The purpose of this article is to present a hypothesis that the moon-god, Sumerian Nanna, Akkadian Su'en or Sin, and Amorite Erah or Yarah, called Sin-Amurru in AbB II, 82:10-11, may have been the patron god of a major group of Amorites in the early Old Babylonian period, and to consider possible implications particularly in Kish and Assur. The work was mainly done by Wu Yuhong as part of his thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Philosophy at Oxford University. It arose from his questioning the prevalent assumption that the moon-god invoked in oaths with a king was the patron god of a city with temporal power, suggesting instead that the patron god of a semi-nomadic Amorite tribe need not be linked to a single, specific city. Some information and assessment has since been added. The work was supervised by Dr. Stephanie Dalley, who composed the article and included the implications for the Assyrian King List and a number of details to support the hypothesis.

Certainly one of the most striking features of the archaeological scene in Iraq today is the vigorous restoration work which the Directorate General of Antiquities is carrying out at various sites up and down the country. It is, of course, true that the repair and restoration of Iraq's ancient monuments has long been a perennial concern of the Directorate, but due in the main to the high costs of such work and the competing financial demands of the Directorate's many other responsibilities, it has proved impossible in the past to proceed on more than a modest scale. Since 1960 the situation has changed completely. In that year by making a special allocation to the Directorate of one hundred and twenty thousand dinars the Iraq Government recognised formally and materially that if the country's architectural heritage was to be preserved for later generations, and if the world-famous sites of Mesopotamia were to present attractions to foreign visitors comparable with those offered by equally famous sites in neighbouring Near Eastern states, something effective should be done to step up preservation, restoration and improvement. This admirable decision has since been upheld by further substantial annual disbursements, and in consequence the Directorate has been able to plan and to put into effect an ambitious and extensive programme including work both in Baghdad, and at Hatra, Babylon, Aqar Quf, Ur and Tell Harmal. As those of our readers who are familiar with these sites will readily realise, the problems to be faced and overcome by the would-be preserver and restorer are of a truly intimidating order in their number and complexity. It is, therefore, in tribute to the courage, ingenuity and skill of the responsible officers of the Directorate that we offer these all-too-brief notes on their progress to date.

Wenn im folgenden die Beteiligung nomadischer Gruppen an Handel und Handelsverkehr skizziert werden soll, so muß zugleich auf Umstände hingewiesen werden, die eine entsprechende Aussage erschweren oder relativieren. So ist es bereits problematisch, inwieweit wir aus der Bezeichnung von Menschengruppen mit einem Stammesnamen bzw. dem Namen einer Untereinheit eines Stammes auf eine nomadisierende oder wenigstens teilweise nomadisierende Lebensweise dieser Gruppen schließen dürfen. Selbst Anzeichen für eine auf Nomadismus deutende Wirtschaftsführung oder Verhaltensweise sowie der Aufenthalt in einem Gebiet, das nur eine periodische Weidenutzung gestattet, können nicht als beweiskräftige Argumente für eine Zuweisung dieser Gruppen zu den Nomaden gelten. Zweitens ist die bekannte Tatsache in Erinnerung zu bringen, daß uns von den Nomaden selbst eine inschriftliche Überlieferung so gut wie völlig fehlt. Das impliziert eine Quellensicht, die sich am Urteil der Seßhaften, und zwar primär der Stadtbewohner, orientiert. Die Folge sind sowohl ein Desinteresse an allen stammesinternen Angelegenheiten, die nicht im politischen oder ökonomischen Blickfeld der Seßhaften erscheinen, als auch eine Dominanz des negativen Aspekts bei der Darstellung der Kontakte zu nomadischen Gruppen. Das Besondere, vor allem das Störende und Feindliche, tritt in der inschriftlichen Überlieferung stärker hervor als das Normale, Gewohnte. So ist für die nachfolgende Skizze die Einschränkung zu machen, daß die Verwertbare inschriftliche Überlieferung nicht nur dürftig und einseitig ist, sondern oft auch nicht entscheiden läßt, inwieweit wir überhaupt berechtigt sind, eine Quellenaussage hier mit heranzuziehen.

