Archaeologists studying Iraq's `city of graves'

 Ancient site unprecedented

 LEON BARKHO
 Associated Press

 UMM AL-AJARIB, Iraq -- Archaeologists are striving to bring to light what they
 describe as Mesopotamia's largest ``city of graves,'' where the Sumerians buried
 their dead nearly 5,000 years ago.

 The scientists are stunned by the size of the cemetery and say much more work
 needs to be done to determine what role it played in ancient times.

 ``We have never excavated anything like it before. It is unprecedented,'' said
 Fadhil Abdulwahid, a Baghdad University archaeologist.

 Remote and desolate, the site was long the target of grave robbers who the
 scientists say pilfered gold ornaments, cylinder seals made of precious stones
 and statuettes. Ancient Iraqis usually buried their dead with their most valued
 possessions.

 Chief archaeologist Donny Youkhanna could not say how many artifacts were
 stolen nor estimate their significance, ``but the damage is certainly big.''

 When he started excavations with 40 diggers last year he brought along armed
 guards.

 Previously, he said, few dared to approach the ancient mound due to the large
 number of scorpions that lived among the graves, which prompted the locals to
 name it Umm al-Ajarib or ``Mother of Scorpions.'' Shells, bowls, beads and
 handsome earthenware and statues dot small lanes in the cemetery situated 250
 miles south of Baghdad.

 ``It is the largest graveyard of Sumer. Nowhere in ancient Iraq have we come
 across so many graves,'' Youkhanna said.

 Until now, experts had designated a cemetery at Eridu in southern Iraq as the
 largest Sumerian burial ground. There, scientists uncovered 1,000 graves in an
 area of about half a square mile.

 Umm al-Ajarib is many times larger. The whole site is about two square miles,
 with the cemetery occupying the largest portion, and Youkhanna said it may hold
 hundreds of thousands of graves. A better estimate will be available once the
 diggers remove debris and count the graves in a square they have targeted.

 The Sumerian civilization appeared in southern Mesopotamia as early as the fifth
 millennium B.C. By 3000 B.C., Sumer had developed considerable power based
 on irrigated agriculture, fine arts and a special writing system known as
 cuneiform, probably the earliest ever in man's history.

 The burials at Umm al-Ajarib are chiefly in coffins of brick laid in bitumen as
 mortar. The graves are regularly arranged, like cemetery lots, with streets and
 lanes.

 William Hayes Ward was the first Western traveler to visit the site in 1886. Little
 work had been done at the site since Ward noted that Umm al-Ajarib must have
 been a sacred burial ground for the Sumerians in the same manner the present
 day holy city of Najaf is to Muslim Shiites.

 ``The Sumerians looked after the dead. Funerary rituals were of great significance
 because they believed if the dead were not buried properly their souls will return
 and haunt the living relatives,'' said archaeologist Marwan al-Adhami.

 When a Sumerian monarch conquered a city, the first thing he would do was to
 ``open the graves and release the souls'' to chase away any enemy soldiers who
 escaped the sword, al-Adhami said.

 Umm al-Ajarib is now arid land covered with sand dunes, a featureless expanse of
 sand with no vegetation and shrubs. But in antiquity it was part of a territory
 comprising gardens, palm groves and fields of barley and wheat, Youkhanna said.

 Youkhanna's main task is to prove the city's sanctity. He has already dug up a
 small part of a tripartite temple with huge walls rising up to three yards. Like
 similar Sumerian sanctuaries, the temple is built of sun-dried bricks. A clay tablet
 provides a list of quantities of food rations given to temple servants, but supplies
 no names or figures.

 Artifacts gathered from the temple so far, though significant, do not shed enough
 light.