The silver bowl which is illustrated in Plate I was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum in 1964. It was said to have been formerly in the possession of a dealer in Teheran, who bought it in Hamadan. The story is too stereotyped to have much archaeological significance. Nevertheless it may be true; for there is nothing surprising, as we shall see, in a vessel of this form and character being found in the ancient capital of the Medes.

The bowl was described as “Achaemenian”; and so, at first sight, it might seem to be. But closer inspection reveals some particulars of form and decoration which are not quite characteristic of attested Achaemenian works, but suggest a different history. Since no real reliance can be placed on the only statements of provenance which we have, it is from form and decoration alone that the origins of the bowl may be inferred.

The bowl is somewhat abruptly articulated into a shallow container, almost flat below, and a broad flaring rim which springs from a sharply incurved shoulder (Fig. I, a). Of the total depth of about 34 mm. the container accounts for a little more than half, with a capacity of about seven fluid ounces, or one third of a pint. The bowl was thus designed to hold about as much liquid as could easily be drained at a draught. A residue would always have been trapped by the shoulder.

Opinion remains divided on the question of the dating of Tepe Hissar III and Dr. C. F. A. Schaeffer's recent work on the comparative stratigraphy of Western Asia provides further backing for the acceptance of a late third millenium dating. This being so, although the writer has already put forward a number of points to support a relatively low dating, it is felt that a more thorough examination of the material available, and a clearer appreciation of its implications are necessary. It has been recognised that there are definite and undeniable links between Luristan, Giyan I, Sialk V and VI, and the whole Caucasian region from Persian Talish to Koban, and that this association must lie between 1800 and 1200. The question that has to be decided is—did the period Hissar III B and C also lie between these dates, or had it come to an end three hundred or more years prior to 1800?

The second season of excavation at the Ubaid-related site of H3 took place in October 1999 and lasted for four weeks. The site lies on a low peninsula, the Jazirat Dubaij, at the north end of Kuwait bay. The work was carried out jointly by the British Archaeological Expedition to Kuwait and a team from the National Museum of Kuwait under the direction of Dr Fahad al Wohaibi. The work of the Expedition was made possible by the generosity of many people and it is a pleasure to be able to acknowledge the help of Dr al Rumayhi, Secretary General of the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters; vital sponsorship from Shell Kuwait Ltd initiated by its general manager, Dr Ken Taylor, who has been an invaluable friend to the Expedition; financial support from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq; the assistance of the National Museum of Kuwait in providing accommodation and food and in paying for workmen; academic sponsorship from the Institute of Archaeology UCL, and friendly support from the British Embassy and the British Council in Kuwait. Our special thanks are due to the Ambassador, to Col. the Hon. Alastair Campbell, the Defence Attaché, and to the members of the RAF squadron who took aerial photographs of the site for us.

The main objectives for the second season of excavation were as follows: to define the large stone structure identified last season on the highest part of the mound (Carter et al. 1999) and to begin its excavation (Area A); to continue work in the other two areas sampled in 1998 (Area B) to the west of the mound, and Area F around the Iraqi dug-out or “foxhole” to the south (Fig. 1) and to collect a representative sample of the environmental data. In addition, it was hoped to determine the position of the ancient coastline south of the site and to complete the survey of the Jazirat Dubaij.

During this season excavation was continued in a small area of the Burnt Palace and in the street flanking it on the east, with the object of elucidating the building sequence on the Palace site, and providing a stratigraphical link with the newly discovered Nabu Temple complex. The work was restricted by the presence of the massive walls of the latest palace, which have concealed or destroyed much of the evidence; and it must be emphasised that the sequence described here, although it probably presents an accurate picture of the general development of the site, is local and may be varied elsewhere by the absence of some building phases and the interpolation of others. The areas examined were:

(i) the north-west and south-east corners of the Palace courtyard, with the three rooms running northward from the east end of the Throne-Room, numbered 7, 11 and 20 on the previously published plan (Fig. 3),

(ii) a narrow section across the street that divides the east wall of the Palace from the Nabu Temple façade,

(iii) the Temple façade and the shrine of Nabu.

