Image Details

From Art of the First Cities

Skirted Mesopotamian banqueters feast to the accompaniment of a lyre-player on the 4,500-year old Standard of Ur. This photo shows a reproduction of a panel on the 9-inch-high, 20-inch-long, lapis lazuli and shell object, which was unearthed by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in the 1920s during his excavation of the Royal Cemetery of Ur, in present-day southern Iraq. Although the object’s original function is still not known for certain, Woolley surmised that it was carried on a pole as a standard.