The ‘dead-retainer’ procedure as exemplified at Ur was a surprise at its discovery and it still takes a bit of swallowing today. It seems, as one might say, a ‘funny thing for Sumerians to do’, for otherwise we do not encounter counter-intuitive, ‘primitive’ Sumerian phenomena, and this kind of sacrificial burial is rare in general. It is significant that in the great sweep of ancient Mesopotamian archaeology, no comparable retainer graves have been found prior to those, or after those, of the Ur cemetery.
