None of the three swords to be discussed has a precise provenance. The first sword is the property of R. T. Clough Esq., and was kindly lent to us for examination; the second was bought through dealers and is now the property of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London; the third was kindly given to the Institute of Archaeology by G. Nazar Esq., to whom we would like here to record our sincere thanks.

Our purpose will be to discuss the techniques by which these swords were made; to consider their relationships with one another, and to suggest a chronological framework which can be used for dating similar Iranian iron weapons.

Although heavily corroded this sword is essentially complete insofar as the metallic part is concerned, measuring 52·5 cms. from pommel to point. The blade can best be described as having the outline of a willow-leaf, with its maximum width, 3 cms., rather more than a third of its length from the hilt. Down the centre of the blade on both faces is a wide flattened mid-rib, tapering at the point.

The Sumerian epic of Lugalbanda in Hurrumkurra has not yet been edited in its entirety, but important contributions have been made in particular by CI. Wilcke and W. W. Hallo (Wilcke 1969, Hallo 1983, cf. Wilcke 1987). There now exist two complete translations: one by J. A. Black from 1998 (1998: 176–84), virtually identical with the translation accessible on the website of the University of Oxford's Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) from about 1999; and a more recent translation with an eclectic text reconstruction by H. Vanstiphout (2003: 97–131). It is there entitled Lugalbanda in the Wilderness. Although many points have been clarified, not least thanks to the Yale source published by W. W. Hallo, especially the end of the text remains largely unintelligible and, in Vanstiphout's words, “needs more study” (2003: 162 n. 60).

To all who are interested in archaeology the discovery of an ancient writing or of a hitherto undiscovered ancient material must, in itself, be an event of major interest. The study of the writing, coupled with the pleasurable anticipation, not unmixed with hope, that it will present something new in the history of mankind is, however, an adventure to be enjoyed by only the select few who are learned in these matters. Similarly, the study of a previously unknown type of material, with all the conjectures regarding its nature and use, and the way it was made, can bring its full meed of pleasure only to those who combine specialist knowledge of such materials with a general interest in the history of their development and use.

To one with strong historical interests, albeit unversed in ancient writings, and with little opportunity to study ancient materials even from their descriptions, the opportunity to assist in the verification of an ancient writing or in the identification of an ancient material must have a strong appeal, and the writer regards himself as having been unusually fortunate in having had an opportunity to make glazed earthenware articles successfully by following out instructions written some thirty-six centuries earlier.

In certain Assyrian botanical vocabularies there is a group devoted to a series of plant-names many of which begin with ŠE ‘corn’ and GÛ ‘vetch’ (C.T. xiv. 31, K. 8846, r. 1-8: 32, K. 4588, ii, 2–10; S. Smith, C.T. xxxvii. B.M. No. 108860, pl. 29, 11. 35-50). These contain such words as üuṭṭatu ‘barley’, ükibatu ‘wheat’, üšu’ ‘emmer’, ükiššenu ‘vetch’, üḫalluru ‘lathyrus’, üduḫnu ‘millet’, with their Sumerian equivalents.

This contribution deals with the famous stela of king Dāduša of Ešnunna (c. eighteenth century b.c.). The monument testifies to a correlation of text and image that is unique in the Ancient Near East. However, recent scholarship still disagrees on the identification of the three main actors in the top register of the stela. The paper discusses in detail the philological and epigraphic evidence and their larger contexts. It concludes that the slaying figure to the left standing on the defeated king of Qab(a)rā is Adad and the figure to the far right is the pious king of Ešnunna paying reverence to his god who guaranteed victory over his enemy.

It is a task of never-ending fascination to search through the many thousands of small and yet smaller fragments of the tablets from Kuyunjik, looking for new “joins” or for even minute duplicates of the many series and individual tablets already published. Assyriologists have now spent a full century at this intriguing quest and some of us, at least, will never tire of it no matter what new collections comparable, in variety and number, to the libraries and archives of Nineveh may be discovered.

