The following report covers two full seasons of work at Abu Salabikh, breaking with our previous practice of writing a report for this journal after each season. As well as reducing the space absorbed by each season, this has the advantage that work which was conceived on a two-season schedule as a single programme can be presented together. There was no work at the site in 1984, and none is planned on the Early Dynastic mounds in 1987; provisionally we propose to conduct another two seasons of work there in 1988–89, followed by a break in 1990. It is hoped that during the fallow years it will be possible to keep the programme of final publications going.

When Alexander the Great was a boy in the 340s, entertaining Persian ambassadors at his father's court, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Mysteries of the Orient, not yet a Wonder of the World but the kind of thing about which he might have been expected to enquire. Instead, according to Plutarch (Moralia 342B), he asked about roads and the military organization of the Persian empire. Plutarch was writing in the first or second century AD, but maybe the story is true. We all know how Alexander used such information; it carried him to Babylon and his death.

According to Greco-Roman writers, the gardens were located at Babylon (Fig. 1) on a high structure in or beside a palace. They were the gift of one of the kings of Babylon to his Median or Persian wife Amyitis, who was homesick for mountain scenery. No remains of any such structure have yet been confidently identified at Babylon. We are free to speculate on their location, since brick-robbing continued at Babylon for thousands of years and removed all but the foundations of many major buildings.

Some nineteenth-century travellers liked to see a relic of the gardens in a solitary evergreen tree which grew near the summit of the Kasr mound, close to its north-eastern corner (Figs. 2 and 12). In 1765, as Niebuhr recounts (1774–8: 289), there had been more than one such tree here and there among the ruins, and the species was different from any that he had observed between Kerbela and the Gulf. Niebuhr already remarked on the great age of these trees.

The document here published belongs to Major Watson and will be exhibited in the Honiton Museum, Honiton, Devonshire, For the kind permission to publish this tablet, I wish to express my best thanks to both Major Watson and the authorities of the Honiton Museum, and at the same time, I owe thanks to Mr. Gadd, the Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum who suggested this publication.

Considerable mystery surrounds the state god of Assyria, Aššur. Though this country was a little removed from the centres of Sumero-Babylonian culture and had distinctive traits of its own, compared with Syria and Elam it was definitely within the cultural milieu of Mesopotamia. This applies to religion also, where Adad and Ištar, for example, as worshipped in Assyria, are clearly the counterparts of the Adad and Ištar known from southern Mesopotamia. But the state god Aššur is different. He was peculiarly an Assyrian god without other cult centres, except when Assyrians established them, and he is not fully a deus persona. One seeks in vain for his identity. First, he lacks the family connections which are characteristic of all the major gods and goddesses of the Babylonians and Sumerians, uniting them in one big clan. Who was his wife? He sometimes is named with Ištar as though they were husband and wife, but this is not expressly stated, and one may wonder if the pre-eminence of Ištar in Nineveh does not explain this. They were the chief deities of the two main Assyrian cities. After a while Ninlil begins to appear as his wife, but this merely reflects his identification with the old Sumerian chief god—he is called “Assyrian Enlil”—and this use of Enlil's wife Ninlil merely underlines the lack of any native Assyrian wife of his. The same applies to the rare mentions of Ninurta and Zababa as his sons: they were long before sons of the Sumero-Babylonian Enlil. The only relative not clearly borrowed from southern Mesopotamia is Šeru'a, who, despite a little confusion, is not the same as Eru'a, a title of Zarpānītum, Marduk's wife. Yet even in Neo-Assyrian theological texts it is openly disputed whether she is Aššur's wife or daughter!

Since November 1982 the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq has been excavating Tell Mohammed ‘Arab as part of the Eski Mosul Dam Salvage Project organized by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. In this article the main results of these excavations will be described.

The work of the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq is sponsored by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and supported by the British Academy. The expenses of the work force are paid out of the budget of the Eski Mosul Dam Salvage Project while the expenses of the supervisory staff are met by the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq.

The area of the Eski Mosul Dam Salvage Project lies along the Tigris River and extends about 60 km from north-west to south-east and a maximum of about 11 km wide. The countryside is mostly rolling hillsides often quite steep with rock (mainly evaporites) emerging in places. The ground is red alluvial soil with strata of river gravel and conglomerate, with deep wadis cut by run-off rainwater. The climate is characterized by hot dry summers and cool dry winters. The mean annual rainfall is about 450 mm per year with over 90% falling in the six months from November to April. Although this is above the reliable 200 mm isohyet, this year there was insufficient rain for wheat and barley. The previous winter too was exceptional with snow and frost in January and February. The area is suitable for arable farming (barley and wheat, irrigated vegetables and orchards of mulberry, pistachio and olive), for animal husbandry (mostly sheep and goats), and for fishing in the Tigris or its tributaries.

