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

PREFACE
This volume contains the first pubUcation of the architectural discoveries
and the rich Sumerian archaeological treasure recovered at Kish. The great
palace of the early kings of Kish has been completely revealed; this splendid
contribution to the history of Sumero-Babylonian architecture is an entirely new
achievement in the history of Mesopotamian excavations. Mr. Mackay's mono-
graph, which includes the mass of archaeological discoveries made during the
last season, presents new facts concerning the life and manners of the early
Sumerian and Semitic inhabitants of Kish on every page, and the readers may
surmise the satisfaction that the promoters of this expedition derive from having
uncovered the oldest and most unique royal residence in Sumer and Accad.
The objects found in the graves, which are obviously of a later date than the
great building, especially the seals,' prove the place was used as a cemetery
already in pre-Sargonic times. Since Sargon, founder of the empire of Agade in
2752 B.C., overthrew the last dynasty of Kish, founded by Kug-Bau, it seems
probable that the old palace of the mighty kings of Kish had fallen into decay
and was used for a burial-ground in the days of Kug-Bau, Gimil-Sin, and Ur-
Ubaba, of the third and fourth kingdoms of Kish (2943-2753 B.C.). This is the
period to which the mass of Sumerian pottery, copper tools and weapons, seals
and ornaments must be assigned. It is therefore obvious that the last rulers of
Kish did not occupy the spacious and stately palace of their ancestors. Perhaps
we shall learn more concerning them when the huge temple of the mother-goddess
Ninharsag or Innini will have been excavated at Ingharra. The ancient kings
lived in the shadow of this mighty temple whose massive ruins and double stagetower
now rise high above the low ruins of the palace—the temptation and the
despair of the excavator. These we intended to attack in force next season, but
such is the colossal size of the temple ruins that no rapid results like those
which attended the last two seasons' work on the palace mound can be expected.
It is unlikely that any other great Sumerian palace or building of the early plano-
convex period will ever be found in such comparatively undisturbed condition in
Mesopotamia. In the other old capitals of Sumer, Erech, Adab, and Ur, the old
palaces were almost destroyed by later superimposed buildings. The same is
true of the residences of powerful Patesi kings at Lagash and Nippur.
By extraordinary good fortune the expedition found the old Kish palace, as
it stood in the last days of the great kings of early Kish. It was already a pile of
ruins in the days of Ur-Ilbababa and Sargon. The rulers of Babylonia from
Sargon to the days of Alexander the Great could have had no knowledge of its
existence. Its ruins were one of those sites of long past decay to which the later
poets and philosophers referred in the supreme expression of Babylonian pessimism,
"Ascend thou unto the ruins of cities, go to those of old. Behold the
skulls of the later and the former ones. Who is now an evil-doer, who is now
a benefactor?"''
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