Keeping it Straight: Ancient Plumb Bob

Stones are not common in southern Mesopotamia, but they were often brought in to make tools (or brought in as finished tools). They were chipped or ground down to the necessary size and shape and then often smoothed and/or drilled to refine them as tools.

In this case we have an oval stone that has been well shaped and smoothed. It's been drilled from the top and the side to make a kind of diagonal hole. This is typical of objects we tend to categorize as plumb bobs (or plummets), but it could be used as a pendant weight. Most pendant weights are drilled straight across one end, however.

The plumb bob was found in Square 7, outside the city walls. We've been working here this season and finding many tools and raw materials as well as a few finished or near finished items. It looks like people out here were doing a lot of crafting, and this tool is one of the pieces of evidence we found this season.

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I spent October and November 2022 in Iraq excavating alongside Iraqi and German archaeologists at the ancient city of Ur. During that time I took a lot of footage of our trenches and some of the artifacts we uncovered. After returning to the States and completing the accounts of the field season, I began editing the videos and releasing them.

Thanks to the Penn Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Research Fund, and Ludwig Maximilian University for financing the excavations, and of course thanks to the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and the Iraqi Ministry of Culture for working with us to make this season a success.