The three objects published in this article are the property of M. Jean Mariaud de Serres, to whom thanks are expressed for his willingness that they should be made available to scholarship. The one is an Old Babylonian private letter, measuring 61 × 45 mm, and is inscribed on both sides and three edges. It was sent by Ili-u-Šamaš, a man to judge from his name as known from other more explicit Old Babylonian contexts, to a lady, Šat-Emah. No other occurrences of this name have been noted by the present writer, though the type is a well known one. To judge from the mention of Sippar in lines 17–18 the sender seems to have lived there, or in the immediate vicinity. From the content of the letter it would seem that the addressee lived not too far from Sippar. She was certainly a land owner, and the sender was either the same or was involved in agricultural operations as a financier. After the address, the letter consists of a string of items continuing previous communications which cannot be elaborated from study of this letter alone. In view of the mention of Sippar one may wonder if the lady was a nadītum-priestess, since at this time they might own land. To judge from script and orthography, this letter is perhaps to be dated to the reign of Hammurabi or Samsu-iluna, but such an estimate can be only approximate. (For copy, see Fig. 1).

Bei unserem Besuch der Ruinen am I. Jan. 1927 haben wir trotz der Kürze der Zeit versucht, die bisherigen Pläne (bei Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod, S. 407, und Zehnpfund, A.O. XII. 3-4, Plan I, nach Scheil in Mémoires Instit. orient, du Caire, tome I) zu vervollständigen. Das nebenstehende Plänchen, Abb. I, ist das Ergebnis jenes Versuchs. Sie beruhen auf einer rasch ausgeführten Triangulation, deren Hauptpunkt auf dem Zikkurrat-Hügel lag, und einer Abschreitung des Tempel-Plateaus. Von der im N. und O. wohlerhaltenen Stadtmauer haben wir nur ein kurzes Stück, sowie ihre Entfernung vom Tempel-Plateau abgeschritten. Das übrige Stadtgebiet konnten wir nicht besuchen.

I am indebted to Mr. C. J. Gadd and Dr. Naji al Aṣil for permission to publish these two axe-heads. (Copyright with the Directorate General of Antiquities, Baghdad, and British Museum, London).

Plate XXXI, 1 is in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, No. 26948, and measures 19.5 cms. in length. It was bought with a collection of tablets in 1898 and has no known provenance. Plate XXXI, 2, 3 is in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, No. IM 11494, and is said to have been found at Khafajah. This axe measures 20 cms. and bears an inscription along its upper edge which Mr. Gadd has kindly read as follows:—

The sockets of both these axes are remarkably similar and the heavy moulding round the edge of the shaft-hole is characteristic of many Iranian axes from Luristan. (See my Western Asiatic Shaft-hole Axes, Iraq XI, 1, pl. XXXVIII, 3 and introduction to Types 11 and 12). But while the Luristan examples have only a swelling or boss behind the socket, the British Museum and Baghdad axes have a definite hook which may have been used if the hafting was strengthened by binding which would have passed round the hook and the shaft of the axe. A similar socket with moulding and hook is found on the axe found by Professor M. E. L. Mallowan at Chagar Bazar which has an engraved scroll pattern round the border of the socket and the hook. (See Iraq IV, 2, pl. XV, and p. 152 and Iraq XI, 1 and p. 103).

This paper analyses the architecture of the large fortified building excavated at Tell Khaiber in southern Iraq, the first known example of monumental architecture from the Sealand Kingdom. It examines the development of this highly unusual building, analyses the spatial properties and apparent functions of the structure, reviews possible architectural parallels, and considers what the architecture might reveal about Tell Khaiber's role in the context of the Sealand state. The outer form and organisation of the building indicate a fortified structure with a high priority afforded to defence. The interior of the Tell Khaiber building is divided between a smaller, earlier structure, enclosing conventionally arranged architecture with apparently executive and administrative functions, and a larger extension, densely packed with accommodation for a large number of personnel. When considered alongside textual sources on the Sealand state, which provide evidence about the geo-political context in which the Tell Khaiber building was constructed, it is possible to suggest the role such a building may have had in the development of the Sealand Kingdom. The form of the Tell Khaiber building may also be important in understanding the nature of the contested border between the Sealand Kingdom and its Babylonian neighbours.

The importance of control of the valleys of the Habur and Euphrates rivers to the Assyrians can hardly be over-estimated. The two river valleys are major routes from N. Syria and S.E. Turkey to southern Assyria and to Babylonia.

