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.

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.

In May 1942 the Directorate-General of Antiquities decided to make soundings in the ancient site called ‘Aqar Qüf, whose ruined ziggurat is a familiar landmark in the plain about 20 miles to the west of Baghdad. There proved to be very little difficulty in tracing the four buttressed sides of the ziggurat itself, and on the south-east side the remains were found of a triple staircase of kiln-baked brick which had evidently led up to the summit, and corresponded closely to that of the Kassite ziggurat at Ur. Stamped bricks in the fabric of this staircase confirmed the identification of the site with the Kassite city called Dûr Kurigalzu.

Early in the following year the Excavations Committee of the Department, headed by Mr. Seton Lloyd, F.S.A., Technical Adviser, decided on further large-scale excavations at ‘Aqar Qūf. One reason for the selection of the site was an economic one. Owing to war-time transport difficulties it was essential that any excavating work should be in the vicinity of Baghdad. Secondly the work provided an opportunity both for visitors to Baghdad and Iraqis themselves to see an archaeological excavation in progress. Many hundreds of Allied troops visited the site while the work was in progress, and parties of school-teachers and students were frequently escorted round the ruins. Finally, the archaeological importance of the site has long been evident. It represents a period in the history of Iraq concerning which there are few sources of information, and whose chronology is still controversial. Furthermore, it is a period during which the international relations of the various Middle East States are extremely interesting, as witnessed, for example, by the Amarnah Letters'.

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 occasion of the seventy-fifth birthday of Professor Emeritus C. J. Gadd provides a welcome opportunity to add a humble footnote to one of the pages of his life's work.

In 1958 Professor Gadd published his model edition of the Harran inscriptions of Nabonidus, discovered in 1956 by the late Professor D. S. Rice whilst examining the ruined Great Mosque at Harran. Professor Gadd agreed with Rice and others that the find-place of the three stelae H 1 B, H 2 A and H 2 B disposed of any doubt which might ever have arisen, on the basis of Pognon's discovery of the related stela H 1 A at Eski Harran, as to the correctness of the traditional identification of Islamic Harran with the ancient city of that name.

Whilst the site of the ancient city of Harran is not seriously questioned, the position is otherwise with the site of the main temple associated with it, É.ḪÚL.ḪÚL. Although there is a tradition that the Great Mosque at Harran was built on the site of a pagan temple, it does not necessarily follow that it was built above É.ḪÚL.ḪÚL or its Sabian successor, since classical and Islamic reports indicate that there was more than one moon temple in the neighbourhood of Harran, in addition to other sacred buildings. Equally, there is more than one site in the neighbourhood of Harran for which there is archaeological evidence that the worship of the Moon-God was practised there in antiquity. Whilst Eski Harran may now be disregarded, Aşagi Yarimca and Sultan Tepe both have good claims to the possession of an Assyrian temple.

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.

BM 91452 is a piece of an inscribed lapis lazuli mace head. It is about 7 cm high; approximately two-thirds of the circumference is missing so that the beginnings and ends of the seven inscribed lines are not preserved. The inscription has never been copied or fully edited and I am grateful to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to do so. The object comes from Nimrud and the inscription is probably to be assigned to Aššurnaṣirpal II.

The mace head is of special interest because its ancient name actually appears in the inscription. This is the word NA4ḫal-tap-pa in line 6. An instrument called ḫaltappû/ḫultuppû, associated with the god Ea, is known in connection with the exorcist (āšipu) and the casting out of evil demons. The present inscription now identifies the instrument, which had previously been called a “whipping rod0, as a mace head. The fact that ḫaltappaû/ḫultuppû is commonly preceded by the determinative for wood (GIŠ) whereas in this text it is preceded by the determinative for stone (NA4) presents no difficulty, GIŠ could refer to the wooden shaft while NA4 could refer to the stone head; or, under varying circumstances of time and place, there may have been completely wooden ḫaltappû/ḫulluppû. In any event, this lapis lazuli mace head is part of a cult object connected with exorcism and associated with Ea; the association with Ea being supported by the divine epithets preserved at the beginning of the text (the divine name is missing in the lacuna).

