From the beginning

Some old friends are back in town and, by old, how does 4,500 years strike you? The friends are items from the permanent collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. They’ve been on an extended road trip and are due to leave for more venues after September.

"Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur" comprises some 200 ancient artifacts from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), most of which were discovered in the late 1920s by a joint British Museum and University of Pennsylvania expedition led by C. Leonard Woolley.

By any measure, these works are spectacular. No less an authority than Thomas Hoving — former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the initiator of the modern "blockbuster" show with the Ur rival, "Tutankhamen" — has called the items "the finest, most resplendent and magical works of art in all of America."

Some of those pieces include the Ram-in-the-thicket, the great Lyre with a gold and lapis-lazuli bull’s head, Lady Puabi’s lapis lazuli and carnelian jewelry, an electrum drinking tumbler, a gold ostrich egg and Lady Puabi’s headdress.

This material is directly from what we believe to be the birth of civilization. This is the land of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the site of the Garden of Eden and the place writing was invented. Ur was an important center in this "cradle of civilization and its patron god, Nanna, the moon god." (That’s also the name my grandchildren call my wife.)

Clearly, the war in Iraq was on the museum’s radar when the show was to be mounted. Co-curator Dr. Richard L. Zettler noted, "Ancient Mesopotamia as a culture and material from the royal tombs at Ur as a supreme artistic expression of that culture had long fascinated the public.

"With the war and continuing American involvement in Iraq and the region, that awareness and interest has expanded. We wanted Penn Museum’s visitors to be able to see and consider this important material while interest in Iraq’s endangered cultural heritage and, in fact, the endangered cultural heritage of so many peoples today, is so much in the headlines."

Woolley, the prime excavator of the royal tombs at Ur, was very much of the Indiana Jones breed and had as his major competitor Howard Carter, the discoverer of the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamen. Ur is located in modern-day Iraq and is the legendary home of Abraham. The world was in awe of the gold jewelry, the vessels of silver and gold, the alabaster bowls and the items of lapis lazuli and carnelian.

Lapis lazuli is, according to dictionary.com, "an opaque to translucent blue, violet-blue or greenish-blue semiprecious gemstone composed mainly of lazurite and calcite." Carnelian is defined as "a pale to deep red or reddish-brown variety of clear chalcedony, used in jewelry." Not to put too fine a point on the matter, "chalcedony" is defined as "a translucent to transparent milky or grayish quartz with distinctive microscopic crystals arranged in slender fibers in parallel bands."

Among the items discovered was the tomb of Lady Puabi, intact from thousands of years of tomb robberies. She was found at the bottom of a pit and identified by an inscription in Sumerian, the world’s first written language.

The museum describes it best: "Lady Puabi wore an elaborate headdress of gold leaves, gold ribbons, strands of lapis lazuli and carnelian beads, a tall comb of gold, chokers, necklaces, and a pair of large crescent-shaped earrings. Her upper body was covered in strings of beads made of precious metals and semi-precious stones stretching from her shoulders to her belt, while rings decorated all her fingers. An ornate diadem made of thousands of small lapis-lazuli beads with gold pendants of animals and plants was on a table near her head."

All the precious items were divided in the 1920s and ’30s between Penn, the British Museum and the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. The items have since been the subject of intense study and reevaluation in terms of the archeological significance. Their value as works of art is virtually priceless.

This art dates back to somewhere 2,500 B.C., give or take a century, and its amazing power is still fresh and filled with wonder. Modern art by highly paid professional artists should be so lucky.

Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur
Through September
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
33rd and Spruce streets
Admission: adults, $8; children 6-17, seniors and students with ID, $5; children under 6, free
215-898-4001
www.upenn.edu/museum