In the Neo-Assyrian period, control of the valley of the River Habur was won early, as the Assyrian armies marched westwards across N. Mesopotamia. Control of the Euphrates, between the confluence of the Habur and the Babylonian border, followed soon after.

We are particularly well-informed about the geography of the Habur and the Euphrates, below the confluence with the Habur, during the reigns of Adad-nerari II, Tukulti-Ninurta II and Aššurnaṣirpal II. Texts from the reigns of these three kings describe campaigns along the banks of these rivers and list each night's halting-place. These are usually described as “itineraries”. (Such texts are exceptionally rare from ancient Mesopotamia. Besides these three passages in the Assyrian annals, only two other lengthy, well-preserved itineraries in cuneiform have come down to us.) 2 Other, conventional passages from the Annals of Aššurnaṣirpal II are a valuable supplement to these texts.

During 1985 and 1986, work in the Saddam Dam Salvage Project in the Tigris valley north of Mosul continued, although by now, with the filling of the reservoir to virtually its greatest extent, almost all the sites are under water, with the exception of a handful which are unlikely to be flooded after all. A considerable amount of exciting work was carried out at research excavations in other areas of the country also.

As always, we are grateful to Dr. Mu'ayyad Sa‘id Damerji, Director-General of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage, for permission to publish in Iraq these short reports, especially those concerning sites in the rescue project sponsored by the Iraq Government. We should like to thank also Dr. Abdul-Sattar al-Azzawi, Dr. Muhammad Baqir al-Husaini, Sd. Abdul-Qadir Hassan and other members of the Department's staff for the assistance they have rendered. Our greatest debt is to the excavators, who have liberally communicated information about their discoveries in advance of their own publication. We apologise for any errors we may have made in summarising their results.

The reports from the Saddam Dam Salvage Project have been collected by Warwick Ball, and those from other areas of the country by Jeremy Black, from information supplied directly by the excavators, amplified in many cases by personal visits to the sites.

This article presents a reconsideration of the architecture, stratigraphy and finds from Building Level H, excavated in Trial Pit F at Ur. Analysis of Woolley's original excavation records, kept at the British Museum, provides the basis for a contextual reconstruction. A new complete study of published and unpublished materials now housed at the British Museum and at the Penn Museum of Philadelphia is offered here. Distribution of in situ artefacts is examined here in order to provide insights on the function of the excavated loci. Finally, pottery and glyptic assemblages, considered from a regional perspective, are used to define the chronological horizon of Level H.

During the spring of 1957, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq carried out a second short season of excavations at Balawat, ancient Imgur-Bel. The excavation of the temple of the god Mamu was continued and to the east of the cella two small rooms were uncovered. In one of these was found a collection of forty tablets, in varying state of preservation. Of this collection I publish twenty-nine, the others being too badly preserved to give a useful text.

The majority of the tablets were written between 697 and 671 B.C., during the reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. There are three isolated documents of earlier date: BT.101, 710 B.C.; BT.106, 734 B.C.; BT.131, 719 B.C. There is one isolated tablet of much later date, belonging to the reign of Sin-šar-iškun, BT. 105. It is noticeable that these tablets do not contain any of the names familiar from the transactions of the main group of documents.

In Revue de Musicologie XLIX (1963), 3–17 (henceforth cited as RM XLIX), and again in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger (= Assyriological Studies No. 16, Chicago (1965), 268–272, henceforth cited as AS 16), Mme. Duchesne-Guillemin has put forward a theory for the tuning of the Babylonian harp, based on a tablet from Ur, U.3011, and another tablet of unstated provenance in the University Museum, Philadelphia, CBS 10996. The CBS tablet contains a list of intervals with their names, repeated twice over, while the Ur tablet gives the names of the nine strings, presumably of the harp, followed by part of a similar list of intervals (extremely fragmentary). Starting from the observation that the third string has the name “thin string”, Mme. Duchesne-Guillemin infers that the semitone occurred between the third and fourth strings, so that the harp would have been tuned to a scale equivalent to our C major, running from C to the D in the octave above (using, as throughout this article, names of notes and scales in a relative not absolute sense). Observing further that the list of intervals contains three rising fifths followed by four descending fourths, she suggests that the list is a tuning cycle, in which the inclusion of thirds and sixths is explained by the principle that “c'est la superposition des gestes sur les mêmes cordes, pour les regler et les corriger, qui constitue l'accord” (her italics; see RM XLIX, 15), though this view is modified in RM LII. The inclusion of the tritone—an impossible tuning interval—she can only explain by the necessity for completeness (ibid). She remarks incidentally that the fourth string, named “Ea made it”, is to be identified with the Greek μέση.