I can think of no more appropriate token of the esteem I feel for Professor Cyril J. Gadd than to dedicate to him, on this occasion, some gleanings from the Kuyunjik collection, to the care and publication of which he has given so many years of his life. The new fragments I am publishing here belong to the Assyrian Dream-book, and it was when I studied the tablets of that series in 1954 that for the first time I met Professor Gadd as the Keeper of the then “Department of Assyrian and Egyptian Antiquities” of the British Museum. He made me feel so welcome and so much at home in the “Students' Room” that it has since remained one of my favourite places to do Assyriological work.

This article presents a fragment of an Old Babylonian clay tablet excavated in 2007 at Tell Taban, ancient Ṭābatum, near Hassake in Syria. The text is a common Babylonian scholarly composition known as the Weidner god-list. It is the oldest exemplar of this list so far recovered from north Mesopotamia and important for the history of the diffusion of Babylonian scholarship.

It may be laid down as a general rule in regard to the dating of pottery that shape, technique, and fabric must all be taken into account, but the first is much the most important. Fabric or ware is dependent on local materials and consequently remains constant over long periods, and helps therefore very little for dating purposes. Nor is technique or surface-finish always a sure chronological guide, for it is controlled usually by the potters' whim, or by tribal custom, and not by the purchasing public, and is therefore liable to irregular or sudden changes. Shape, on the other hand, though dependent in part on the potters' skill and on the function of the pot, is far more dependent on the public taste, and is consequently more likely to evolve gradually and regularly. Nor do its changes take long in their evolution. It often needs but a few centuries, even in a conservative country like Mesopotamia, for pot-shapes to develop so markedly that the connexion between the first and last of a series would be unrecognizable without the guidance of the intermediate variants. Conversely, if in an extensive array of pottery a close connexion can be shown to exist between specimens from the earliest and latest levels, it is as likely as not that no long period of time need be postulated for the development from one to the other.

The British excavations at Nineveh, initiated in 1845 by Austen Henry Layard, produced about 30,000 clay tablets or fragments of tablets, most of them coming from the citadel mound of Kuyunjik. This textual material can be divided into two main groups: on the one hand, library tablets, consisting of literary, lexical and historical texts, rituals, medical compendia, Sumerian prayers and above all omen texts, and on the other, archival documents, such as letters, contracts and administrative notes. The great, and rather unique, potential of the texts from Kuyunjik lies in the fact that they reveal to us, more than any other repository of cuneiform tablets ever found, how culture, represented by the first group of texts, and politics, represented by the second, were related to each other in ancient Mesopotamia.

While the archival documents from Kuyunjik date to the reigns of several Assyrian rulers from the eighth and seventh centuries, the library texts seem to belong mostly, though not exclusively, to the reign of a single Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (669 to about 630), a man deeply interested in the scribal arts of ancient Mesopotamia. His enthusiasm for reading and writing, which he seems to have shared with his wife, Libbāli-šarrat, can be traced back to his youth. From an autobiographical sketch about his intellectual socialization, we know that Ashurbanipal had received the education of a future scholar. In a passage somewhat reminiscent of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, Ashurbanipal described the scribal training of his early years as follows:

The Birmingham City Museum's collection of cuneiform documents has been assembled over the years from a variety of sources. Many of the Sumerian royal inscriptions are from Sir Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur (1922–34); most of the Assyrian material is derived from R. Campbell Thompson's excavations at Nineveh (1927–32), and the excavations of Sir Max Mallowan at Nimrud (1949–63). Where known, excavation numbers are given in the catalogue. The rest of the collection has been bought from dealers in antiquities or acquired from private collections.

The twenty-four texts which form the latter part of this article are published by kind permission of Mr. John Ruffle, Keeper of Archaeology at the Birmingham City Museum, whom I wish to thank for the help and encouragement he and the staff of the Department of Archaeology have extended to me. I am deeply indebted to the generosity of Professor W. G. Lambert who has given so liberally of his time, advice and learning. Further thanks are due to Dr. Edmond Sollberger for comments on many of the Sumerian texts, and to Professor F. R. Kraus for his suggestions concerning the Old Babylonian letter (48).