In their recent edition of inscribed material from Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud, Dalley and Postgate (1984: No. 95, pp. 159 ff., Pl. 22) have published and discussed a text recording the measurements, apparently in preparation for their covering in gold leaf, of statues for a temple of Nabu, probably the Nabu Temple at Kalḫu itself. As extant, “face B” begins with the dimensions for the statue or statues of the uridimmu (UR.ID[IM?]), which is probably to be identified as an upright figure with human head, arms and torso but the lower body and legs of lion, a type known in the Assyrian period on the palace reliefs and among the apotropaic foundation figurines (Wiggermann, in press: § VII C 5; cf. Green 1985: 77, with Fig. 1 and Pls. XIIIb, XIVa, b).

The next section (ll. 10 ff.) concerns statues of the suḫurmāšu, or “Goat-fish” (literally “Carp-goat”), and kulullû, “Fish-man”. As Dr. Dalley points out, these creatures are known among the apotropaic figurines and named in the appropriate rituals (Dalley and Postgate 1984: 162, n. to ll. 15–19; citing Rittig 1977 for the figurines). An example of the Goat-fish omitted from Rittig's catalogue is shown on Plate V; its inscription (er-ba taš-mu u ma-ga-rù), corresponding to the form prescribed in KAR, no. 298, rev. line 5 (Gurney 1935: 70 f.; Rittig 1977: 157, 167) proves the identity as the suḫurmāšu(cf. Rittig 1977: 188 f., § Ib.2; 206; Green 1983: 93, n. 54; Wiggermann, in press: § VII C 10 b). The mention of statues of the type in the Nimrud text is a significant testimony to their original presence in the repertoire of Assyrian monumental art, for which no examples are now known (notice their absence in the review by Kolbe 1981), although an example is to be found on one face of a ninth(?)-century smaller-scale stone altar from Nineveh (Plate VIa), and statues of the creature appear to be depicted on a Middle Assyrian (Fig. 1 ) and post-Assyrian (Plate Xc) seals. This fact further supports the apparent identical, or at least very close, repertoires of apotropaic figures as foundation figurines and in monumental sculpture (Green 1983).

In recent years many different suggestions have been made in an effort to solve the admittedly difficult problem of the chronology of the last kings of Assyria. Any new proposal must take account of the following:

1. Aššurbanipal (a) accession year, 669 B.C. year 1 begins with Nisannu 668.

2. Aššur-etillu-ilani (a) ruled in Assyria a minimum of 4 years, 8 months (Clay BE VIII, 1, No. 5: Nippur, i.viii.4, šar (mât) Aššur (ki)).

Nineveh, enclosed within a rampart, representing, for the most part, Sennacherib's work, nearly eight miles in perimeter, consists of the two great mounds, Quyunjiq (more than half a mile long by a quarter broad) and Nebi Yūnus, the mound of the Prophet Jonah, considerably smaller in size, and the flats within the walls at the foot of these mounds, wherein dwelt the bulk of the people. To the east, the more exposed side, there is also another large rampart outside the complete encircling wall, which seems never to have been completed. Whether the Tigris washed the SW. flank in historic times is uncertain, although such a course for that river is possible.

The theory that the Sumerian economy was controlled by the state or temple has until recently been a premise generally accepted by those who have attempted to deal with economic activity in the third millennium B.C. This theory has necessarily had a profound effect upon the interpretation of the role of the merchant in this period of Mesopotamian history. Since our evidence is by no means sufficient to reconstruct merchant activity in detail, our view of this aspect of Mesopotamian economic life is decisively conditioned by our theory of the total economy. For this reason, I have sketched out in what follows the theoretical basis which underlies the position taken in the present paper, as well as my understanding of the theoretical position to which it stands opposed.