The story of the encounters of Gilgamesh with the ‘Ale-wife’ and with Ur-shanabi the ferry-man, in his quest for the secret of immortality, is partly preserved on tablets from the Nineveh libraries and from Babylon, and partly on a fragment of Old Babylonian date. This last was purchased, from among a group of tablets said to come from Sippar (Abu Habba), by Bruno Meissner, for the Berlin Museum in 1902. It provided the first tangible evidence of the existence of a text earlier than the ‘canonical’ Assyrian and, by overlapping part of the story already known, revealed something of the literary changes which had taken place during the intervening centuries. More recent discoveries have shown that there were several Old Babylonian text-types.

The Meissner Fragment is the lower part of a tablet with four columns, two on either face, containing fifteen and fourteen lines of the obverse and fifteen and fourteen of the reverse. Translations of the text may be found in the late Alexander Heidel's book and in A.N.E.T. The first column narrates the care of Shamash for Gilgamesh, probably included in Tablet IX of the ‘canonical’ version. In columns two and three the hero explains his search to the Ale-wife, who attempts to dissuade him with her famous carpe diem speech, a speech not inappropriate to one of that profession.

Das früheste konkrete Zeugnis von der Tempelsklaverei im Babylonien der hellenistischen Zeit findet sich im Protokoll einer Gerichtssitzung in Uruk (302 v. Chr.). Hier handelt es sich um einen Sklaven eines schon verstorbenen kinderlosen Mannes, der bereits früher dem Gott Anu zur Tempelsklaverei (širkûtu) geweiht war von einem Bruder des Sklavenherrn, der selbst schon verstorben war aber drei Söhne hinterlassen hatte. Es gab auch noch einen dritten Bruder, der bei seinem Tode einen Sohn hinterliess. Der letztere klagte auf die Überlassung eines Teils des besagten Sklaven, der sich auch weiterhin im Status širku befand. Das Gericht beschloss, ihm ein Drittel dieses širku zu übergeben, die anderen zwei Drittel aber den besagten Vettern zu überlassen. Daraus erscheint u.a., dass širku (ein Tempelsklave) ein gewisses Interesse für seinen ehemaligen Herrn auch weiterhin darstellte. Möglicherweise war es ein Interesse wirtschaftlicher Natur, d.h. der Sklave fuhr fort seinem ehemaligen Herrn in gewissem Mass zu dienen, oder der letztere erhielt irgendein Entgelt für ihn vom Tempel.

Ein weiteres Zeugnis für die Tempelsklaverei aus Uruk datiert von 219 v. Chr. In einem Vertrag über Besitzverkauf wird einer der Zeugen als rab širkē (Vorgesetzter von širku) bezeichnet. Es muss ein Freier gewesen sein, weil in der hellenistischen Zeit Sklaven oder širku nicht als Zeugen in Kontrakten auftreten.

Wenig früher, 225 v. Chr., wird in einer Urkunde aus Seleukia am Tigris (Tell‘Umar) eine Sklavenweihung (lúqal-(la)me) an širkûtu (in der Schreibweise lúŠeŠ-ki-ú-ta) erwähnt.

Ausser dieser Verträge über die Institution širkûtu in der hellenistischen Zeit, werden Angaben auch in dem Formular der Verträge über Sklavenverkauf erwähnt. Die Sklavenverkäufer bürgen dafür, dass die Sklaven, die entfremdet werden, nicht zu bestimmten sozialen Kategorien gehören, keine Freien sind usw. In der Aufzählung dieser sozialen Kategorien in der entsprechenden Klausel des Formulars steht širkûtu an erster Stelle.

Among the tablets excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur there is a text containing incantations and rituals against slander and witchcraft. A hand copy of this tablet has been prepared by the present writer for inclusion in a forthcoming volume of texts from Ur; its publication may, however, be anticipated by the following edition, which is offered as a tribute of respect and esteem to the eminent excavator.