The seals and seal impressions discovered at Tell Brak in the 1990 season are immediately published here, without a full discussion which will be included in a larger study of the Brak glyptic which I am now undertaking. Some comparisons can be found in the treatment of the Brak material from the Mallowan excavations in the Ashmolean catalogue (Buchanan 1966).

The seals and sealings were for the most part found in the FS and SS sites, with some others from the surface of the tell. FS is an area mainly of private houses which were frequently rebuilt. The two latest levels consist for the most part of very large private houses (Oates 1985, 165; Oates 1987, 179). In Level 3 there is a small monumental building contemporary with the Late Agade layer above the main SS complex (Oates 1987, 178-9 fig. 2, 3). North of it was an area of small domestic structures. Level 5 contains a larger monumental building approximately contemporary with the main structure in SS (see the preceding article, p. 132f.).

SS consists of the large ceremonial complex described in the previous article. The structure was deliberately and ritually filled, and very little material survives in situ. At least one late Akkadian layer overlies this complex, and in a few places Early Dynastic material under the complex has been excavated.

Among those impossible and unconfessed desires which man had in the past, and still has today, there is that of turning the tables of power, of dominating instead of being dominated. The tradition which holds that Sargon of Akkad was the steward of Ur-Zababa of Kiš before overthrowing him is a projection of such dreams. How, otherwise, is it possible to bridge the gap between a cupbearer and a king, a servant and his master?

A steward was, however, a privileged servant, for he was in direct contact with the king. In a palatial organization anyone having responsibilities at court could be given others relating to the running of the state. The Ebla texts show that, apart from overseeing the drinks, a steward or cupbearer in a royal court of the third millennium BC also had important diplomatic responsibilities.

In 1999, the joint expedition of the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago initiated excavations and surface reconnaissance at the site of Tell Hamoukar in the northeastern corner of Hassekeh Province (Figs. 1–2). We need to acknowledge, with gratitude, the help and encouragement rendered by Dr Sultan Muhesen, then Director General of Antiquities, and by Sayyid Abdul Messieh Bagdo, of the Antiquities office in Hassekeh.

McGuire Gibson arrived in Damascus on August 24, 1999 and began to implement logistical arrangements with the co-director, Muhammad Maktash. Actual excavation of the site of Hamoukar began on September 9 and ended on October 31.

Hamoukar has been a subject of interest to a number of scholars through the years because of its size and surface pottery, which includes southern Uruk IV types. The presence of even earlier 4th millennium local Late Chalcolithic pottery as well as Ninevite V and mid-3rd millennium types makes the site crucial in addressing a number of important questions. The complexity of settlement in the early 4th millennium, the nature of the Late Uruk occupation and its relation to other sites with similar material in Syria and Turkey, and the history of the site in the Akkadian and post-Akkadian periods can all be elucidated by excavation here.

The excavations of the State Organization in Tell Haddad-Meturan were part of the great salvage project in the Hamrin area. Though they were conducted under difficult circumstances they were amongst the most fruitful enterprises of the project, especially from the epigraphic point of view. Among other things a relatively large number of tablets from the OB period was excavated. Most of them are Akkadian and of economic content, and will be published in due course by several of our colleagues. A fragment of the “Laws of Ešnunna” has already been published by one of us (F. Al-Rawi, Sumer 38 [1983], 117–120). There is also a certain number of lexical texts, but the greatest surprise was caused by the discovery of a relatively large number of Sumerian “literary” texts (in the broad sense of the term literary, including magic etc.), the first important find of this kind since the Ur excavations (cf. Gadd and Kramer, UET VI/I and VI/2), and the first made by an Iraqi excavation. We have had the great privilege to be entrusted with the publication of these tablets. They will soon be published in a TIM (Texts from the Iraq Museum) volume under the authority of the State Organization, some particularly important pieces being also edited independently in separate articles. We will undertake here a survey specifically of the Sumerian corpus; to clarify the exposition we shall also use a small part of the information kindly communicated to us by the excavators and by the colleagues who are studying the rest of the tablets, though this is not an anticipation of the final publication, either archaeological or philological. Once all the texts are published there will remain an interesting study to be done about their precise dating, and their grouping into coherent archives, also no doubt interesting conclusions on the function of the texts and of the buildings. Such study will be made possible by the exact documenting of the find-spots of each individual text, even of small fragments, which has been made by the excavators.

