Ur Trivia Quiz

Answer: author and poet

Enheduanna is associated with a great number of literary and devotional poems and hymns, and she has been credited as being the first systematic theologian as well as the first author whose name is known. Her works were recorded on clay tablets in cuneiform and have survived for over 4,000 years. Sculptured images of Enheduanna also exist on cylinder seals and in stone.

She is one of the earliest women in the history of the world to be known by name.

Answer: Sargon

Known to history as Sargon the Great of Akkad, Enheduanna's father was also called King of Kish, Uruk, Lagash, and Umma; and he was overlord of Sumer, Elam, and Mari, areas vast distances from each other. The city of Ur (in Sumer) was in the far south of Sargon's kingdom, in what is now southern Iraq, but - along with neighboring cities Uruk and Eridu - it had great value as an ancient center of Sumerian culture. Sumerians had built large, walled cities and engaged in international commerce for centuries before Sargon came on the scene, and they had developed a system of writing called cuneiform that could as easily record the Akkadian as the Sumerian language, which would remain the language of the educated elite for centuries to come. Akkadians had assimilated much of Sumerian religion and culture.

As relative newcomers, the Semitic Akkadians held the earlier Sumerian civilization in high esteem, and there was considerable propaganda value in Sargon's establishing himself as ruler of Ur by appointing his able daughter as a high priestess in the ancient city. (We should note that some scholars see the designation of the high priestess as the daughter of the king as not actual but symbolic.)

Answer: Ishtar

Although the city of Uruk, not Ur, was sacred to Inanna, the goddess was worshipped throughout ancient Mesopotamia and beyond. She was called Ishtar by the Akkadians and the later Babylonians and Assyrians, and she was known as Astarte by Semitic speakers on the Mediterranean coast. Represented in the heavens by the planet Venus, she was also associated with the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus, as well as Egyptian Isis.

But because Sumerian remained the sacred language in Enheduanna's time, she addresses the goddess by her Sumerian name: Inanna. Arguably, Inanna/Ishtar/Astarte was the most important female deity of the ancient world. Enheduanna composed 42 "Temple Hymns" that were used in the worship of the gods of cities all over Mesopotamia.

However, as a strong woman in a high position of power and influence, Enheduanna may have felt a particular affinity for the goddess, even though she was not officially a priestess of Inanna.

Answer: moon

The name of the moon god was "Nanna" in Sumerian and "Sin" (or "Suen") in Akkadian, and it is likely to have been in the time of Enheduanna and her father Sargon that the two deities were merged into one. He is the god of wisdom and holds a high place, even being seen as the chief god of the pantheon in some periods.

The famous Ziggurat of Ur is dedicated to the moon god Nanna/Sin. The animal most closely connected to the moon god is the bull. A famous artifact from the earlier Royal Tombs of Ur (circa 2600-2500 BC) is a musical instrument adorned with the head of a bull, believed to represent the moon god, covered in gold, with a beard of bright blue lapis lazuli.

Answer: Gilgamesh

The "Epic of Gilgamesh" tells the story of a mythic king of Uruk who is two-thirds god and one-third human. (How is that even possible?) The narrator of the epic invites readers to go look at the walls, describing them in detail and implying that only a larger-than-life hero could have built such a structure. Gilgamesh's friend Enkidu is a creature of the plains outside the city, more animal than human, until he is tamed by an explicit sexual encounter with a woman sent to trap him.

The "Epic of Gilgamesh" is largely a story of friendship between men, like the ultimate buddy movie, but women (at least goddesses and harlots) have a lot of power.

When Enkidu is killed, the stages of grief for his friend Gilgamesh include a trip to the underworld and a story of the flood.

In the end, Gilgamesh is unable to hold onto the magical plant that will impart immortality and returns to the city as the source of stability in a dangerous world, inviting the ferryman in the underworld to "climb up on to the wall of Uruk, inspect its foundation terrace, and examine well the brickwork; see if it is not of burnt bricks; and did not the seven wise men lay these foundations?"

Answer: people

Pu-abi - identified on her cylinder seal with a word that might mean "queen" but might mean a priestess, like the later Enheduanna - was discovered in a tomb that contained many treasures, including jewelry, utensils for eating and drinking, musical instruments, and a board game.

