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

THE SUMERIAN PALACE AT MOUND "A," KISH 111
pavement was first laid down over the whole area before the foundations were
commenced. It is possible that the plan of the building was actually outlined
first upon this pavement for the guidance of the builders.
The ground beneath the foundations of the palace was far from clean. It
shows evidence of earlier occupation in the shape of ashes mixed with pottery
fragments. The latter, unfortunately, show no definite forms. Very few traces of
buildings were found with the exception of a small piece of walling beneath the
southern end of the footing of the colonnade, which is shown in dotted lines in the
palace (Plate XXI), and another piece underneath the north-west corner of the
palace. Its height was 50 cm, and its base 49 cm below datum. The wall beneath
the north-west corner of the palace has not yet been properly examined and can-
not, therefore, be shown on the plan. It lies roughly N.-S., and is built of bricks
measuring 21 x 11 x 4.50-7.50 centimetres. Its top was 15 cm above datum. In
its neighborhood, the ground beneath the foundations of the palace was a mass
of potsherds and burnt material. Most of the sherds were fragments of open
dishes with flat bases showing focussed grooves. Two sling-stones of unbaked
clay were found in this rubbish of exactly the same form as those found in other
parts of Kish and dated to a later period than that of our palace (Reg. No. 2863;
Field. Plate XLIV, Fig. 3).
Most of the chambers of the palace, especially those adjacent to the outer walls,
show signs of having been bui-ned. The walls are in many places red in color, and
deep layers of ashes covered the floors. The firing of the building was undoubt-
edly the act of an enemy, who after taking the whole or part of the palace set fire
to the roof, which finally collapsed inside the chambers, and probably smouldered
for a considerable time. This slow burning would account for the partial baking
of the sun-dried bricks in some of the walls, which has given rise to the mistaken
impression that the upper surface of baked plano-convex bricks was of the same
degree of convexity as in sun-dried bricks.
ERRORS
The palace was exceedingly well set out, and errors were comparatively few.
In a mud building of this kind it was not possible to effect the refinement that one
expects in a building of stone. Errors up to 10 cm, such as were found in some
of the chambers, are quite excusable. In surveying the chambers, a wall with
a badly decayed face was tied in from as many as five points, and an average
of these was taken as giving the true line. Where long lengths of walling were
concerned, they were tied in from as many as ten points to ascertain their alignment
with accm-acy. The greater part of the northern portion of the palace
(Plate XXI) was built with the greatest accuracy; but the walls that enclose
chambers 10, 11, 16, and 21 are considerably askew, which error is corrected, but
not completely, by the walls on either side of the passage 22. As we travel east,
the error becomes less and less until the walls of the chambers at the east of the
stairway resume their original alignment.
Measurements taken along the outside walls of the northern portion of the
palace show considerable accuracy in the main walls of the building. For instance.