Archaeology Tour Ur: Cuneiform Tablet find!

In October and November of 2022, the Penn Museum conducted the first post-pandemic excavation season at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq. Our main goal was to more completely understand habitation at the edges of the city and just beyond its technical limits. The edge of the mound is still marked by what had been the rampart or revetment on which stood the city wall in the Ur III period, about 4000 years ago Area 5 at Ur is near the southern edge of the mound and here, Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian houses appear to have more space in them and between them than those in the city center. This season we completed the excavation of one of these houses and looked at parts of an early house beneath it. In this video, we tour the revealed parts of the earlier, Ur III building, and we get to see the excavation of a very interesting cuneiform tablet that was discovered while we were touring! 00:00 intro 00:41 square 5, Ur III building 01:44 Old Babylonian above Ur III 02:43 tour continues 03:20 a bowl full of tablets 04:31 tour continues 04:51 a new tablet revealed! 07:00 what is the tablet? 08:09 relationship of the tablets 09:37 outro

• #science_technology
• #mesopotamia
• #archaeology
• #excavation
• #ancient_near_east
• #iraq
• #first_cities
• #cuneiform
• #ancient_writing