A Sumerian Palace and the "A" cemetery at Kish, Mesopotamia

180 A SUMERIAN PALACE AND "A" CEMETERY. KISH
133, and 134 only one ear-ring was found. Of these, 55 and 134 were disturbed
burials, and the absence of a second ear-ring is therefore intelligible. In the remaining
burials, the ring was found on the right ear. With two exceptions in each
case, the ear-rings found in the graves consist of two types. The more common
type is silver or copper wire ranging from 2 to 3 mm in diameter, which has
been twisted two or three times around a mandrel, as shown in Plate LIX,
Fig. 25. The second type is of slightly thicker wire made into a single coil with
overlapping flattened ends, as, for example. Fig. 26 of the same plate. One of the
exceptions is the pair of ear-rings, found in burial 75, that are made of thin silver
wire of which one end only had been flattened out. The other exceptional form
of ear-ring, which almost certainly came from, although it was not actually found
in a grave, is illustrated in Plate LIX, Fig. 27. It is of silver wire, 3.50 mm in
diameter, with the ends twisted securely round one another.
Ear-rings are made of gold, silver, and copper, but those made of gold are
extremely rare (this may of course be due to pillaging). They have been found,
up to the present, in only two graves (51 and 129). The ear-rings from grave 51
are illustrated, with the other articles of jewellery with which they were found,
in Plate XLIII, No. 8. Those from burial 129 are identical in pattern, though of
lighter weight (Reg. No. 2654; Baghdad). The ear-rings photographed are made
of wire 2 mm in diameter with each of the overlapping ends flattened out to a
breadth of 4 millimetres. They measure 12.50 mm in diameter, and show signs
of the hammer, used to fashion them, all over their surfaces (Reg. No. 1895; Field).
On the whole, silver was more generally used for ear-rings than copper, the latter
being more generally found in children's graves. In burials 52, 83, 130, and 137,
a silver ear-ring was found by one ear, and a copper one by the other; in burial 113
a silver and a copper ring were found lying by the right ear, and a single copper
one by the left. In two graves (135 and 139) the ear-rings were not found by the
ears. These were both undisturbed burials, and the ornaments could not therefore
have been accidentally shifted. In burial 130 they were foimd in a jar close to the
head, and in 139 they lay behind the head loose in the soil.
BRACELETS Plates XLIII, No. 9 and LIX, Figs. 22-23
Bracelets were found in ten graves. A single specimen was found in each of
graves 43, 67, and 92 around the left wrist. In grave 93 there were two on the left
arm and one on the right. In the remaining graves, which were all undisturbed,
a single bracelet was found on each wrist. These bracelets are all made of copper
wire ranging from 2.50 to 6 mm in diameter, but mostly about 3 mm thick. The
pattern is severely plain, for the piece of wire is simply bent round until the
ends nearly or just touch. The bracelet illustrated in Plate LIX, Fig. 23, is most
unusual; it is made of two pieces of flat wire of equal length whose ends are
twisted over one another as opposite sides. This bracelet was found with a plain
wire bangle on the left wrist of burial 93 (Reg. No. 2308; Field). Bead brace-
lets were found on the left wrists of the occupants of burials 43 and 67, the only
two instances of any material other than copper being used for this purpose.