UR
“Ur, (ûr),
ancient city of Sumer, S Mesopotamia. The city is also known as Ur of the
Chaldees. It was an important center of an Indian and Sumerian trade culture
and is identified in the Bible as the home of Abraham.
The site was discovered in the 19th century, but it
was not until the excavations of C. Leonard Woolley in the 1920s and 30s that a
partial account of its history could be constructed.
Remains found at the site seem to indicate that Ur
existed as far back as the late Al Ubaid period (@5900 – 4300 BCE) and that the
city was an important commercial center even before the first dynasty was
established (c.2500 BCE).
Among the most important remains of the first
dynasty, which has revealed a luxurious material culture, are the royal
cemetery, where the standard of Ur was found, and the Temple of Ninhursag at
Ubaid, bearing the inscriptions of the kings of the first dynasty.
Ur was captured c.2340 BCE by Sargon, and this era,
called the Akkadian period, marks an important step in the blending of Sumerian
and Semitic cultures.
After this dynasty came a long period of which practically nothing is known except that a second dynasty rose and fell.
The third dynasty was established c.2060 BCE under
King Ur-Nammu
who built the great ziggurat that has stood, although crumbled and covered with
sand, throughout the centuries.
Artistic
depiction of the original Ziggurat at Ur
Artistic
depiction of the Ziggurat of Ur after rebuilding by Nabonidus
A
picture of the Ziggurat at Ur today
The third dynasty of Ur fell (c.1950 BCE) to the
Elamites and later to Babylon. The city was destroyed and rebuilt throughout
the years by various kings and conquerors, including Nebuchadnezzar and
Nabonidus @ 6oo BCE.
About the middle of the 6th century BCE, Ur went
into a decline from which it never recovered. A record dated 324 BCE mentions
it as being inhabited by Arabs, but by that time its existence as a great city
was forgotten. The change in the course of the Euphrates, which had been the
source of the city's wealth, probably contributed to the final decline of Ur.
Ur is mentioned often in the Bible (Gen. 11.28,31; 15.7; Neh. 9.7) and was at
one period known to the Arabs as Tall al-Muqayyar – meaning “mound of pitch”.
Ur-Nammu’s Law Code
The Ur-Nammu law code is the oldest known, written
about 300 to 500 years before Hammurabi's law code.
When
first found in 1901, the laws of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE) were heralded as the
earliest known laws.
Now
older collections are known: The laws of the town Eshnunna (ca. 1800 BC), the
laws of King Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca. 1930 BCE), and Old Babylonian copies
(ca. 1900-1700 BCE) of the Ur-Nammu law code, with 26 laws of the 57
decipherable. This cylinder is the first copy found that originally had the
whole text of the code, and it is the world's oldest law code. Further it
actually mentions the name of Ur-Nammu for the first time.
Hammurabi's laws represented the inhuman Law of Retaliation, "an Eye for
an Eye". One would expect the older laws of Ur-Nammu would be even more
brutal, but the opposite is the case: "If a man knocks out the eye of
another man, he shall weigh out 1/2 a mina of silver".
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