Place · Sumerian city · Iraq
Ur
The Sumerian city on the lower Euphrates whose royal graves, excavated by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, held long carnelian beads etched in white — made on the Gujarat coast and carried across the Persian Gulf. Harappan seals and cubical weights have been found in the same city.
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 30.963, 46.103
Worth knowing
Akkadian texts name three lands reached by sea — Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha — and Meluhha is generally taken to be the Indus. One Mesopotamian cylinder seal belonged to a man described as an interpreter of Meluhhan, which implies a resident community rather than occasional contact.
Connections (4)
- Trade routeLothal
The royal graves at Ur, excavated by Woolley in the 1920s, held long carnelian beads etched with white alkaline patterns — a technique known only from the Indus, and from workshops like the bead factory at Lothal. Harappan cubical weights and Indus seals have been found in the same city. Akkadian texts name Meluhha among the lands reached by sea, and one Mesopotamian seal belonged to a man described as an interpreter of Meluhhan, which implies a resident Indus community rather than occasional contact.
- Trade routeDilmun / Qalʿat al-Bahrain
Harappan carnelian beads, seals and cubical weights reached Ur; Dilmun on Bahrain is where the cargo changed hands. The island's excavated weights follow the Harappan standard in some levels and the Mesopotamian in others, which is what an intermediary looks like archaeologically. Mesopotamian texts call the source Meluhha, which is generally taken to mean the Indus.
- Trade routeShortugai
Shortugai on the Oxus and Ur on the Euphrates are the two ends of the Harappan reach, three thousand kilometres apart. One is an Indus colony placed at the source of lapis and tin; the other is a Sumerian city with Indus beads in its royal graves and Indus weights in its houses. Between them they show a network that acquired raw material at one end and sold finished goods at the other.
- Trade routeHarappa
IVC seals and Harappan-standard weights have been found at Ur in Mesopotamia; the texts of the Ur III period name Meluhha (identified with the Indus Valley) as the source of carnelian, lapis, teak and ivory supplied to Sumerian temples through the Persian Gulf trade.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Ur”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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