This paper offers the first ever discussion of all extant images of Abdissar, Monobazos I and ’tlw (Attalos), Kings of Adiabene. In analysing the numismatic and sculptural data, a few conclusions on the historical context are suggested. First, it is argued that stylistic features of the coinage of Abdissar suggest a date in the first half of the second century b.c.e., and this dating bears upon the question of the historical origin of the Kingdom of Adiabene. Adiabene originated as one of many “post-Seleucid” states which arose in the Near East when the Seleucid kingdom started to crumble, before the advent of the Parthians. This suggestion is also corroborated by stylistic features of the coinage which accentuate the divine investiture of royal power in Abdissar. It is also held that the Batas-Herir monument depicts King Abdissar. Second, the images on the coin of Monobazos I clearly reflect the time of Adiabene's economic prosperity and political rise to significance among Parthian “lesser kings” in the first half of the first century c.e. Third, the reign of King ’tlw (Attalos) remains largely obscure, but the placement of his sculpture in Hatra clearly shows good political relations and close cultural ties between the kingdoms of Adiabene and Hatra in the first half of the third century c.e. Additionally, the authors argue that the images of Oriental kings on the coins of Septimius Severus do not represent any particular Oriental rulers (of Edessa, Adiabene or Hatra), but are merely stereotypical images of what the Romans considered to be typical Oriental royal outfits.

Despite scholarly efforts that now extend over more than a century, the governing principles of Akkadian verse remain elusive. It is obviously not based, like Greek or Latin verse, on the counting and measuring of syllables. The idea that it is based on the counting of accentual peaks has a much greater immediate appeal. There are long stretches of poetic texts that seem amenable to analysis on these lines. Most scholars would be willing to recognize the existence of a “standard” Vierheber, a verse with four apparent accentual peaks, giving the sense of a balance of two against two, as in Enūma eliš I 47–50:

īpulma Mummu / Apsû imallik,

sukkallum lā māgiru / milik mummīšu:

“Hulliqamma, abī, / alkata ešīta;

urriš lū šupšuhāt, / mūšiš lū ṣallāt.”

This measure may be called “standard” because it occurs at all periods, and in many texts it predominates. But everywhere we find shorter lines interspersed, on no discernible principle, and often longer ones too. The shorter lines generally have three apparent accents, but on occasion only two, while the longer ones may have five or six. According to A. E. Housman,

To think that two and two are four

And neither five nor three

The heart of man has long been sore

And long 'tis like to be.

But what vexes the Akkadian metrician's heart, if he has one, is

To think that two and two are four

but sometimes five or three.

A stone weight with a cuneiform inscription was discovered during the 1974 season of excavations at Tell Sweyhat in Syria. Tell Sweyhat is located on the left bank of the Euphrates River approximately 64 km. south of Carchemish. The British excavations at Sweyhat are sponsored by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, as part of the international campaign launched by the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums to rescue those sites threatened by the completion of the Tabqa Dam and the formation of Lake Al-Assad.

