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head was made of a single piece of gold plating over a wooden core (now disintegrated) with gold plated ears and horns attached with small pegs. The beard is made of carved lapis lazuli tesserae on a silver backing. The tips of the bull's horns are also lapis lazuli, making this the only animal-shaped lyre at Ur to have horns tipped in a separate material. The eyes of the bull are shell and lapis lazuli strung with copper wire. In its dimensions, the bull's head is 40 cm long, 25 cm wide, and 19 cm deep.
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equine animal playing a bull shaped lyre, while a bear supports the lyre, and another animal holds a rattle. The lowest register shows a scorpion man who guards the underworld, greeting a man. In addition to his role as sun god, Utu / Shamash was the judge of the dead. In the lyre, he can be seen as presiding over the events represented in the panel affixed below his head.
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That same year, plans to clean and enhance the appearance of the head and plaque led to the discovery of extensive deterioration. In 1977, work began to restore the bull head and the plaque. The head was dismantled and reassembled to expose more of the original work, straighten the ears, and preserve
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The museum created a new sound box drawing from these measurements in 1976. The restoration was intended only to recreate the outward appearance of the original lyre; the restoration was not intended to recreate a playable instrument, nor to approximate the sound quality of the original. A different,
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was often taken to assume the form of a bull, particularly in his role at sunrise, and is the figure most frequently described in some cuneiform texts as having a lapis lazuli beard. For these reasons, the Penn Museum has asserted that the bull head of the lyre is a representation of Utu/Shamash. The
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The lyre has a front panel which depicts four scenes linked to Early
Mesopotamian funerary rituals. The designs are made of shell inlay on bitumen. The first panel shows a man wrestling two bulls with human heads. The second shows a hyena serving meat and a lion bearing a jar. The third shows an
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Additional fragments from the field which had been mistakenly omitted from the lyre's parts-list were re-incorporated into the design, and plaster from the first restoration was removed. Following some experimentation a type of polyethylene glycol wax found to fill the head, which preserves its
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The plating of the bull's head had collapsed and torn once the wooden core had deteriorated. The bitumen of the front panel had been pulverized, dislodging the shell inlay. Both were originally restored at the
British Museum. When they arrived at the Penn Museum a new sound box was created, and
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After the sound box's second reconstruction, the lyre's size increased by about a third, suggesting that the lyre must have been steadied by a second person in order for it to be played. This matches the second image of the adjoining plaque which shows two creatures playing in this manner.
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The lyre's wooden sound box had disintegrated by the time of its excavation, however
Woolley's measurements of the box's imprint, as well as casts made from another lyre in the cemetery, have provided the basis for attempts at recreation.
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128:(the Penn Museum) in 1929. The piece consists of a sound box, a quadripartite panel and a sculpted bull's head. Over the years it has undergone extensive conservation and restoration work.
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Detail of one of the lyre's ornamental plaques; the lyre is itself shown in the 3rd panel down, with a bear steadying it as it is played.
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strength and is removable. These processes, along with X-Rays, have uncovered new information about the head's construction.
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The lyre was found in “The King’s Grave”, near the bodies of more than sixty soldiers and attendants. It is one of
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Your Rays Cover the Earth Like a Net: Literary and iconographic portrayals of the sun-god in ancient
Mesopotamia
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A team of engineers at the
University of Liverpool has helped reproduce an ancient Iraqi harp - the Lyre of Ur
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during the 1926–1927 season of an archeological dig carried out in what is now Iraq jointly by the
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Period (2550–2450 BCE). The lyre was included in the first batch of materials taken to the
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256:. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. p. 63.
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Greene, Virginia (2003). "Conservation of a Lyre from Ur: A treatment review".
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The Rise of the Sun God and the
Determination of Destiny in Ancient Mesopotamia
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Head dimensions: 40 cm long, 25 cm wide, 19 cm deep
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University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
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University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
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functioning replica of it is being played as part of a touring
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lyres and harps unearthed at the cemetery which date to the
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Gold, silver, copper, bitumen, shell, & lapis lazuli
439:"Ancient Iraqi harp reproduced by Liverpool engineers"
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One of the oldest stringed instruments ever discovered
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495:Archaeological discoveries in Iraq
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252:de Schauensee, Maude (2002).
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83:Penn Museum Object Number B17694B
36:as displayed in the Penn Museum
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445:. 28 July 2005. Archived from
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500:Individual string instruments
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394:"Lyre fragment: Bull head"
289:. pp. 204, 193, 197.
103:University of Pennsylvania
285:Polonsky, Janice (2002).
158:painted by watercolorist
136:The Mesopotamian sun god
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358:. 272–273 (2): 265–270.
443:University of Liverpool
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34:Bull Headed Lyre of Ur
22:Bull Headed Lyre of Ur
415:Smith, Brian (2007).
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113:led the excavations.
93:is one of the oldest
214:Music of Mesopotamia
99:Royal Cemetery at Ur
472:"Golden Lyre of Ur"
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122:Early Dynastic III
95:string instruments
61:2550–2450 BCE
441:(Press release).
254:Two lyres from Ur
162:. Its excavator,
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209:Ninigizibara
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74:Philadelphia
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325:Penn Museum
204:Lyres of Ur
160:M. L. Baker
153:Restoration
138:Utu/Shamash
132:Composition
70:Penn Museum
489:Categories
453:2009-11-23
330:2019-04-09
263:092417188X
220:References
164:L. Woolley
425:320741229
372:0197-1360
295:635163016
272:929651863
400:25 April
198:See also
180:ensemble
105:and the
42:Material
380:3180072
118:several
58:Created
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321:"Lyre"
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376:JSTOR
421:OCLC
402:2019
368:ISSN
291:OCLC
268:OCLC
258:ISBN
89:The
50:Size
360:doi
510:Ur
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