During the 1920's, Anton Deimel reconstructed, on the basis of surviving tablets available to him, the basic structure of the archive of Bau in Girsu during the administrations of Lugalanda and Uru'inimgina (UruKAgina). Operating with the evidence assembled by Deimel, and taking his rather tentative deductions to what seemed at the time to be the logical conclusion, Anna Schneider and others arrived at a view of Sumerian society in which the temple functioned as the heart and brain of the whole. In the context of such a view, which for many years has affected both Assyriological and popular literature on the subject, the merchant can hardly be interpreted otherwise than as an employee of that central controlling agency. Thus, the economy of the third millennium tended to be categorized under such rubrics as “theocracy” and “statism”. The economy of this era was contrasted with the “capitalism” of the Old Babylonian period, and the differences between the economy reflected in the documents of the two eras were often assigned to the influx of new Semitic peoples, a classic case of explaining unknowns by another unknown or, perhaps, of the uncritical generalization of some specific Semitic stereotype such as the Carthaginian in Plautus' Poenulus.

In the third millennium B.C. Shuruppak (modern Fara) was a major city located on the Euphrates in central Sumer. Today the mound of the ancient city extends for over a kilometre north to south. Including the high mound and the lower rise of one to two metres surrounding it, Shuruppak covers about 120 hectares. Only about 35 hectares rise about the 3 m contour, however, and nowhere does the mound rise much above 9 m.

There have been two major excavations at Shuruppak, by the D.O.G. in 1902—they crisscrossed the mound with trenches but recorded lamentably little stratigraphy—and by the University of Pennsylvania in 1931—when Erich Schmidt conducted limited excavations at four points on the mound. It is clear from these excavations that Shuruppak was inhabited from about 3000 to 2000 B.C.

In 1973 I visited the site and conducted a three-day surface survey with the help of my husband Christopher Martin, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (then under the direction of Diana Kirkbride), and the Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities, with the aim of enlarging our knowledge of the settlement patterns at Shuruppak.

The first season of excavations at Tell al Rimah was undertaken from March 1st to May 13th, 1964, by a joint expedition of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the University Museum, Philadelphia. My thanks are due to my colleagues on the staff for hard work in the difficult circumstances of makeshift accommodation and a new site. Mrs. T. H. Carter of the University Museum was Assistant Director and took charge of Area C of the excavations. Miss Barbara Parker was epigraphist and photographer, assisted in the latter task by Mr. Nicholas Kindersley, who also undertook a part of the surveying. Mr. Julian Reade supervised the excavation of Area A, the temple, and Mr. David Crownover of the University Museum joined us in the second half of the season to give valuable assistance with the supervision of the dig and the cleaning and recording of finds. Many visitors gave us generous help; Mr. David French in the survey of other sites in the area, Mr. Jeffrey Orchard with the catalogue of finds, Professor Jørgen Laessøe with the epigraphy, and Miss Ann Searight and Miss Nan Shaw with the cleaning and conservation of finds. Sayyid Tariq al Na‘imi was the representative of the Directorate-General of Antiquities, and his energy and local knowledge were invaluable to us. We owe a great debt to the officials of the Government of Iraq for their hospitable assistance, to H. E. the Mutasarrif of Mosul Liwa and to Sayyid Ahmed al Mufti, Qaimaqam of Tell Afar. In Mosul Sayyid Selim al Jelili, Inspector of Antiquities for Mosul Liwa, was always ready to help with our problems. And, as always, the success of our work was largely due to the aid and advice, both practical and scholarly, of Dr. Faisal al Wailly, Director-General of Antiquities, and Sayyid Fuad Safar, Inspector-General of Excavations, and their staff.

The Babylonian myth known to the ancients as Enūma ilū awëlum, “When the Gods Were Man”, and to modern scholarship as the Epic of Atra-ḫasīs, tells the wondrous story of the creation of mankind, of the attempts of the king of the gods, Enlil, to reduce the overpopulation that resulted from its unchecked reproduction — by plague, drought, famine and, most disastrously, the Deluge — and of the measures then taken by the gods to keep mankind's future numbers in check. Since its reconstruction some twenty-five years ago, by W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, there have come to light very few new sources for this composition. Several small additional fragments have been published by Lambert, and a further piece by Groneberg and Durand. The most significant discovery of new text has been the several tablets that were found in the library excavated by the late Dr Walid Al-Jadir of the University of Baghdad in the Neo-Babylonian temple of Šamaš at Sippar. This find led to a preliminary report in this journal that “there are tablets 1, 2, 3 and one other of the Standard Babylonian recension (as it must now be called) of Atra-hasis”.