Archaeological evidence alongside textual sources allow for a deep reading of the meaningful encounters ancient peoples had with their built environments and the ways in which these spaces were connected to cultural values and priorities. This paper argues that the sensory affordances of the first-millennium b.c. temples of Nabu, the god of wisdom and writing, manifested the exclusive, specialised knowledge that was associated with this god in a manner that differentiated these built environments within the active, sensory landscape of the Neo-Assyrian royal citadel. This potential of the Nabu temples is best shown in the most well-preserved examples at the capital cities of Kalḫu (modern Nimrud) and Dur-Šarrukin (modern Khorsabad). These two temples of Nabu have the same combination of architectural features that produced this sensory experience, despite being in different cities and despite having different spatial layouts. These features include: (1) a sense of emphatic placement of the temples on the royal citadels and distinctive exterior features; (2) an indirect route towards the cult rooms of Nabu that passed through multiple courtyards, passage-chambers, and doorways with remarkable architectural programmes; (3) and akītu-suites, which were associated with the Assyrian akītu-festival and adê-ceremony. The appreciation of knowledge and of experts (Akk. ummânu) materialised in these built environments expresses developments in royal ideology and the preferences of Neo-Assyrian kings, in particular during the eighth and seventh centuries b.c. This examination of the temples of Nabu demonstrates the ways in which a sensory-oriented approach adds a unique perspective to previous archaeological and textual studies, as well as insight into the relationship between cultural and ideological values and complex sensory landscapes of past societies.

The interest shown by Professor Gadd in all aspects of Babylonian literature is sufficiently well-known to justify the publication in his honour of two pieces from a Šurpu-type litany which now completes one of a series of texts hitherto known only from other fragments (Plates XXXVIII–XL).

Among the tablets found in the Nabû temple at Nimrud in 1958 were two fragments (ND4389; 4405/77 = A) which, though physically touching are regrettably too broken at the juncture to provide a continuous text. This loss is, however, not serious since the intervening text (ll. 11′–30′; 80′–93′) is provided by a Šurpu-type text (AO 6775 = B) already published by Nougayrol. A further small fragment giving the left side of ten lines (K. 7164 = C), published by Reiner, was classified as Type I.2 and identified with that published by Nougayrol. To the 3 8 lines thus previously known can be added a further 56 lines from which it is clear that the deities with their entourages and shrines were first invoked to remove any curse (lipšur). These were followed by the months of the year and by the days of the month. The catchline on the reverse of ND 4405/77 (KUREnlil) indicates that at Kalḫu this text preceded that on which the mountains and rivers were invoked for the same purpose. Since ‘Mt. Sābu, the home of Enlil’ begins the latter tablet (Reiner Type I.1) it is probable that our present text (Reiner Type I.2) should be placed before it and that the Litany type numbers be re-arranged accordingly.

During the last century of Assyria's existence the urban landscape was characterised by a bipolar structure. The old capital Ashur was still the religious, ceremonial and cultural centre, while Nineveh was the seat of royal power (Maul 1997). Both cities were not only the oldest urban entities of the Assyrian heartland, flourishing at least from the third or even fourth millennium BC onwards; they both also represented two different regions within Assyria with very specific geomorphologic environments and distinctive socio-ecological conditions. While the Ashur region is situated at the southernmost edge of the dry farming belt, the Nineveh area is one of the most fertile regions in northern Mesopotamia (Fig. 1).

The political fates of the two cities were unconnected for a long time. Ashur became an important trading centre and an independent kingdom at the beginning of the second millennium, whereas for a long time Nineveh stood in the shadow of more powerful neighbours. But in the seventh century it was Nineveh that became the capital of Assyria and the outstanding urban structure of the whole Near East. The refounding and enlargement of the city by Sennacherib was by far the most ambitious town-building programme ever realised in Assyria. Furthermore, it marked the end of a long process of moving the political centre of the country from the Ashur region northwards to the Nineveh region, which coincided with the rise of Assyria from a small kingdom to a world empire. During this development there were several (other) temporary capitals, all of them new foundations like Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta, Kalhu and Dūr-Šarrukēn.

