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The Royal Tombs at Ur have been long famous for their chilling scenario of young soldiers and courtesans who loyally took poison to die with their mistress. The authors investigate two of the original skulls with CT scans and propose a procedure no less chilling, but more enforceable. The victims were participants in an elaborate funerary ritual during which they were felled with a sharp instrument, heated, embalmed with mercury, dressed and laid ceremonially in rows.

Since its inception in the nineteenth century, ancient Mesopotamian studies has recognized a division of labor between archaeologists and philologists/ historians that has often skewed histories of the Òland between the rivers.Ó Recent efforts, inspired in part by the Sumerologist Thorkild Jacobsen, offer hope for more holistic histories. Three case studies-on the Inanna temple at Nippur under the Third Dynasty of Ur, abrupt climate change in the late third millennium and its social impact as reconstructed from environmental proxy data and textual sources, and the Sumerian Agriculture GroupÕs collaborative research on subsistence -typify efforts to integrate material culture and texts. D s le d but des tudes sur la M sopotam ie ancienne au 19 me si cle, un foss sÕest creus entre les arch ologues et les philologues/ historiens, et les travaux historiques portant sur le Òpays entre les euvesÓ en ont souvent t in uenc s. De r cents efforts, inspir s en partie par le sum rologue Thorkild Jacobsen, perm ettent dÕesp rer une histoire plus compr hensive. Trois tudes de cas caract risent les efforts dÕint gration des donn es de la culture mat rielle et des documents crits: le temple dÕInanna ˆ Nippour sous la troisi me dynastie dÕUr; le brusque changem ent de climat survenu vers la n du troisi me mill naire et son impact social reconstruits ˆ partir de textes et de donn es indirectes d riv es de lÕenvironnement; en n la recherche en interdisciplinaire du Sumerian Agriculture Group sur les ressources alimentaires.

The many gold and silver artifacts from the Early Dynastic Royal Tombs of Ur in Mesopotamia are among the greatest metal finds of Ancient Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. Within the framework of a research project, 32 of these artifacts were analyzed for their composition using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and a scanning electron microscope. Predominantly gold-silver alloys rather than pure gold were identified, containing up to 50 wt.% of silver and often with additional copper content well above 10 wt.%. This spectrum of composition ranges from alloys that could be of natural origin to alloys that were intentionally produced. Some gold artifacts were deliberately blended to gold-silver-copper alloys for color gradation. In addition, Sumerian written sources from the end of the third millennium BC can be compared to the results of the analyses of this study and offer more information on the processing of these metals at that time. In the present study, it is shown that gold originating from placer deposits was brought to Ur. Direct association of gold artifacts with lapis lazuli in many precious objects from the Royal Tombs and the particular composition of inclusions of platinum group minerals in the worked gold both point to a possible provenance in northern Afghanistan. One significant result was the confirmation of the use of depletion gilding for the removal of copper from surfaces; the technique of refining silver-bearing gold, known as parting, is not thought to have been known at this time.A previous version of this paper has been presented as a talk at the 62e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale of Philadelphia 11th–15th July 2016 by A. Hauptmann, S. Klein and R. Zettler under the title: “A. Hauptmann, S. Klein, and R. Zettler, Sorts of Gold, Sorts of Silver from the Royal Tombs of Ur, Mesopotamia”. “For the late Hans-Gert Bachmann, the pioneer of ancient gold metallurgy. (Andreas Hauptmann)”

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