HISTORY'S FIRST QUEEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 846, 14 December 1929, Page 17

HISTORY'S FIRST QUEEN

LIVED 55 CENTURIES AGO JEWELS AND RELICS FOUND A collection of trinkets, metal household effects and cosmetics found in an ancient tomb, diligent research into ancient history, and a little imagination, have combined to re-create for us today the personality of a Queen who lived about 5,500 years ago. Her name was Shub-ad of Ur, and she is the earliest regal woman of whom we have knowledge, says an exchange. Two years ago Mr. C. L. Woolley, digging in ancient graves in the interest of the University of Pennsylvania, and the British Museum, found her burial chamber, where were buried also her ladies in waiting, her harpist, her jewels, and various other articles. From the data thus obtained a bust of tbe Queen has been made, and it now stands in the Museum of Pennsylvania University: while no one can say that it is an exact likeness of the Queen, it is at any rate a typical likeness of the Sumerian woman of the period. The specifications for the model were laid down by Dr. Leon Legrain, curator of the museum’s Babylonian section. Months of research were required before reconstruction of the head of Queen Shub-ad was completed. Dr. Legrain procured a cast from the Louvre in Paris of a small diorite statue representing a Sumerian woman in court dress, which had been found in Legash, Mesopotamia, near Ur. Some 40 other sculptures were studied, and a life-size copy was n;ade, using the Legash head as a model. Elaborate Ornaments The (Queen’s hair is blue-black and luxuriant, caught in a heavy knot at the back. Nine yards of narrow gold band are looped around the forehead and the nape of the neck, and then twisted into an upright ring. The coiled gold, drawn tightly around the hair between the knot and the head, stiffens the Psyche twist of the tresses, and a tiny spike or pin, piercing the end of the band, holds it fast. A gold comb, unique and priceless, formed like a seven-fingered hand, rises from the knotted hair and towers over the coiffure. The seven fingers end in golden daisies which droop and sway over the head. Besides this, there is another ring of ornaments on the head. A flat and beaded belt of lapis, interrupted by golden wedges, lies above the plain golden band. And trios of willow leaves, also of beaten gold, dangle from the wedges. A simple necklace encircles the throat and its combination of beads in precious metal and semi-precious stone is not unlike the ornaments of today. Shub-ad worshipped the Moon God Nannar and wore his symbol. Huge twin crescents of gold, large enough to be bracelets, swing from each ear. Small ringlets of hair fall inside the crescents and a wide and brilliant curl falls down upon each shoulder. There is not very much known ot Queen Shub-ad’s way of living. From the contents of the tomb it is gleaned that an eleven-stringed harp provided the Queen with music, and that she used to play a game on a board backed with silver. The squares were made of sell inlaid with animal scenes and conventional patterns set in lapis lazuli. The Queen lived in a palace of clay, and probably a niche in the wall served as a dressing table. A mirror to her was unknown, but she probably used a bowl of clear water in which to follow the progress of her toilette. Ancient Cosmetics She was an expert in the use of cosmetics. The natural sun-tau was not then fashionable. The heat of Mesopotamia gave a mellow tint to the skin, but even then women had begun to improve on nature. A little bluegreen malachite picked from the conch shell —the Queen’s was golden —which was the Sumerian compact, shadowed the eyelids. The eyebrow vogue, sweeping from the tip at the bridge of the nose almost to the cheekbones, seems the antithesis of the plucked fashion of today. Yet there is something strikingly modern about Shubad’s face; probably because the high and artificial arching is common to both ideas of feminine allure 55 centuries apart. If the down above her eyes did not leap into the long, double arch, which the Queen admired, an artistic dab of kohl, still used in the East, covered her bare skin and lengthened the curving lines. Instead of the thin pencil touch which is used today Sumeria must have favoured a heavy, broad line. When the Queen was robed, a pin, some eight inches long and hollow, with a lapis knob, caught the ends of her garment at the shoulder. She had, too, a vanity case, a filigree gold shell about the size of a little finger. It contained a pair of tweezers, what is either a spike for pnercing the ears or a metal orangestick, and a tiny spoon for scooping out a bit of colour from the compact. Her rings were made of turns of gold wire, one inset with segments of lapis. One necklace of alternating triangles of fluted gold and lapis is as magnificent a piece of jewellery as can be found today. Cornelian was second to lapis lazuli as a favourite stone, and long strings of these, beads 1 are among the most interesting ornaments restored to their former shape. Shub-ad used long-stemmed gold and silver drinking tumblers and bowls of gold and lapis of great grace. There must have been one beverage which the Queen and her friends drank from straw. Her cylinder seal shows women sitting on low stools with a large vase between them. Several stems lean from the huge jar and a woman holds one in the mouth. The straws which survive are more than four feet long. One is gold, the other alternate cylinders of gold and lapis. Both are bent at right angles.