Tell al-Ubaid

The site of a prosperous Sumerian town lying on the Euphrates River about 4 miles (6km) northwest of the larger city of Ur. English archaeologist H. R. Hall discovered Tell al-Ubaid in 1918 and began rudimentary excavations there the following year. More thorough investigation of the site was undertaken by the great Assyriologist Charles Leonard Woolley from 1923 to 1924, during the same period in which he

A reconstruction of a Babylonian temple. © Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis

Was first exploring nearby Ur. The main discovery at Tell al-Ubaid was a beautiful temple dedicated to Ninhursag, the Sumerian goddess of childbirth and divine protector of wild animals. Erected in about 2500 b. c., when the Sumerian cities were nearing their height of power and influence, the temple featured eight large copper-sheathed lions guarding its entrance. The insides of the structure were decorated with elegant reliefs inlaid with red limestone and mother-of-pearl.

Hall and Woolley also found the remains of a number of simple private houses at Tell al-Ubaid. Some were of sun-dried clay bricks and dated from Sumerian times, but in the lower levels of the tell they found smaller houses made from reeds that dated from an earlier period. Woolley found similar huts, along with primitive pottery, at the lowest levels of the Ur site. This led him and fellow archaeologists to the conclusion that Sumerian culture was directly preceded in the region by a less sophisticated one, probably made up of the first people to settle and grow crops on the southern Mesopotamian plain. Appropriately, they coined the term Ubaidian, after Tell al-Ubaid, to describe this culture.

See Also: Ubaidian culture; Ur; Woolley, Charles Leonard