Iraq's Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur's Royal Cemetery

Ambassador Sumaida’ie Speaks on Iraq’s Cultural Heritage

admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:35:49 +0000

H.E. Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaida’ie, Ambassador of Iraq, speaks about Iraq’s rich and long history and the themes of continuity and change in its culture at the re-opening of the exhibition Iraq’s Ancient Past at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The forging of “national character,” the nation’s self-image, and the importance of cultural heritage in Iraqi national identity, is considered.

Write Your Name in Cuneiform

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:36:31 +0000

Write Like a Babylonian Interactive
This is one of our most popular online activities for primary school teachers and students. Write your initials in the form and see your monogram in cuneiform, the way an ancient Babylonian might have written it. Visit the site

Ur of the Chaldees Lecture

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:32:06 +0000

Dr. Richard L. Zettler, Co-curator of Iraq’s Ancient Past gives a one-hour lecture about Biblical Ur of the Chaldees, one of the largest and most important Mesopotamian cities. Drawing on Sir Leonard Woolley’s excavations in the 1920s and 30s, he presents a colorful portrait of the city that existed circa 2100-1600 BCE, a city with a towering ziggurat and crowded residential areas. The city that Woolley so painstakingly uncovered is not only the city he claimed Abraham walked, but also the model for our understanding of ancient Mesopotamian urbanism today.

Click here to watch and listen to lectures and videos about Iraq’s Ancient Past.

Welcome to Iraq’s Ancient Past

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:35:03 +0000

Most of the headlines currently coming out of Iraq are filled with reports of violence. With such media coverage, it is easy to forget the long and rich history of the “cradle of civilization.” Modern Iraq lies at the heart of Mesopotamia—the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is here that modern society—states with urban centers ruled by kings who recorded their economic activities in writing—began around 3500 BCE. We know about Mesopotamian civilization from the material remains buried in ruin mounds that dot the country’s landscape. When archaeologists systematically excavate these mounds, we can reconstruct many facets of Iraq’s ancient past. In 1922—the same year that Howard Carter shocked the world with his discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt—a little-known British archaeologist, Charles Leonard Woolley, began excavations near the town of Nasiriyah at the site of Ur—one of ancient Mesopotamia’s most important cities. His most remarkable discovery was a massive cemetery with thousands of burials, including a small number of rich tombs belonging to the kings and queens of Ur from around 2500 BCE. The Royal Cemetery of Ur and its spectacular finds still fascinate and challenge us today. In this exhibition, you will encounter one of the top ten archaeological discoveries of all time and explore early Mesopotamia through the lens of research carried out in the decades following Woolley’s incredible discovery.