The Trouble with Modeling Ancient Houses...

We've seen what the remains of nearly 4,000 year old houses look like at Ur, but what would they have looked like when they were new?

It's a very difficult question to answer. Even though there are many drawings and computer models of the city of Ur, they all have their problems because no one is exactly sure how tall the buildings were, and more importantly, if they had more than one floor. We do know a lot, but we don't know enough to make a definitive model of a neighborhood.

In this video I talk about the problems encountered when making such a model and then show drawings that are intentionally not from a photo-realistic computer model. They were drawn by John Pearson of Haley Sharpe Design for the Penn Museum Middle East Gallery. I worked closely with him and they depict what I think the domestic area might have looked like.

Be sure to visit the Penn Museum if you can. There you can see the full animated version of John's drawings projected on a big screen and see many artifacts from the old excavations at Ur, including ones from the houses of Area AH.

++ Follow on social media for occasional updates ++
Instagram --   / artifactually_speaking  
FaceBook --   / artifactuallyspeaking  
Twitter --   / bradhafford