I'm so happy to be able to share these treasures with you. Our last stop in England was the world-famous British Museum. My tastes have always run to the ancient, so I headed for some of the most ancient pieces in the collection.
Created about 2500 BC, these pieces of jewelry were found in a royal Sumerian tomb. Sumer was the earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates. One of the best-known city states in Sumer was Ur. Most of the Sumerian artifacts in the British Museum come from Ur.
This stunning headress is a reconstruction, but the jewelry is original. This suggests the arrangement of the jewelry worn by the royal Sumerian women found in the grave called The Great Death Pit. Below is the signage with information about this burial site.
Click the image to enlarge it for easier reading.
These are some of the pieces worn by the queen's attendants, similar in style to hers but less elaborate, and varying according to status. Both men and women wore jewelry on their heads and upper bodies. I believe that these were also found in The Great Death Pit.
This is traditionally called The Ram in a Thicket, although it is probably actually a goat. A pair of these were found in The Great Death Pit. It is made of cold, copper, lapis lazuli, shell, and red limestone. There is a gold cylinder on the back of the goat's neck, so it is believed that it was the support for something, maybe a small table.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London England
The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge England
Copyright 2019 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.
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