Mesopotamian jewelry is best known from the Royal Cemetery of Ur in southern Iraq, where graves from around the middle of the third millennium BC held headdresses, necklaces and earrings of gold, lapis lazuli and carnelian. None of those materials occur in the river plains of Mesopotamia, so every ornament also records long-distance trade. The goldsmiths of Sumer and later Assyria worked sheet gold, wire and granulation with real skill, and they wore engraved cylinder seals as both tools and ornaments.
The land between the rivers
Mesopotamia covers the lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates, mostly in modern Iraq. Its southern cities, including Ur, Uruk and Kish, grew rich on irrigated farming. They had clay, reeds and bitumen in plenty, and almost nothing else. Metal, hard stone and timber all had to come from elsewhere.
That shortage shaped the jewelry. Gold and silver probably came from Anatolia and Iran. Lapis lazuli came from the Badakhshan region of northeast Afghanistan, more than 2,000 kilometers away by caravan and river. Carnelian came largely from western India and the Indus Valley, and some beads found at Ur carry etched white patterns made by a technique the Harappans used. Shell came from the Persian Gulf. A royal necklace at Ur gathered materials from across a wide stretch of western and southern Asia.
The Royal Cemetery of Ur
The British archaeologist Leonard Woolley excavated Ur in the 1920s and 1930s for a joint expedition of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum. His team uncovered roughly 2,000 burials. A small number stood apart: stone-built tombs with large deposits of gold, silver, musical instruments and weapons, often accompanied by many attendants who were buried at the same time.
Finds from these tombs are now divided among the British Museum, the Penn Museum in Philadelphia and the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. They include the gold helmet of Meskalamdug, the Ram in a Thicket figures of gold, silver, lapis and shell, and lyres decorated with inlay.
Puabi's headdress
The best-preserved royal burial belonged to a woman named Puabi. A lapis cylinder seal found with her names her and gives her a title usually read as "queen." Her body lay on a bier, covered from shoulders to waist by a cape of beads in gold, silver, lapis lazuli, carnelian and agate.
Her headdress, as reconstructed, has several layers:
- Gold ribbons wound through the hair
- Strings of lapis and carnelian beads
- Wreaths of gold leaves shaped like willow or poplar leaves
- A wreath of gold rings
- A tall gold comb at the back topped with flowers inlaid with lapis and shell
- Large crescent-shaped gold earrings
The whole ensemble shows a palette that runs through Sumerian jewelry: warm gold, deep blue lapis and red-orange carnelian. The contrast of these three colors was a deliberate taste and appears again in Egyptian work of the same broad era. Attendants in the nearby "Great Death Pit" wore simpler versions of the same headgear, which suggests a court costume with grades of rank.
Goldwork techniques
Sumerian goldsmiths already knew most of the methods jewelers still use by hand. They hammered gold into thin sheet and cut it into leaves and ribbons. They raised hollow shapes by hammering sheet over forms, then joined halves with solder. They drew or twisted wire and coiled it into spirals. Some beads from Ur have tiny gold grains soldered to the surface, among the earliest examples of granulation, the technique later perfected by the Etruscans.
They also set stones and shell into cells of gold, a form of inlay that looks ahead to cloisonne work. Some pieces from Ur are made of electrum, the natural alloy of gold and silver described on our electrum page. Beads were often double cones or long biconical shapes, and lapis and carnelian were drilled from both ends with bow drills and abrasive.
| Technique | What it involved | Example at Ur |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet work | Hammering gold thin and cutting shapes | Leaf wreaths in Puabi's headdress |
| Repousse and chasing | Pushing designs out from the back and refining from the front | Meskalamdug's gold helmet |
| Wire and filigree | Drawn or twisted wire, coiled into spirals | Spiral pendants and chains |
| Granulation | Soldering tiny gold grains to a surface | Decorated gold beads |
| Inlay | Setting lapis, carnelian and shell into metal cells | Comb flowers and pendants |
Cylinder seals
The cylinder seal is the most Mesopotamian object of all. It is a small stone cylinder, usually 2 to 5 centimeters long, carved with a scene in reverse and drilled through its length. Rolled across wet clay, it leaves a continuous raised picture. People used seals to sign contracts, close jars and bales, and mark ownership.
Seals were also worn. A cord through the drilled hole let the owner hang the seal from the neck or pin it to clothing, and some had gold caps at each end. Stone choice mattered. Lapis lazuli, carnelian, chalcedony, rock crystal and serpentine all appear, and hematite became common in the early second millennium BC. Engraving hard stone required drills and cutting wheels fed with abrasive, the same skills that later produced the Greek and Roman intaglios described in our page on Roman jewelry.
Many people believed seals carried protective power, and texts list stones thought to bring particular kinds of luck to the wearer. That belief helped make the seal an amulet as well as a signature.
Later Babylonian and Assyrian jewelry
Jewelry traditions continued long after Ur's royal tombs. Babylonian and Assyrian reliefs show kings and officials wearing heavy earrings, armlets and bracelets with rosette centers. In 1988 and 1989, Iraqi archaeologists found the tombs of Assyrian queens at Nimrud, dating to the 9th and 8th centuries BC. They contained gold crowns, armlets, anklets and earrings, with inlay and fine granulation. Those finds rank with Ur as the richest Mesopotamian jewelry ever recovered.
Assyrian and Babylonian styles passed into the art of the Persian empire, which took over Mesopotamia in the 6th century BC and inherited its goldsmiths.
How Mesopotamian jewelry compares with Egypt
Ancient Egyptian jewelry developed alongside Mesopotamian work and shared materials, including lapis from the same Afghan mines. Egyptian pieces lean toward flat, colorful collars and amulets heavy with religious imagery. Mesopotamian pieces, especially at Ur, favor gold leaves, rings and beads worn in layers on the head and chest. Both cultures prized the gold, blue and red combination, and both buried their elite with jewelry meant for an afterlife. For the wider sweep of ornament from prehistory onward, see the jewelry history overview.
Frequently asked questions
What materials did Mesopotamians use in jewelry?
The main materials were gold, silver, electrum, lapis lazuli, carnelian, agate and shell. Almost all of them were imported, with lapis from Afghanistan and carnelian largely from the Indus Valley region.
Who was Puabi?
Puabi was a woman of very high rank, probably a queen, buried in the Royal Cemetery of Ur around the middle of the third millennium BC. Her tomb held a gold and lapis headdress and a bead cape, now in the Penn Museum.
What is a cylinder seal?
A cylinder seal is a small carved stone cylinder rolled over wet clay to leave an image. Mesopotamians used seals to sign and secure documents and goods, and often wore them on a cord as ornaments.
Did Mesopotamian goldsmiths use granulation?
Yes. Some gold beads from Ur have tiny soldered grains, making them among the earliest known examples of granulation. The technique reached its peak much later with the Etruscans.