Frontlet

2600-2450 BCE

Details

Title: Frontlet
Date Created: 2600-2450 BCE
Location Created: Ur, Iraq
Physical Dimensions: 6.4 x 43.2 x 0.6 cm
External Link: Penn Museum online collection
Medium: Gold, Lapis Lazuli, Carnelian
Object Number: B17708
Descriptive Note: Shubad, now Puabi. CBS Register: U.10938 (?) is crossed out for U.10935. Queen Shubad's headdress. one crown, 20 gold rings. 3 strings. lapis (sketched), carnelian (sketch). Puabi's "frontlet" A piece of gold is folded over on itself, allowing for three strands of beads, and then joins on the top of a gold ring. There are 20 all together and the frontlet starts and ends with gold. Inbetween each of these rings is a carnelian small ring-shaped bead, a longer lapis barrel-shaped bead, and then another carnelian ring-shaped bead. EXCEPT for the beads in the last division:there are two lapis barrels in this grouping. Twenty gold ring pendants strung up with lapis & carnelian beads. This series of beads and rings was found beneath several other gold wreaths on the skull of Queen Puabi in grave 800 in the Royal Cemetery at Ur. It was apparently worn at the forehead with the other wreaths above it on a complex coiffure/wig. The two cuneiform signs that compose her name were initially read as "Shub-ad" in Sumerian. Today, however, we think they should be read in Akkadian as "Pu-abi."
Credit Line: British Museum/University Museum Expedition to Ur, Iraq, 1928

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