Wednesday 8 September 2021

Object 12: Standard of Ur: (Made around 4,500 years ago). Wooden box inlaid with mosaic, found in southern Iraq



 

In the midst of life, a monument to death;

A cenotaph in a modern City,

A mysterious standard; a richly inlaid box in an ancient tomb -

A homage to war and wealth and power.

 

Kingdoms, it seems have always paid tribute to their dead;

Dark and triumphal reminders of the sacrifices and the victories,

And the glorious rulers who demand their reparations and their terrible subjugations.

And here is a graphic depiction of how it all began –

 

Five thousand years ago when land was farmed in the fertile plains between two mighty rivers a great city grew, fuelled by a surplus of bountiful harvests...

Ur.

Ur, nestled between the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates,

Ur, the cradle of civilisation,

Ur, where mankind’s words were first spelt out in cuneiform writing,

Ur, where monumental buildings grew in homage to their kings,

Ur, home to farmers and scribes and doctors and artists and high-ranking priests,

Ur, where the powerful rulers mustered armies to protect their great wealth,

Ur, a tectonic shifting in the universal balance of thought and deed,

Ur, where royal privilege deemed it right to conquer and rule other lands,

Ur, where foreigners became slaves,

Ur, where servants of the mighty shared their master’s deadly graves.

 

And in Ur, a Royal tomb,

And in the tomb an inlaid triangular box;

A colourful mosaic of lively characters depicted in bright colours that are testament of long, long journeys:

Celestial deep blue lapis lazuli from Afghanistan,

Blood red marble stone from India,

And iridescent pearly shell from the sea shores of the Persian Gulf.

 

The people stand patiently in line,

Like ghosts trapped in time they wait before their King, bearing offerings; tributes of their labour: fish, sheep, goats and oxen;

The stuff of life, a tax on life; the way of life from here on.

And above - another line:

The King, his court and priests, the elite of Royal society feast on the proceeds of their subjects, while a musician plays music on a lyre:

The structure of power laid out in a relief of semi-precious stones.

 

And on the other side of the box, the other side of truth:

The historical thread that leads us to now;

Great power and wealth have to be fought for...

Now the civil King has become the uncivil violent despot,

Spear in hand he watches his army lead prisoners to slavery or death,

Stripped naked, humiliated and conquered,

They know the price of defeat; they know the terrible truth of war.

 

Below this come the chariots of war pulled by asses;

A lively graphic technique that sees them gradually gathering speed;

A clever artist’s eye has the insight to carefully portray how a walk becomes a trot, a trot becomes a gallop,

As they charge their way through history;

The earliest depiction of a carriage of war.

 

That is the box,

That is the standard of Ur,

A wonderfully illustrative memory of war and peace.

That is the box,

The box that was laid beside a queen and her female attendants who died with her, garrotted and poisoned,

Perpetual servants, lives cut short,

Because life is short for those with no voice.

And so they lie beside their queen,

Who is adorned in gold ornaments with a sumptuous headdress.

And rich treasures, are placed around her, spoils of a Royal life,

And a board game and a beautiful lyre inlaid with lapis lazuli.

 Perhaps one of her dead servants had played it in her lifetime?

And perhaps she is expected to again in the afterlife..?

And the standard of Ur, as beautiful and compelling as it is

Spells out clearly how the future will be for those with no voice.

 

Ur is now a fragment of a fragmented Iraq;

The seeds of its long lost civilisation have germinated in the rich loam of history and throughout time grown ever more fruitful:

Art and writing, sculpture and the steady evolution of the city state,

A direct inheritance from that ancient land -

The DNA of Mesopotamia is present now as always:

A flower in a desert,

A tower in a city,

A bullet in a skull.

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3kQZrsnD5B7tzLc2P75RVP0/episode-transcript-episode-12-standard-of-ur