Golden age of Mesopotamia

MEMBERS of the aristocracy of the ancient city of Ur were so wealthy they could afford to bury their dead in treasure-filled tombs.

Mesopotamian beer

MEMBERS of the aristocracy of the ancient city of Ur were so wealthy they could afford to bury their dead in treasure-filled tombs.

"There was such a lot of ritual and importance attached to these burials and probably to the afterlife that they buried all of this wealth," says Sarah Collins, curator of the British Museum's The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia.

Showing at Melbourne Museum from May 4, the touring exhibition features more than 170 artefacts from three main centres: Sumer, Assyria and Babylonia. One of the highlights is an engraved gold cup found in the "death pit" of Queen Puabi in Ur.

"It's a very unusual cup, it has a spout, which is not a spout for pouring but used like a drinking straw, most likely to siphon out bits in drinks such as beer that were very popular," Collins says.

The objects date from as early as 3300BC. But Collins says the exhibition shows some parallels with modern life.

"I think that people may be surprised that there are aspects of life as we know it today, like living in cities, writing, time and astrology that in fact were invented or started in Mesopotamia," she says.