#puabi

Priestess/Queen Puabi’s gold earrings

2600 B.C.E.

Royal Cemetery of Ur

Mesopotamia

Lapis lazuli cylinder seal with banquet scene

Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar), Royal Cemetery

This seal was found in a grave in the Royal Cemetery of Ur, which likely dates to between 2450 and 2350 BCE. It lay next to the right arm of the skeleton of a woman, whose name is inscribed in the upper register of the cylinder: Puabi, Queen of Ur.

Queen Puabi’s (also called Shubad) diadem.  Circa 2500 B.C. now in the Penn Museum. 

The current arrangement of the diadem is actually a modern interpretation.  It uncertain what it originally was as her tomb was already damaged upon discovery.  What is known is that it contains apples and dates and they were associated with Inanna the goddess of fertility.  For more see here.

QUEEN PUABI'S HEADDRESS (2/2)

Ur, Iraq

c.2500 BCE

So many different displays, each rather telling...

“Her name and title are known from the short inscription on one of three cylinder seals found on her person. Although most women’s cylinder seals at the time would have read "wife of ___," this seal made no mention of her husband. Instead, it gave her name and title as queen. The two cuneiform signs that compose her name were initially read as "Shub-ad" in Sumerian. Today, however, we think they should be read in Akkadian as "Pu-abi" (or, more correctly, "Pu-abum," meaning "word of the Father"). Her title "eresh" (sometimes mistakenly read as "nin") means "queen."

In early Mesopotamia, women, even elite women, were generally described in relation to their husbands. For example, the inscription on the cylinder seal of the wife of the ruler of the city-state of Lagash (to the east of Ur) reads "Bara-namtara, wife of Lugal-anda, ruler of the city-state of Lagash." The fact that Puabi is identified without the mention of her husband may indicate that she was queen in her own right. If so, she probably reigned prior to the time of the First Dynasty of Ur, whose first ruler is known from the Sumerian King List as Mesannepada. Inscribed artifacts from the Seal Impression Strata (SIS) layers above the royal tombs at Ur name Mesannepada, King of Kish, an honorific used by rulers claiming control over all of southern Mesopotamia.”

Large shell containing green eyeshadow made with atacamite, azurite and apatite, from the tomb of Priestess/Queen Puabi.  Inscriptions in her tomb do not mention any relation to a king or husband, which suggests that she ruled independently.

2600 - 2400 BCE

Royal Cemetery of Ur, Mesopotamia

Priestess/Queen Puabi’s Headdress

gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian

2600 B.C.E.

Royal Cemetery of Ur, Mesopotamia