There is a Sound Series, Dead Sea Scrolls: Ur, Succeeding dynasties, 21st–6th century BCE

Shidonna Raven
5 hours ago
3 min read

By Leonard Woolley

Fact Checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Jun 9, 2025

Source: Britannica

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Photo Source: Unsplash,

Ur

ancient city, Iraq

Also known as: Tall al-Mughair, Tall al-Muqayyar, Tell el-Muqayyar, Ur Kasdim, Ur of the Chaldeans

Succeeding dynasties, 21st–6th century BCE

The great brick mausoleums of the 3rd-dynasty kings and the temples they built were sacked and destroyed by the Elamites, but the temples at least were restored by the kings of the succeeding dynasties of Isin and Larsa, and, though it ceased to be the capital, Ur retained its religious and commercial importance. Having access by river and canal to the Persian Gulf, it was the natural headquarters of foreign trade. As early as the reign of Sargon of Akkad, it had been in touch with India, at least indirectly. Personal seals of the Indus valley type from the 3rd dynasty and the Larsa period have been found at Ur, while many hundreds of clay tablets show how the foreign trade was organized. The “sea kings” of Ur carried goods for export to the entrepôt at Dilmun (Bahrain) and there picked up the copper and ivory that came from the east.Are you a student?

The clay tablets were found in the residential quarter of the city, of which a considerable area was excavated. The houses of private citizens in the Larsa period and under Hammurabi of Babylon (c. 18th century BCE, in which period Abraham is supposed to have lived at Ur) were comfortable and well-built two-story houses with ample accommodation for the family, for servants, and for guests, of a type that ensured privacy and was suited to the climate. In some houses was a kind of chapel in which the family god was worshipped and under the pavement of which members of the family were buried. Many large state temples were excavated, as were some small wayside shrines dedicated by private persons to minor deities, the latter throwing a new light upon Babylonian religious practices; but the domestic chapels, with their provision for the worship of the nameless family gods, are yet more interesting and have a possible relation to the religion of the Hebrew patriarchs.

After a long period of relative neglect, Ur experienced a revival in the Neo-Babylonian period, under Nebuchadrezzar II (605–562 BCE), who practically rebuilt the city. Scarcely less active was Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (556–539 BCE), whose great work was the remodeling of the ziggurat, increasing its height to seven stages.

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