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One of the chief treasures unearthed from the Ur royal tombs by Leonard Wooley in the 1920s was the Royal Standard. It is a hollow wooden box measuring 8.5 inches wide by 19.5 inches long inlaid with a mosaic made of shell, red limestone, and lapis lazuli.
It is dated to about 2400 BC, which is the time of the flood according to biblical reckoning. Since every elements of human civilization was destroyed by the flood (2 Peter 3:6), the Ur royal tombs date to sometime after the flood and the Babel incident.
One side depicts scenes of war and the other, a victory feast.
It is located in Room 56 of the British Museum.
One of the most amazing objects unearthed from ancient civilizations, it is a detailed pictorial view of life in ancient Ur, depicting kings, nobility, servants, dwarfs, prisoners, robes, cloaks, furniture, meals, harpists, singers, drinking, firewood, fish, bulls, sheep, goats, horses, warfare, soldiers, helmets, chariots, asses, spears, javelins, battle axes, and death.
The war scene’s three rows are described as follows by the object’s discoverer, Leonard Woolley:
“In the top row the king stands in the center, distinguished by his greater height, with behind him three attendants or members of his house, and a dwarf-like groom who holds the heads of the two asses which draw the monarch’s empty chariot while the driver of it walks behind holding the reins; in front of the king soldiers are bringing up prisoners, naked and with their arms bound behind their backs, to him to decide their fate. In the second row, come the phalanx of the royal army, heavily-armed infantry in close order with copper helmets exactly like those found by us in the king’s grave, and long cloaks of some stiff material which I take to be felt, just such cloaks as are worn by the shepherds of Turkey today, holding axes in their hands; in front of them are the light-armed infantry without cloaks, wielding axes or short spears, already engaged with an enemy whose naked warriors are either fleeing or being struck down. In the lowest row we have the chariotry of Sumer, each car drawn by two asses and carrying two men, of whom one is the driver and the other a warrior who flings light javelins, of which four are kept in a quiver tied in the front of the car” (Woolley, Ur of the Chaldees, pp. 101, 102).
The latest research has found that the asses of the Ur Standard were probably kungas, a hybrid of a female donkey and a wild Syrian ass. The identification was made by an analysis of the DNA from ancient animal bones (dated to 2000 BC or older) unearthed in northern Syria. The kungas were strong and faster than a donkey, but since they were sterile and wild asses were difficult to capture and impossible to tame, the kungas were also very expensive.
We don’t know exactly how large Ur’s military was, but we know that Sargon of Babylon, who lived in about the same time period, had a standing army of 5,400 men (Foster and Foster, Civilizations of Ancient Iraq, p. 52).
The feast scene on the other side of the Royal Standard of Ur depicts the king and his courtiers banqueting. In the top row, the banqueters are seated on chairs while servants attend them and a male harpist and female singer provide musical entertainment. In the two lower rows “attendants are shown bringing in spoils captured from the enemy and food supplies for the banquet--one is driving a goat, another carries two fish, another is bent under the weight of a corded bale of wood, and so on, several of the figures being repeated” (Ur of the Chaldees, p. 101).
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