Note 116 — III. THE CITIES OF MESOPOTAMIA

The enumeration recalls the so-called “Royal Tombs” of Ur, where, under conditions which are as yet obscure, a courtly society had been buried in all its splendour. The riches discovered in these tombs, which belong to the very end of the Early Dynastic period and appear far removed from the simple co-operative society of the ideal temple community which we have described, recall Homer and Malory rather than Hesiod and Piers Plowman. Since Sidney Smith suggested in 1928 (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society [1928], 849 ff.) that these rich tombs, containing numerous attendants killed when the main occupant was buried, derived from the performance of a “fertility rite,” the discussion has continued without leading to a decisive conclusion. See my Kingship and the Gods, 400, n. 12.