The Standard of Ur
c. 2500 BCE · Work
A wooden box the size of a briefcase, inlaid with shell and lapis lazuli in two mosaic strips: one side shows a king at banquet, the other his army with chariots rolling over the fallen — 'War' and 'Peace', the two faces of the world's first cities. Dug from the royal tombs of Ur, no one knows what it was actually for; it remains early Mesopotamia's most vivid picture of itself.
On these timelines: The Bronze Age, Mesopotamia & the Ancient Near East, Arts and Thoughts, Master
More from The Bronze Age
- Bronze Age begins (3300 BCE)
- Trojan War (1260 BCE)
- Invention of the chariot (2000 BCE)
- The Uluburun shipwreck (1320 BCE)
- Lion Gate of Mycenae (1250 BCE)
Around 2500 BCE
- Great Pyramid of Giza (2560 BCE)
- Old Kingdom of Egypt (2686 BCE)
- Akkadian Empire under Sargon (2334 BCE)
- The Great Flood (2348 BCE)
- Mohenjo-daro at its peak (2500 BCE)
- Stonehenge sarsen circle erected (2500 BCE)
- Indus Valley Civilization at peak (2500 BCE)
- Sargon of Akkad (2334 BCE)
- Djoser's Step Pyramid built (2650 BCE)
- First Dynasty of Ur (2600 BCE)