"Ur (near Nasiriyah)" a An Nasiriyah Travel Page by Paulie52

Yup, that's me at the ancient city of Ur. I live a few miles from there now. This photo was taken in August and it felt like it was about 150 degrees... centigrade... out there when we walked around the ruins.

Behind me you will see the Ziggurat and nearby is the reputed home of Abraham.

What you are looking at is a "tel" of the ancient city. As people lived there for thousands of years, the elevation actually grew as people built up layers of debris, old houses, etc.

What was remarkable was the sheer mass of broken pottery, bricks, etc. I even picked up a brick (no we didn't take anything!) with cuneiform writing on the back of it. Bits of pottery were identifiable as jug handles, had designs on them, but I saw nothing that was intact.

Look closely into this archeological dig site and you can actually see a partially-exposed pot or urn protruding from the soil. Now imagine this volume of ancient "stuff" spread over perhaps 2 square miles and you get a sense of the magnitude of the site.