Fertile Crescent :|: Document

bitumen model boat from Ur

ref. : en.1032.2013 |

12 November 2013 | by Francis Leveque
modèle | Second half of IIIe millennium BC
Ur, Sumer ( Irak )

This bitumen model boat come from Royal Cemetery of Ur, early Dynastic III (?) 2400BC-2100BC. Southern Mesopotamia was a landscape of lagoons and waterways, and boats were one of the easiest forms of transport.

This model of a boat is made of a mixture of bitumen and earth.

Similar model boats, made of metal or bitumen, have been found in other graves, including some of the ’Royal Graves’.

There is excavated evidence that these boat models were interred partway down the burial shaft. When found, these model boats were loaded with vessels, presumably containing supplies.

Length: 75 centimetres
Width: 28 centimetres (maximum)

Bibliography :

C.L. Woolley , Ur Excavations, The British Museum Press, Londres , 1932

C.L. Woolley, P.R.S. Moorey, Ur of the Chaldees, revised edition , Cornell University Press, New York , 1982