Since the birth of Assyriology there has been recognized at the heart of the neo-Assyrian empire what J. N. Postgate has termed “the symbiosis of Aramaic and Assyrian writing systems”. In 1865 Sir Henry Rawlinson published several cuneiform tablets bearing notes in Aramaic on their edges. These notes were often written with a reed pen while the clay was still soft, the fibres of the point leaving their distinct marks in the clay (e.g. the two examples illustrated in Iraq 34 (1972), Plate LIVb, c). It may be that other notes were written in ink on hardened tablets, but have been erased in the course of time. Certainly ink was used for annotations on tablets in the neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, applied after the clay had dried, as it had been long before by the Egyptian clerks at El-Amarna. While the ink notes could have been added at any time after the tablets were inscribed, far from the places where the tablets were written, those applied while the clay was damp were clearly contemporary with the writing of the cuneiform, and originated in the same place. The purpose of these notes is clear: they were dockets or labels to identify the documents, such as “quittance deed of Hazael” (Iraq 34, 134–7). Their presence in the citadel at Nineveh implies there were scribes at work there who could not read cuneiform, yet who would need to distinguish one document from another. Nineveh is the only known provenance for such dockets, although there are some which have reached museums without any information about their discovery (the Hazael deed mentioned, a deed for the division of an inheritance now in Copenhagen, a corn loan in private hands, and a text in Brussels).

In a recent number of this journal, Theresa Howard-Carter published photographs of the moulded demonic figures on opposing sides of the body of a large grey-ware pottery vessel now in the British Museum (Plate VII). According to her information, this vessel was “acquired by Loftus in 1851 from either Warka or Larsa” and “should date to the beginning of the second millennium”. Equating the creatures depicted with a winged demon carved on a limestone relief from Tell al-Rimah, which she dates to c. 1800 B.C., and which she hypothetically reconstructs on analogy, Howard-Carter identifies the type as “an early or proto-Pazuzu”, concluding that “As for Pazuzu, it is entirely possible that he did not, at this date, have his later unpleasant character, repulsive face or even his name; he stands apart as an accessory to Humbaba in warding off evil spirits”. If correct, this would be a significant contribution to the prehistory of Pazuzu, who has hitherto not been attested before the Late Assyrian period.

In a note of the same volume, however, the present writer has referred to this same vessel, BM 91941, as a “Neo-Assyrian pottery vessel from Nimrud” and identified the moulded figures as representations of the apotropaic “Scorpion-man” of Late Assyrian art. The pot was in fact found by Layard in a fragmentary condition “beneath the fallen bull, at entrance b of the great hall of the North West Palace ” at Nimrud, and is surely, therefore, Late Assyrian, despite these claims to the contrary. The iconography is comparable to that of Late Assyrian art, similar Scorpion-men being portrayed in monumental sculpture both as full-size figures (Plate VIII) and on a smaller scale as copper or bronze furniture fittings (Plate IXa) or in the detailed representation of garment embroidery (Plate IXb). On cylinder seals, the figure admittedly would appear to be first attested in the Akkadian period, and is known at least once in the Middle Assyrian, becoming popular in Late Assyrian times (Plate X).

During six seasons between 1976 and 1982 the Mission Archéologique Française à Qatar, directed by Jacques Tixier, investigated a number of prehistoric, protohistoric and Islamic sites across the Qatar peninsula. The pre-Islamic archaeological investigations concentrated on the area of al Khor on the north-east coast, where various members of the team excavated several sites with ‘Ubaid pottery and a number of undated cairn burials (Tixier 1980, Inizan 1988, Midant-Reynes 1985). As part of this team the author investigated two second-millennium BC sites during the three winter seasons of 1980–2. This report gives an account of one of these sites; a separate article will consider issues arising from the other site.