The seas which wash the shores of Mesopotamia, the great rivers and the lakes of that land abound in fish of many different kinds, so that fish form an important article of diet of the modern inhabitants as well as of that of their forerunners in very remote times. Therefore it is not strange that fish appear among the decorative motives on painted ceramic pottery, were engraved in stereotyped rows on cylinder seals of the Jamdat Nasr epoch, or were carved as small figurines in bone, shell, and black, white or coloured stones, often with such precise observation of nature that the species delineated can easily be distinguished. Scenes in which water was the important element included fish swimming below a boat, gliding quite illogically up and down the streams welling up from the vase the god Enki holds, or, even more strangely, from that held by figures carved in the round or in relief of Gudea or of water divinities. Apart from fish in the proximity of Enki-Ea, introduced solely to indicate the living quality of the water spurting from the vase he holds, examples of fish in front of or close to a divinity are too numerous in the art of ancient Mesopotamia in almost every epoch necessarily to imply that the fish were attributes of the divinities with whom they appear to be associated (Nos. 1, 2). It is, nevertheless, interesting to note how often a fish is placed close to Ištar in warlike aspect, and holding her tripartite sceptre; there is even a curious scene in which the goddess does not appear in person, but is symbolised by her great tripartite sceptre, beside which a fish is placed, while a short-clad attendant and a divinity leading a female worshipper draw near to pay homage.

For three seasons, 1935 through 1937, Max Mallowan excavated at Chagar Bazar, after selecting it during a survey of the Upper Habur region in 1934. The Mallowan excavations are most notable for the “Prehistoric Pit”, with its deep sequence of Halaf and 3rd millennium BC levels, and for the horizontal exposure of early 2nd millennium BC buildings at the centre of the site. These excavations made a substantial contribution to the initial identification of the northern Mesopotamian archaeological assemblages and artifactual sequence. But there are questions remaining about the sequence and the nature of occupation at Chagar Bazar. In 1999, a new programme of excavations at the site was begun, a joint project involving the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (Dr Augusta McMahon), the University of Liège (Professor Önhan Tunca), and the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (Mr Abdul-Massih Bagdo of the Hasseke Department of Antiquities). Our first two seasons took place in March-May of 1999 and March–May of 2000.

The new research programme focuses on two related diachronic questions. The first is Chagar Bazar's internal cycle of occupation, abandonment, and re-occupation, and the internal diversity within the site. The second question is the changing role of the site within settlement trends in the Upper Habur, focusing on its status as a relatively small site in the Mesopotamian context.

It is usually possible to date an inscribed Assyrian sculpture without hesitation to the reign of a specific king, but there are two, both found about the same time in the centre of ancient Nineveh, which have aroused considerable controversy. One of them, the Broken Obelisk, after various adventures, now seems to have settled down in the reign of Aššur-bel-kala. The other is BM 118807, the White Obelisk (hereafter WO).

Pinches originally ascribed the WO to the reign of Aššurnaṣirpal II, and this view seems to have prevailed until Unger, in a 1928 lecture and afterwards in the first full publication of the monument, opted for Aššurnaṣirpal I. Forrer accepted this, but Assyriologists generally were not convinced: while Gadd reserved judgement, Landsberger came out firmly for Aššurnaṣirpal II; he was followed by Borger and, more tentatively, by Guterbock and Schramm. Most archaeologists with an interest in iconography, however, including Hrouda, Nagel, Moortgat, Boehmer, and Madhloom, while not necessarily insisting on the ascription to Assurnasirpal I in person, refused to accept that a king as late as Aššurnaṣirpal II could possibly have been responsible for it. Of those who were willing to follow Landsberger, only Frankfort, who probably would not have claimed any great familiarity with Assyrian work, did so without reservation. Akurgal admitted to doubts, and Mallowan argued that the WO might have been produced by a distinctively old-fashioned school of sculptors at Nineveh, not otherwise attested. I myself attempted to reconcile the conflicting parties by suggesting that the sculptures were considerably older than the inscription, and I am told that the same idea had occurred independently to Calmeyer. Other scholars, both Assyriologists and archaeologists, doubtless expressed their opinions here and there, before 1974, and will forgive me for failing to mention them.

The 1987 field season was the first full season of work on the Uruk Mound at Abu Salabikh (see Postgate & Moon 1984 and Pollock 1987 for discussions of previous work). The interests and questions guiding this work center on the political economy of the Uruk period—the ways in which decisions of a political nature structure, and are structured by, economic activities. Our work thus far has provided preliminary insights into patterns of production, distribution, and consumption of both craft and subsistence goods. Because our samples are relatively small, the results of this season's work must be viewed as suggestive rather than definitive. The reader should also bear in mind that the analytical and interpretive study of the material is still underway. Fuller discussions of the work will be presented elsewhere (Pollock n.d. a, n.d. b).

In the 1987 season 2280 m2 of the mound was surface collected and 1805 m2 was scraped, mostly in 10 × 10 m units (Fig. 1). The scraping enabled us to further elucidate the plan of a large, well-constructed building in the 3D95 grid square that was first identified in 1985 (Pollock 1987). To the north of this building, we followed out an area of solid brick construction, revealing the remains of a mudbrick platform more than 55 × 32 m in extent. On the west edge of the mound, in grid squares 2C12–13, 23–24, we also found a massive brick construction, approximately 17 m wide. Its location near the mound's edge is suggestive of a town wall, but until we trace it further this idea remains highly speculative. Elsewhere, the scraping revealed either little in the way of coherent architecture or enigmatic areas of brick that do not at present yield any meaningful architectural plans.

Vor allem aus zwei Gründen haben die Kriege und die Kriegführung der Assyrer die Historiker seit hundert Jahren besonders interessiert: Erstens haben die Assyrer von einem kleinen und in den Anfangszeiten des Reiches nicht besonders volkreichen Stammland aus das Grossreich aufgebaut, das unter allen Reichen des alten Orients den längsten Bestand hatte und die Voraussetzungen für die späteren Grossreiche der Chaldäer und der Achämeniden schuf. Zweitens lassen die Inschriften wie die Bildwerke die Kriegführung der Assyrer als besonders brutal erscheinen. Wegen der so oft berichteten Massenexekutionen haben moderne Gelehrte nicht selten die Assyrer mit Alfred von Gutschmidt “ein unsäglich scheussliches Volk” genannt, und Soziologen unserer Tage, die wie Alexander Rüstow scharfe Antithesen lieben, lassen an den Assyrern nicht viel Gutes. Assyrien gilt da als das Muster eines Militärstaates, dessen kulturelle Leistung recht bescheiden gewesen sei.

The island of Bahrain has this century been notable for two main reasons: its identification as Dilmun (Telmun), known from Sumerian to Neo-Assyrian times, and the striking presence of thousands of burial mounds (a recent estimate is 172,000—Larsen 1983). Both have been the cause of some disagreement and difference of interpretation. Recent archaeological work has made the issue of the mounds, their place and interpretation, somewhat clearer. This is none too soon. Comparatively little effort has been made to elucidate the island's own internal archaeology. None of the numerous Bronze Age settlements on the island has been systematically excavated. Bahrain's archaeological framework, instead, is mostly based on the Danish Expedition's limited excavation of Qala'at al-Bahrain in the 1950s and 60s, which remains largely unpublished.

One of the results of this lack of settlement exploration and the inadequate publication of that already carried out is that the dating of the burial mounds, or at least those of Bronze Age date, has proved problematic, as has the whole of Bahrain's archaeological sequence. Recent work elaborating the ceramic chronology of the North Wall Sounding at Qala'at al-Bahrain by Larsen has been of considerable help. This has enabled broad guidelines to be established for the ceramic sequence from about 2300 B.C. to around 1700 B.C., the period to which the mounds date.

Installé sur la rive gauche du Tigre à quelques kilomètres de l'actuelle ville de Samarra, le site de Tell es-Sawwan a sans doute livré les vestiges les plus spectaculaires de la préhistoire mésopotamienne. De dimensions assez réduites et d'une durée d'occupation brève, il a fait l'objet d'une dizaine de campagnes de fouilles menées entre 1964 et 1983 par les archéologues irakiens. A la demande des autorités irakiennes, deux campagnes supplémentaires y ont été conduites par la Délégation Archéologique Française en Iraq en 1988 et 1989.

Cinq niveaux couvrant les périodes de Hassuna, Samarra et Halaf ont été identifiés dès les premiers travaux. Les deux premiers niveaux (I et II, reposant sur le terrain vierge) ont livré les vestiges de vastes édifices tripartites sous les sols desquels de très nombreuses tombes d'enfants dotées d'un matériel exceptionnel en albâtre (vaisselle et figurines) furent découvertes. La céramique, malgré sa rareté et son manque de spécificité, fut attribuée à l'époque de Hassuna. Le dégagement plus au nord, sur le tell B, des niveaux III A et B permit la découverte d'un ensemble très spectaculaire composé de plusieurs bâtiments dits “en T” (phase A) disposés à l'intérieur d'un mur d'enceinte entouré d'un fossé. Cette installation, interprétée comme l'un des premiers témoins d'une architecture villageoise fortifiée, fut modifiée au niveau III B par l'adjonction d'énormes contreforts et de divers aménagements en plâtre, désignant les bâtiments en T comme des greniers dans leur seconde phase d'existence. Au niveau IV, l'établissement ne semble plus en usage dans la mesure où un bâtiment fut construit directement sur le fossé et le rempart, indiquant que ceux-ci n'étaient plus utilisés. Ces niveaux III et IV furent datés de l'époque de Samarra grâce aux nombreux tessons de céramique qu'ils contenaient. Le dernier niveau, V, fut dégagé dans la partie ouest du site. Il est représenté par une grande construction circulaire sur soubassements de galets attribuée à l'époque de Halaf.

The site of Bakr Awa is situated in north-eastern Iraq, in the Plain of Shahrizor. Excavations were undertaken in 1960/61by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and 2010/11 by the University of Heidelberg/Germany. Occupation layers from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age tothe Ottoman period were uncoveredin the lower city and on the citadel. Archaeological evidence from the secondmillennium B.C. shows the most intensive settlement activities and apparent prosperity at Bakr Awa. Several forms of pottery, small finds and architecture reflect dynamic processes of cultural and political transformation at this site located in an area of transition between northern and southern Mesopotamia and western Iran.

Although W. K. Loftus is best remembered today for his pioneer excavations at Susa and Warka, one of his most remarkable single discoveries was made in April, 1854, at Tell Sifr in Iraq. For the first three months of the year, accompanied by Boutcher as artist, he had been engaged on excavations at Warka sponsored by the Assyrian Excavation Fund. He then moved his expedition to Senkara (Larsa), a site fifteen miles south-east of Warka, called to his attention through a rapid visit there by Baillie Fraser in 1834. Among the large mounds visible from Senkara across the ancient canal, Shatt al Kar, is that of Tell Sifr, which promising local reports of its contents induced Loftus to explore. Indeed the mound had already been honey-combed by a notorious group of clandestine excavators searching for gold in Parthian graves. It was they who had named the site ‘Sifr’ after the numerous copper objects they discovered there, much no doubt to their chagrin. Within a matter of days the party of Arabs despatched by Loftus had “cut some enormous gashes into the little conical mound, which crowns a low platform nowhere exceeding forty feet above the desert”. The discovery with which this paper is concerned was made on the south-east side of the tell and may best be described in the excavator's own words:

“A trench was dug into the south-east side of the principal mound, according to instructions, and soon came against a brick wall, which, from its position, supported by a three-feet buttress, and its elevation in two-inch gradines, was evidently the exterior of a building. Its thickness was not ascertained, but it encased an internal mass of mudbrick, as explained by some other trenches. Following this wall for a distance of about six feet, the workmen discovered a number of copper articles arranged along it, which form a very curious and quite unique collection, consisting of large chaldrons, vases, small dishes and dice-boxes (?); hammers, chisels, adzes, and hatchets; a large assortment of knives and daggers of various sizes and shapes—all unfinished; massive and smaller rings; a pair of prisoner's fetters; three links of a strong chain; a ring weight; several plates resembling horses' shoes, divided at the heel for the insertion of a handle, and having two holes in each for pins; other plates of a different shape, which were probably primitive hatchets; an ingot of copper and a great weight of dross from the same smelted metal. (Here Loftus notes: ‘The whole of the articles obtained from Tell Sifr are deposited in the British Museum’). There was likewise a small fragment of a bitumen bowl overlaid with thin copper; and a piece of lead.” Loftus believed he had found the stock-in-trade of a copper smith, but was puzzled by their ‘connection with the public edifice, near which they were uncovered’. He inferred the date of this copper hoard from the Old Babylonian tablets and envelopes found close to them. This archive had been carefully stacked upon bricks with a cover of reed matting. Impending seasonal floods brought the work at Tell Sifr to a premature end. The site has never subsequently been scientifically examined.

It is a curious fact that though remarkably little has survived of the jewellery worn by the women of Palmyra in the first centuries of our era, we know enough from sculptured representations of it to hasard the statement that it provides important evidence of the wide-flung commercial relations of that city at the zenith of its activity. For several decades past there have been coming into the museums of Europe and America large numbers of sculptured busts from the ruins of the desert city, each standing out in high relief on a square or oblong slab of stone, which also bears, to right or left of the head, a brief inscription in Palmyrene. The details of clothing and jewellery represented on these busts, the dressing of the hair and of the men's beards, the objects held in the hands, all are well worth study for the light they throw on the life and fashions of the times, and particularly on the commercial relations of the caravan city with other lands to east and west.

The inscriptions, in whose incised characters traces of the red paint with which they were originally embellished often still remain, are remarkably uniform: a formal word of regret, best translated as ‘Alas !’, and the name and genealogy carried back through the male line for two, and occasionally three or more, generations. Typical inscriptions read: ‘Alas ! Jarḥai, son of Jedī‘bel, son of Simon, (son of) Argan’; ‘Alas ! Elahsā, son of Taimisā, son of Samsigeram, (son of) Ḥabbazi’. A considerable number of Jewish names occur, and a sprinkling of Persian, Nabataean, Phoenician and other names, There are yet others of Greek and Roman form, of which the latter would appear to have been freely adopted by Palmyrene citizens of the later periods, e.g., the brothers Narqaios and Qallistus, sons of Šalman Marcellus. Occasionally the date was added, reckoned from the official beginning of the Seleucid era, October 7, 312 B.C. The inscription on one such dated bust reads: ‘Alas ! ‘Aha, daughter of Ḥalaftā, son of Bar‘ā, (son of) Zabd'atā … Month of September, 473’ (=A.D. 161).

In a previous report we summarized the results of excavations undertaken by the Directorate-General of Antiquities at ‘Aqar Qūf (Dur-Kurigalzu) during the season beginning early in October 1943 and ending on February ioth, 1944. Work was next resumed at the beginning of November 1944 and continued until January 15th, 1945. The field staff consisted of Sayid Taha Baqir, M.A., Curator of the Iraq Museum, as Field Director, Sayid Mohammed Ali Mustafa as Architect, Sayid Izzeddin Sanduq as Registrar, and Sayid Sabri al-Dhiwebi as Camp Manager. All the photographs used to illustrate this report were taken by the Department's photographer, Antran Ivan. As during the previous seasons at this site, excavations were conducted under the guidance of Mr. Seton Lloyd, F.S.A., Technical Adviser to the Directorate-General.

A third season of a new programme of excavations at Tell Brak in north-eastern Syria took place from late March to mid-May 1996. Our continuing gratitude for support goes to the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, especially in Damascus to the Director-General, Professor Dr Sultan Muhesen, and the Director of Excavations, Dr Adnan Bounni, in Hasake to Sd Jean Lazare, and in Der ez-Zor to Sd Assa'ad Mahmud. Our representative in 1996 was Sd Ibrahim Murad, who not only assisted with much practical advice and support but also took an active and much appreciated part in the conduct of fieldwork on site. We are very grateful to them all. Funding for the 1996 season was generously provided by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research of the University of Cambridge, and the British Academy, to all of which we express sincere thanks.

The excavation team in 1996 comprised Dr Roger Matthews (excavations director), Ms Helen McDonald (registrar and pottery specialist), Dr Susan Colledge and Ms Seona Anderson (palaeo-botanists and environmentalists), Dr Keith Dobney and Ms Deborah Jaques (zooarchaeologists), Dr Wendy Matthews (micromorphologist), Dr John MacGinnis (archaeologist and epigraphist), Dr Murray Eiland (pottery technologist), Ms Fiona Macalister (conservator), Ms Sarah Blakeney, Ms Candida Felli, Mr Jon Gower, Mr Nicholas Jackson, Mr Richard Jennings, Mr Tom Pollard, Mr Thomas Raben and Dr Caroline Steele (archaeologists).

The discovery at Balawat of the famous Bronze Gates of Aššurnaṣirpal II and Shalmaneser III by Hormuzd Rassam in 1878 was a landmark in the history of Assyrian art, but provoked little curiosity about the history and character of the site itself. This was due in part to the pronouncement of Wallis Budge, who visited the site in 1889 and later declared, “From every point of view it seemed unlikely that Shalmaneser would have set up such a wonderful monument as the ‘Gates’ in an out-of-way place like Tell Balawat … there is no room on the mound for a temple, still less for a temple and palace, however small… Mr. H. Rassam may have obtained from Tell Balawat the plates and the coffer, etc., which he sent home, but if he did the natives must have taken them there”. Hilprecht, writing in 1903, accepted Rassam's statement without question, although he soundly condemned both the morality and the method of his excavations. But Budge's authority created a doubt that lingered long among scholars who were not field archaeologists. The 3rd. edition of the British Museum Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities (1922) refers to the gates as “said to have been found at Tell Balawat”. A visit to the mound in 1942 by Professor Seton Lloyd, then Adviser to the Directorate General of Antiquities in Iraq, convinced him of the truth of Rassam's account, but it was not until 1956 that Professor Mallowan sought direct confirmation by excavation.

Few subjects in the field of biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies have elicited as much attention in recent decades as the origin and development of Israelite-biblical monotheism. One needs more than the fingers of both hands to list the many collections of articles and individual monographs that treat this threshold in the history of religions. Attention shifts in the search for precursors from ancient Egypt to Mesopotamia, and in the West Semitic sphere, to Ugarit and the Middle Euphrates. It will be the burden of the present discussion, while providing requisite background, to focus on the Neo-Assyrian factor in the ongoing development of Israelite monotheism, rather than on the search for its ultimate origin, which may be beyond reach in the present state of knowledge.

More precisely, I will propose that the policies and campaigns of the Sargonids, especially of Sennacherib, who made Nineveh his political capital, elicited an Israelite response that directly impacted the God-idea. That response is most immediately expressed in the prophecies of First Isaiah of Jerusalem, Sennacherib's contemporary. It was the threat to the survival of Judah and Jerusalem, emanating from Assyria, which called forth an enhanced God-idea. That idea evolved into universal monotheism, and in effect, enabled the people of Israel to survive exile and domination by successive world empires. In such terms, universal monotheism is to be seen as a religious response to empire, an enduring world-view founded on the proposition that all power exercised by humans, no matter how grandiose, is transient, and ultimately subservient to a divine plan for the whole earth, for all nations.

The purpose of the present note is to alert scholars to the fact that following a cleaning programme undertaken in the late 1960s certain iconographic details apparently visible on the decorated face of the monument known as the Broken Obelisk should be treated with caution.

As recounted by C. J. Gadd, the Broken Obelisk was found by Hormuzd Rassam in August 1853 at Nineveh, about halfway between Sennacherib's Palace and Ashurbanipal's Palace (Gadd 1936: 123; Rassam 1897: 9). It was probably in or near the Ishtar Temple (ibid.; Reade 2005: 373). The Obelisk was drawn on site (Fig. 1), either by Charles Hodder (Gadd 1936: 123) or by William Boucher, who arrived at Nineveh in March 1854 in order to help Rassam record some of the important sculptures he had found at Kouyunyik (Barnett 1975: 22; Rassam 1897: 37). Gadd describes how the obelisk was shipped with other sculptures from Basra to Bombay in the steam-frigate Acbar in March 1854, and from Bombay to London in the ship Merchantman, arriving in February 1855 (Gadd 1936: 123). It now has the British Museum number 118898 (56-9-9, 59).

It is known as the Broken Obelisk because it is the upper part only of an obelisk with a stepped top. At the bottom it measures 65 × 41 cm, and it has an overall surviving height of 63 cm. There is a lengthy cuneiform inscription on three of the four sides (the short left side is blank) and on one of the long sides there is, in addition to the cuneiform inscription, a panel of carved decoration showing a king holding a rod and ring or (more likely) a mace and a coil of rope. In front of the king are two pairs of prisoners roped together. In the field above the prisoners, and in front of the king, are five divine symbols, comprising a horned cap, a crescent, a winged disc from which emerge two hands, one of them holding a bow, a bolt of lightning, and a rosette. The text (Grayson 1991: 99–105) recounts the achievements of a king who is thought to be Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC). It is usually inferred from the text that the obelisk was originally set up at Ashur.