| If mortuary, architectural and textual data are analyzed from an appropriate perspective, it is possible to obtain information on social variability, where this is defined as variation between the social units of a society. However, virtually no archaeological analyses of ancient social variability are available for early second millennium B.C. society, despite the existence of pertinent data, so that the view of society at this time is derived primarily from investigations of textual data.;In this study, a complete reanalysis of the mortuary and architectural evidence from Ur was conducted in order to present an archaeological view of social variability in the early second millennium B.C. In addition, textual, mortuary and architectural assessments of social variability were compared in order to allow an explanation of the type and quality of information present in each approach, and the comparison of the approaches was structured around the examination of three specific issues. First, textually-based views of urban social variability were compared with an assessment based on a statistical analysis of the mortuary data. Second, the evaluation of social variability based on the mortuary evidence was compared with one based on the architectural evidence. Finally, mortuary, architectural, and textual evidence were reexamined in order to determine whether or not significant intra-site differentiation existed at Ur.;The results indicated that archaeological assessments of social variability differed strikingly from the textually-based views with respect to the number of individuals associated with low and middle wealth levels. It was proposed that Assyriological analyses may be better at detecting horizontal differentiation (e.g., descent units), while mortuary analyses may more accurately characterize vertically differentiated groups (e.g., wealth groups). In addition, the archaeological representation of wealth appeared to be more complicated than either of the two approaches considered alone indicated. Furthermore, it was possible to determine that major intra-site differentiation existed in the domestic areas at Ur. |