The site is located on a small island at the margin of the intertidal zone within the lagoon of Khor Shaqiq, on the north-east coast of Qatar (Fig. 1). Under present conditions a mangrove swamp lies off the east and south-east end of the island, open tidal mud-flats extend around its northern shore, and the deeper water of the bay lies to the west and south-west. Outcrops of Eocene limestone form the island core, around which lie cemented mid-Holocene beach-deposits and uncemented Holocene beach-lags (Fig. 2 inset). The latter, formed as thin alternating beds of silicate and skeletal carbonate sands, provide broad and fairly level expanses between the island shoreline and the limestone outcrops; these flats are the favoured location of human occupation. Uncemented sands, forming a chenier spit, front the south side of the island. The island lacks a permanent source of water and supports a very thin cover of xerophytic species of the Chenopodiaceae, Boraginaceae, Plumbaginaceae and Gramineae families.

The tenth season of excavations at Nimrud, sponsored by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, began on March 2nd and ended on May 5 th, 1960. The success of the expedition was largely due to the energetic and competent staff, with whom it was a privilege, and a pleasure to work. Miss Barbara Parker, in her ninth season on the site, acted as photographer and epigraphist, and her flair and experience were, as ever, invaluable in the organisation of the expedition. Mr. David Stronach again played an important part in supervising the excavations, took many of the dig photographs and dealt with the metal objects. We were particularly fortunate in obtaining the services of three experienced archaeologists who joined us for the first time this year. Mr. H. S. Smith, Fellow of Christ's College and Lecturer in Egyptology at Cambridge University, adapted himself most energetically to the Assyrian way of life, and his specialised knowledge was of particular value in dealing with the ivories. Mr. J. J. Orchard, of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, was responsible for a great part of the catalogue and, with Mr. D. French, for the extraction, cleaning and conservation of the ivories, a most exacting and laborious task; Mr. French also recorded the pottery. We were glad to have the experienced help of Professor J. Laessøe for the latter part of the season, in site supervision, photography and the typing of the catalogue; and Miss Ann Searight, who came as a volunteer, gave valuable aid with the cleaning and treatment of the finds. To all my colleagues I must express my gratitude for hard work and good company. I am sure they would wish to join me in thanking the Director General of Antiquities, Sayid Taha Baqir, and his staff, and Sayid Fuad Safar, Inspector General of Excavations, for the generous assistance and friendly co-operation which makes our work in Iraq a pleasure; and in recording our appreciation of the help given to us by Sayid Selim al-Jelili, the representative of the Directorate General with the expedition, and Sayid Behnam Abo al-Soof, then Inspector of Antiquities in Mosul Liwa.

Ernest Mackay's excavations on behalf of the Oxford(Weld)-Field Museum Expedition to Mesopotamia on mound A at Kish (1923–25) were published with exemplary speed and in considerable detail, though the author made clear in his account the very real difficulties involved in establishing the integrity of the grave-groups he was reporting. Unfortunately the publication of the cemetery, in two successive parts, is not consistent. Mackay chose to assemble his finds, both pottery and minor objects, on plates in a typological series; but even these are selective not comprehensive. In the case of graves 1–38, which appeared in the first half of the cemetery report, he included a chart from which it is possible, using it in conjunction with the plates on which the location of each object is marked, to reconstruct the grave-groups, though without the field numbers which were never published. In the second half of the cemetery report, which covered graves 39–154, Mackay adopted a system of illustration on plates similar to that used in the first report but with the addition of field numbers for each object. But this time he did not include a chart tabulating the grave-groups. Once again it is possible to reconstruct certain grave-groups from the plates, with assiduous attention to the detailed notes on various types of object given in the main text, though rarely with complete accuracy as by far the greater number of grave-groups were incompletely illustrated. As Mackay's carefully annotated field-cards have survived it is possible to reconstruct all the recorded grave-groups in full, though descriptions of individual objects are at times very cryptic. Even a cursory glance through the catalogue of graves reveals the disturbed condition of a great many of them. As the report intimates, and the field-cards confirm, there were many more graves whose contents had been scattered by human or natural activity. A great many objects, exactly comparable to those reported from grave-groups, were recorded without context from the upper levels of mound A.

