The Ur III- and Old Babylonian Pottery from Ur

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Adelheid Otto
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 450371124

The objective of this project is to analyse the pottery from Ur III and Old Babylonian levels from Area 5 at Ur. The pottery was excavated in the course of the two field campaigns at Ur carried out by the LMU München in 2017 and 2019 respectively. The finds and findings have been excavated and documented meticulously. The excavations conducted by Sir Leonhard Woolley at Ur (1922-1934) were relevant for the understanding of the Ancient Near East in many ways, however not for the knowledge about pottery. With the help of our new material it will be possible for the first time to make an in-depth evaluation of Old Babylonian and Ur III pottery from Ur by means of pottery seriation. The Old Babylonian pottery was retrieved from reliably dated contexts of a residential house with three consecutive utilisation phases, the Ur III pottery from storage- and courtyard buildings in the level beneath. Statistical evaluations will enable us to carry out detailed analyses of the development of pottery forms. Furthermore, this project not only serves to determine benchmarks for pottery at Ur, but also to gain reliable data on Babylonian pottery of the respective periods in general.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants