The Temple of the Moon Goddess.

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 23

The Temple of the Moon Goddess.

Remarkable new finds at Ur of the • Chaldees,"including a'temple'dedicated to the Moon Goddess, a brick-lined well sunk in the twenty-third century B.C. and stono vessels of 4000 8.C., are recorded in the latest report of Mr. C. Leonard Woolley, director of the Joint Expedition at Ur of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania. "Tho work done in February," says Mr. Woolley, "gave results which, for . tho proper understanding of tlio sito, are among tho most important that we Lave yet* secured. j "One of the great difficulties has always been the Temenos or Sacred area;'1 here were grouped togothcr the temples and other religious buildings dedicated to the Moon god and his consort, and in the latter days- of the city's life they wore enclosed by a huge wall erected by Nebuchadnezzar; but no vestige of any earlier wall had been found and there was nothing to show • whether, in preceding ages, these tern pies had been in any way distinguished ' from-the: residential area. ' "Now the old wall has come to light. From 2300 B.C. tho Temenos wa s a terrace or platform raised above the gen- ■ oral level of the town and surrounded by a wall so strong as to be more military than religious in character; the vicissitudes of tho defences can be traced all though .subsequent history, as'they were breached of overthrown by enemies, patched or reconstructed by < successive kings.: . ' "In the west corner of the Temenos roso the higher terrace on which stood the Ziggurat Tower, and here we have

completed the excavation of the buildings which surrounded an earlier Ziggurat than that which exists today; underneath the vast mass of brickwork dated from '2300 B.C. lies another tower, some seven centuries older, and it is the dependencies of that buried Ziggurat which have been unearthed.1 "A row of small shrines faced the tower; behind them was a-large temple, probably dedicated to the Moon goddess, in the central chambers of which was prepared the food of Nin-Gal herself and of the deities of her retinue. "The most striking of the ruins is a deep brick-lined well first sunk by King Ur-Engur in tho twenty-third century 8.C., and repaired by later rulers down to the time of Nabonidus in the sixth century 8.C.; we found undisturbed in the masonry the eight clay tablets whereon one of these later rulers claims credit for his pious work of restoration. "Excavations below the old Royal Cemetery have produced numbers' of archaic tablets and the impressions on clay jar-stoppers of ancient pictorial seals, and at a lower level were found graves of the so:called 'Jemdct Nasr' period, hitherto scantily represented at Ur, from which we have obtained fine examples of the painted pottery of that age, beads and seals, and over a hundred stone vessels. "One of tho stone vessels was decorated with figures of lions and bulls carved in relief; it is a well-known genre, but this example is of particular interest because it is accurately dated and, I think, is the first to carry, back the motive of the' first half of the fourth millennium B.C.'