But most shocking to her discoverers and to many of us who read about her was the presence of the bodies of five men and nineteen women, deliberately lined up, ready to be of service. (A great many other bodies were found in the vicinity of her tomb, in an area its discoverers called a "death pit.") A chariot, complete with two oxen to pull it, was also interred with Pu-abi.

It is unclear how the persons died. Some historians speculate that they voluntarily took poison, since there are no signs of violence.

Some forensic archaeologists who have examined the bodies claim that they may have been clubbed, perhaps after taking a sedative substance. Gwendolyn Leick - in "Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City" - argues that the bodies may have been dug up from other tombs or that people may have requested that their bodies be buried with this high-status individual after death; she maintains that these human remains would not all have to be placed in the tomb at the same time. Clocks and watches were not yet invented, elephants were not common in lower Mesopotamia and were not found in Pu-abi's grave, and Sumerians wrote by incising marks on damp clay with reed implements rather than writing on papyrus.

Answer: cylinder seals

All three of Pu-abi's cylinder seals depict what seem to be royal banquets. Larger figures are being served sumptuous meals by smaller figures. On one seal, a man and a woman are drinking from straws. It is known that Sumerians used straws when drinking beer, because the foam didn't taste good.

A straw made from silver was also found in a bowl near Pu-abi's body. A drinking vessel from the grave has a narrow spout that was used for the same reason. Strainers were also found. On another seal, a musician plays a harp (or lyre), much like the musical instruments found in Pu-abi's tomb. Pu-abi's name and title have been deduced from the cylinder seal inscriptions, which were meticulously carved into the hard stone by artists who had to visualize the images and the writing as they would appear in the mirror image in the clay.

Answer: cosmetics

When found, one of the small seashell shaped objects still had bits of eye shadow clinging to its surface. Many of the women presumed to be servants of Pu-abi were holding cosmetic containers. One small box has a lid that depicts the violent image of a lion devouring its prey.

Many vessels found in the royal tombs of Ur were made of materials that had to be imported from distant lands. Among the most fragile and difficult to conserve were many decorated ostrich eggs, and one bowl was shaped like an ostrich egg but made of gold and decorated with shells, lapis lazuli, and other materials.

Answer: gold leaves and flowers

A quick glance at photographs of the headdresses found on the heads of Pu-abi and her female companions reveals gold leaves and flowers to be a prominent motif. These are said to be poplar leaves and willow leaves, and further analysis has identified date, pomegranate, and apple leaves, fruit, and flowers. Woolley and other archaeologists in the early 20th century believed Pu-abi's headdress to be one elaborate piece with components that had fallen apart over time, but recent analysis at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that the headdresses were made up of many parts that were placed on the head separately. Pu-abi's diadem includes a comb, hair rings, wreaths, hair ribbons, beads, rosettes, and earring-like objects.

Some of the gold ribbons were very long and had to be wound around the head, and it has been pointed out that one skeleton seemed to be holding her gold ribbon in her hand, perhaps not having time for it to be placed on her head before her death.

When Pu-abi's body was found, the upper torso was completely covered with a vest of beads and her head with the elaborate headdress.

Answer: Gertrude Bell

Gertrude Bell founded both the Iraqi Museum and what became the first public library in the newly-formed nation of Iraq in the years after World War I and the fall of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. She wrote the regulations that set the stage for protecting antiquities in Mesopotamia and keeping them in the country.

She had earned a degree in history from Oxford, so she had a good foundation for this work. But Gertrude Bell did much more than conserve history. She was involved in choosing the nation's new name, from "Al Iraq" - an Arab term for being "deeply rooted" - that had referred to the southern part of Mesopotamia where Ur was located, and her maps of the area were highly respected for their accuracy.

She helped with the new constitution and with establishing borders. Bell was involved in turning Iraq into a constitutional monarchy with democratic elections, even while she opposed the right for women to vote in Iraq and in her own country, feeling that as long as women were sheltered, as most were in her lifetime, they would not have the wisdom to vote with an understanding of the issues. Enheduanna and Pu-abi may have noticed the grim irony, but perhaps they would have understood.