Incantations against witchcraft have been known since the early days of Assyriology from the large compilation known to the Assyrians as Maqlû “Burning”. These incantations are for the most part addressed to the Fire God; the usual practice was to make figurines of wood or wax representing the sorcerer and then to destroy them by fire, while invoking the assistance of the Fire God. An alternative was to place the figurines in a small boat and launch this on the water, where it would either float away downstream or capsize in a storm, and it is this procedure to which the present tablet is devoted. The interest attaching to this procedure with the boat is shown by the fact that the two incantations from Maqlû which refer to it have been quoted in extenso by such authorities on Babylonian magic as Morris Jastrow and R. Campbell Thompson; further examples of it will therefore not be unwelcome.

The sixth Expedition to Nimrud sponsored by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq took the field on March 3rd, 1955, and concluded its work on May 5th. Once again we are indebted to several Institutions and many persons for their help. Generous financial aid was received from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Griffith Institute; the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham; the University of Cambridge; The Iraq Petroleum Company which through the good offices of Mr. M. S. Maidand lent us machinery and invaluable technical aid; much personal service was given to us through the kindness of officers in the Company. The Expedition is again deeply grateful to H.E. Dr. Naji al Aṣil, the Director General of the Iraq Antiquities Department and to all members of his staff for their goodwill and skilled advice. To H.E. Rashid Nejib, the Mutasarrif of Mosul, and to many friends in that town, as well as to the British Vice-Consul and to the British Institute we are also deeply indebted.

In the course of the season we had the honour of receiving His Excellency the British Ambassador and Lady Wright and many other distinguished guests. More than a thousand visitors watched the progress of the excavations at various times.

Everyone who worked at Nimrud will remember the regular ritual of bread-making performed by the guard's daughter or wife, often accompanied by a dog bearing a distinct resemblance to the one in the seal impression. This makes only the most tenuous connection with the great discoveries at Nimrud of Sir Max Mallowan, in whose honour this volume is dedicated. The seal impression on Plate XXX, drawn on Fig. 1, is on a Middle Assyrian tablet from Tell al Rimah, published by Saggs, dated by the eponym of Adad-bel-gabbe in the later years of Shalmaneser I.or early reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I. The owner of the seal is probably Sin-šuma-lišir, a tax collector responsible for taxing a three year old donkey in Qaṭara, a place in the vicinity of Tell al Rimah, which was fairly certainly called Karana in the Old Babylonian period.

The impression depicts a woman kneeling before a fire holding between her hands, what I suggest is a circular lump of dough, watched hopefully by a large dog. This is a typical breed of Assyrian guard dog, with pointed nose, pointed ears, thick neck and curly tail, and it has relatives in the area today. It was reproduced in bronze and buried under floors to contend against supernatural enemies. These two are in a shelter of some kind, hut or tent, but the absence of tent poles suggests the former. The poles of the Arab tents on the Aššurbanipal reliefs are most carefully depicted, and although this is over 600 years later, the Middle Assyrian seal engravers were equally meticulous over detail.

Excavations continued on a wide range of projects in Iraq during 1989 and the earlier part of 1990. Particular emphasis was laid upon research excavations, although some rescue projects continued. We are extremely grateful to the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage and its Director-General, Dr. Mu'ayyad Sa'id Damerji, for assistance throughout the period of excavations. The reports have been compiled by Roger Matthews and Tony Wilkinson from information supplied directly by the excavators to whom, as always, we are especially indebted and whose indulgence we seek for any mistakes contained herein.

As usual, the sites are arranged alphabetically, ignoring non-specific initial words such as al-, Tell, Khirbet, etc.

Recent excavations at Tell Sitak in Iraqi Kurdistan contribute new information on the Neo-Assyrian and Sasanian occupation of this region. The site was most likely occupied between the eighth and sixth centuries b.c., in other words during the Neo-Assyrian period and perhaps for some time after. Architectural remains suggest that during this phase its primary function may have been as a fortress; smaller finds include ceramics and one Neo-Assyrian cuneiform tablet. The site was occupied again in the later Sasanian period, perhaps between the fourth and seventh centuries a.d. Remains from this period include ceramics carrying a variety of stamp seal impressions and substantial evidence for ironworking at the site.