Kapandji, I. A. 1987. The Physiology of the Joints II. Lower Limb. Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1927. Chapter X. Report on the Human Remains. In Hall and Woolley 1927, pp. 214–40, Pls. LXIII-LXVIII.Google Scholar
Keith, 1932 = Letter from Sir Arthur Keith to Leonard Woolley on 4 August 1932; copy in the archives of the Royal College of Surgeons.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1934. Chapter XXIII. Report on the Human Remains. In Woolley 1934, pp. 400–9, Pls. 268–9.Google Scholar
Legrain, L. 1951. Ur Excavations III. Archaic Seal Impressions. Publications of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia.Google Scholar
Littauer, M. A. and Crouwel, J. H. 1979. Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals in Ancient Near East. EJ Brill, Leiden.Google Scholar
Molleson, T. 1989. Seed Preparation in the Mesolithic. Antiquity 63, 356–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molleson, T. in press. Bones of work at the origins of labour. In Hamilton, S. and Wright, S. (eds.), Women in Archaeology.Google Scholar
Molleson, T. and Hodgson, D. 1993. A cart driver from Ur. Archaeozoologia 6, 93–106.Google Scholar
Moorey, P. R. S. 1970. Pictorial evidence for the history of horse-riding in Iraq before the Kassite period. Iraq 32, 36–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nissen, H. J. 1966. Zur Datierung des Königsfriedhofes von Ur. Rudolf Habelt Verlag, Bonn.Google Scholar
Peyronel, L. 2000. Some Remarks on Mesopotamian Metrology during the Old Babylonian Period: The evidence from Graves LG/23 and LG/45 at Ur, Iraq 62, 177–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Postgate, J. N. 1996. Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Reade, J. 2000. Mesopotamia. British Museum Press, London, 2nd Edn.Google Scholar
Reade, J. 2001. Assyrian King-lists, the Royal Tombs of Ur, and Indus origins. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 60, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stafne, E. C. 1942. Bone Cavities Situated near the Angle of the Mandible. Journal of the American Dental Association 29, 1969–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, C. B. F. 1981. Cuneiform Brick Inscriptions. The Trustees of the British Museum, London.Google Scholar
Warwick, R. and Williams, P. L. (Eds.) 1973. Grays Anatomy. 35th edn. Longman.Google Scholar
Weadock, P. N. 1975. The giparu at Ur. Iraq 37, 101–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, C. L. 1926. The excavations at Ur, 1925-6. Antiquaries Journal 6, 365–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, C. L. 1928. The Sumerians. Clarendon Press Oxford.Google Scholar
Woolley, C. L. 1934. Ur Excavations II. The Royal Cemetery (2 vols). Publications of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia.Google Scholar
Woolley, C. L. and Mallowan, M. E. L. 1962. Ur Excavations IX. The Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods. Publications of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia.Google Scholar
Woolley, C. L. and Mallowan, M. E. L. 1976. The Excavations at Ur 1926–7 VII. The Old Babylonian Period. Publications of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia, London/ Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Woolley, L. and Moorey, P. R. S. 1982. Ur “of the Chaldees”. The Final Account Revised and Updated. The Herbert Press.Google Scholar