纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 012乌尔军标(4)

"Unfortunately, we don't know what they used it for, but for myself, it represents the ?whole' Sumerians. It's war, it's peace, it's colourful, it shows how far the Sumerians travelled - because the lapis lazuli came from Afghanistan, the red marble came from India, and you've got all the shells which came from the Gulf. And so it's a fantastic piece, and it's beautiful!"

So far in these programmes, each of the objects I've looked at has been made in a single material - stone or wood, bone or pottery - all of them substances that would've been found close to where its maker was living. Now, for the first time in the series, I'm looking at an object that is made of several different, quite exotic materials. Only the bitumen which held together the different pieces could have been found locally, it's a trace of what is now Mesopotamia's greatest source of wealth - oil.

What kind of society do you need to be able to gather these materials in this way? Firstly it needs to have agricultural surplus, but it then needs a structure of power and control that allows the leaders to mobilise that surplus and exchange it for exotic materials along extended trade routes. That surplus will also feed and support priests and soldiers, administrators and, critically, craftsmen able to specialise in making complex luxury objects like the Standard. And this is the society that you can see on the Standard itself.