The object under discussion (Fig. 1), Sweyhat registration number 585, is now on permanent display in the special Euphrates Valley Exhibition which opened on 16th November 1974 at the National Museum, Aleppo. It is a smooth, barrel-shaped weight ground from grey limestone which measures 12.5 cm. in length and 4 · 5 cm. in diameter and weighs 472 · 2 grammes. Its original weight would have been slightly higher, since it is worn and chipped at both ends, perhaps through use as a pounder or grinder. The three cuneiform signs inscribed along the main axis of the weight measure 3 cm. in total length. The first sign, a triangular incision with its apex to the right, clearly represents the numeral I, and the following two signs read MA.NA, i.e. maneh or mina, the well-known Near Eastern unit of weight. I am indebted to Dr. Edmond Sollberger for advice on the inscription, which he dates approximately to the end of the third millennium B.C., and for calling my attention to comparable weights in the British Museum. The date is confirmed by the associated pottery, which has close parallels among Mallowan's “Late Sargonid” material from Brak and in Jidle Level 5.

R. Maxwell-Hyslop hat die grosse Bedeutung hervorgehoben, die das Erdgrab 20 in Assur hat, und zwar sowohl für die Geschichte des Schmucks als auch zur Datierung der berühmten Schätze aus Troia. Sie hat auch bedenkenswerte chronologische Folgerungen daraus gezogen; da dies an etwas versteckter Stelle geschah und deshalb bisher nicht beachtet wurde, und da ich glaube, ihre Beobachtungen noch stützen zu können, sei dieser für den altassyrischen Metallhandel so wichtige Komplex hier noch einmal vorgeführt.

Unter den Schmucksachen sind es zwei Formen, die das Erdgrab 20 mit dem ‘Schatz A’ in Troia verbinden: röhrenförmige Perlen mit vierfach spiralig aufgerollten Enden und halbmondförmige Ohrringe, deren Körper dergestalt getrieben ist, dass er von aussen aus drei senkrecht nebeneinander hängenden Halbmondscheiben zu bestehen scheint (Fig. 1). Man kann gegen diese Vergleiche einwenden, dass die Geschichte der Schmuckformen weder in Westkleinasien noch in Mesopotamien hinreichend bekannt sei, um danach genau datieren zu können; und in der Tat sind Doppelspiralen ein nahezu weltweites Motiv. Jedoch ist zum Mindesten der zweite Vergleich besonders schlagend deshalb, weil es sich um eine sehr spezielle, technisch nicht ganz einfache Sonderform innerhalb eines allgemeinen Typs handelt: den der senkrecht gegliederten Halbmond-Ohrringe.

Plate XI illustrates a white magnesite cylinder seal, surmounted by a small recumbent ram in silver, which was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum at Sotheby's sale of the Ernest Brummer Collection on 16th and 17th of November, 1964.

The cylinder is engraved with a continuous design in two registers, combining cattle with reed buildings. The ram is probably attached to the end of a copper spindle, or what remains of it, designed to rotate in a perforation drilled through the axis of the cylinder. This cannot in fact be verified, for the ram is now immovable and nothing can be seen at the opposite end of the perforation except a tough filling of earth mixed with products of corrosion, which could not be removed without danger to the cylinder. An unexpectedly fine perforation is seen on each side of the ram itself, placed rather high, as if to take an exceedingly thin suspending thread. This perforation, too, is now obstructed.

The proportions of the seal, as well as the style and subject of its design and of the ram which forms its handle, all associate it with the latest proto-literate or predynastic phase of Sumerian culture; specifically, with the third level of the Archaic Temple sequence at Uruk (Warka).

During the course of last year's excavations at Nimrud many metal objects were found in both the Assyrian and Hellenistic levels, and the present article attempts a brief description of this material. The Assyrian buildings were especially rich in military equipment of various kinds while the Hellenistic villages included a good range of standard domestic implements. But it should be stressed that the finds of a single season cannot be regarded as a true reflection on the full range of metals, or of metal types, that were used in either period.

The bulk of the Assyrian metal-work was found in the building known as Fort Shalmaneser, which was a royal depôt in the S.E. corner of the outer town. For, despite the fact that the building seems to have been looted before it was destroyed in the sack of 612 B.C., many of its less precious metal objects were left in situ. One room in particular, F.S. N.W. 15, proved especially rewarding as it contained the remains of a rich collection of spearheads, armour and decorative metal plaques that would appear to have been abandoned when the upper walls threatened to cave in.