The gold lyre from the Great Death-Pit, Ur of the Chaldees, excavations (1900) Excavations at Ur: A Record of Twelve Years' Work Now in present day Iraq, Ur was a city that rose from the "Mounds of Pitch" half way between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf, ten miles west of the Euphrates. Sir Leonard Woolley documents his experience as leader of the great expedition that carried on without interruption until 1934. Before its closure, this significant archaeological dig on the part of both museums established an image of Ur throughout its four thousand years in existence. Indeed, the excavators unearthed much more than they ever expected. These findings reveal the impressive history of Ur: its beginning, the flood, the Uruk and Jamdat Nasr periods, Al 'Ubaid and the first dynasty of Ur, the Dark Ages, the third dynasty of Ur, the Isin and Larsa periods, the Kassite and Assyrian periods, and finally Nebuchadnezzar and the last days of Ur. Abraham, a descendant of Noah through his son Shem, lived with his family in the city of Ur in Chaldea (today's Iraq).