The great site of Persepolis, though known for centuries past from the accounts of many travellers, remained until 1931 one of the very few of the great capital cities of the ancient Near Eastern world still untouched. Yet its monuments have formed the objects of serious study since more than a century; Ker Porter's careful drawings (1817) are by no means to be despised, but the pioneer work of Flandin and Coste, carried out in 1840–1841, before Botta and Layard had even found the famous capitals of Assyria, was not merely remarkable, it was in the first class. Following it came that of Texier in 1852. But only Flandin and Coste's great work can be compared with the latest handsome presentation of the subject, which is based on every modern scientific aid and incorporates the results of large-scale excavations, with the end in view of producing a definitive and complete record.

Among his other interests Sir Max Mallowan has always held a lively affection for the history and archaeology of south-western Iran, and in this year in which we celebrate his 70th birthday it may be appropriate to offer him these notes on certain problems connected with the final stages of the Persian migration. It is perhaps apt also that I should take u p an Achaemenian topic since it was Sir Max, now thirteen years ago, who first encouraged me to excavate at Pasargadae, the capital of Cyrus the Great.

The route by which the Persian tribes reached the region of Fars remains in dispute. According to one time-honoured theory the Persians entered Iran by way of the land bridge of the Caucasus and made their first halt c. 850 B.C. in a northerly locality, Parsua, to the west or south-west of Lake Urmia. From there at some date after Sargon of Assyria's eighth campaign in the year 714 B.C., it has been suggested that they may have struck due south, arriving first in Khuzistan, where they settled at Susa, Masjid-i Sulaiman and Bard-i Nishandeh, before they proceeded eastwards to the locality of Pasargadae.

The outer defences of the city of Calah form a rough rectangle nearly five miles in circumference. They appear to have consisted of a massive single wall, with projecting towers at intervals, supplemented on the north and east sides by a ditch, of which traces can be seen on air photographs (Iraq XVI, Pt. 1, Pl. X). On the west and south-west natural and artificial watercourses took the place of the ditch; the Tigris skirted the conglomerate terrace on which the west wall and the citadel were founded, while the Zab canal, dug by Aššurnaṣir-pal II to water the plain below the city, probably approached the south wall some distance east of the citadel and followed it westwards to an outfall on the Tigris. At the south-east corner a more complex system was developed to frustrate, or over-awe, potential enemies approaching along the great highway from Erbil, Kirkuk and the Kurdish highlands, which crossed the Upper Zab near Tell Abu Sheetha and thence probably followed the modern motor track through Abbas Rejeib to the citadel. This track now passes the bitumen wells in the valley east of the city, and crosses the city wall in the angle of a great reentrant which clearly marks the site of the heavily defended Erbil Gate (Iraq XX, Pt. 2, Pl. XIV). Some 350 m. south of this gate stands the corner tower, represented by the eastern mound of a pair now known as Tulul al Azar, which measures about 100 by 80 m. overall and stands 20 m. above the level of the plain.

Twenty-two years ago, on joining the Nimrud expedition for part of the 1952 season, I had the unforgettable privilege on arrival of being shown round the excavations by the Director, Max Mallowan. He had the gift of making every chamber of the Burnt Palace, every fragment of ivory, every slab and every sculpture, breathe with life as though there had been drawn back the curtain of two and a half millennia which separated us from the vitality and bustle of Calah when it was the capital of Assyrian kings.

Within a few days of my arrival the main archive of Nimrud Letters began to appear. When C. J. Gadd, the expedition epigraphist, with characteristic generosity waived his claim to publication of these letters, Max Mallowan did me the honour of inviting me to deal with them. Thus, whilst the present article constitutes my formal tribute to Sir Max Mallowan on his 70th birthday, my previous publications of Nimrud Letters and those yet to come are no less a testimony of my debt, and my gratitude, to a great Assyriologist.

The military achievements of Assyria so flamboyantly proclaimed in the royal annals would have had no enduring success had they not been followed up and supported at every step by the work of the Assyrian bureaucracy. This must not be taken to imply an essential dichotomy between the military arm and the Civil Service: indeed, military activities and civil administration were often aspects of a single continuing operation, and the same officials could be involved in both. Prisoners needed to be moved, fed, housed, and settled; whilst within subjugated territories it was a matter of importance to Assyria no less than to the subject populations to produce conditions in which the economic activities of the area—its agriculture or lumbering or horse-breeding or metallurgy—could return to normal as soon as possible.