Tr. 4001, which forms the subject of this note, was found in 1967 in late Assyrian fill above the north-eastern corner of the earlier temple; it lay above the line of that temple's north façade, just to the north of room II (see the plan in Iraq 30 (1968), Plate XXVIII). The tablet was therefore found fairly close to the neo-Assyrian shrine, but above it, and the late Assyrian terracing of the temple-zigurrat mound suggests that there may have been building on its summit, which would constitute an equally plausible provenance for our tablet.

Some years ago at the request of Dr. R. D. Barnett, then Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities, Mrs. Diane Gurney prepared drawings of unpublished sealings from Ur in the British Museum for a supplementary volume in the Ur Excavation Series. At the same time she also did revised drawings of a few sealings already published by Legrain in Ur Excavations III: Archaic Seal-Impressions (London, 1936). As the proposed supplementary volume has been cancelled, Mrs. Gurney's careful drawings are published here with a revision of the short catalogue and commentary which I originally wrote to accompany them. The complexity of the task facing Legrain was formidable and must never be forgotten. Criticism of his impressionistic, often idiosyncratic, renderings of these designs is all too easy. The decipherment of details is often hard enough; but it is the restoration of complete designs that is so testing of eye, hand and judgement. Those compositions combining geometric motifs or cuneiform signs, sometimes both, with representations of men, animals and objects are particularly hard to unravel. Sometimes not only the exact frame of a design, but even its orientation, is in doubt. Nor yet have we actual cylinders carved with the most intricate of such designs to guide us.

In preparing her drawings Mrs. Gurney first produced a provisional pencil sketch. After independent study of the sealing, I discussed this initial copy with her, resolving as far as possible any points at issue. Then the drawings were completed in ink, with any details which remained obscure rendered in broken line. Since the drawings best speak for themselves, catalogue descriptions have been reduced to a minimum. As far as possible cross-reference has been made to Legrain's pioneer study. His introductory remarks and his analysis of decorative motifs are as relevant to the sealings here as to his selection. This supplement adds nothing of substance; but it offers an opportunity for students to contrast another hand and eye to Legrain's in one of the most important groups of sealings yet found in Iraq.

Dans un récent fascicule d'Iraq, P. Hulin a publié une très jolie plaquette de Nimrud, ND 5545, qui énumère les interdits, alimentaires ou autres, auxquels il importait de se conformer durant les sept premiers jours du mois de Tešrit, période de pénitence que terminait, le lendemain, une journée de liesse et de purification.

L'intérêt principal de ce texte est de nous confirmer l'importance qu'avait, dans la vie magique et religieuse des Akkadiens, ce prélude au second semestre de l'année.

De cet ensemble de prescriptions rituelles nous possédions en effet déjà trois témoignages. Le premier, KAR 147, fait l'objet, tout comme ND 5545, d'une tablette particulière. Les deux autres ont été insérés par les scribes assyriens dans leur compilation générale des hémérologies. Il y est d'ailleurs précisé que l'une des versions était d'origine assyrienne, et l'autre, la simple copie d'un original d'Akkad.

C'est donc désormais par trois sources différentes que nous est attestée la tradition assyrienne en la matière. La tradition babylonienne au contraire ne nous est connue qu'indirectement, par la copie KAR 177, rev. II, 48, I, 44 dont le modèle ne nous est pas parvenu.

The mounds of Jemdet Nasr, 100 km south of Baghdad, were subjected to two seasons of excavations in 1926–28. These campaigns yielded a tremendous assemblage of artefacts which have never received the full publication to which they are undoubtedly entitled. In order to rectify this shortcoming a programme of publishing all known items from the 1920s seasons is now well underway, with museum work completed on the Jemdet Nasr collections in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Field Museum, Chicago. It is intended to publish the 1920s material as Volume 1 of the series Jemdet Nasr Excavations, which will continue with volumes concerning our own recent work at the site. Pending completion of study of Jemdet Nasr items in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, it has been decided to present this preliminary survey as an indication of the wealth of material retrieved during those two seasons in 1926 and 1928, and in order to address questions that have arisen in the subsequent decades. The main issues of debate have been whether or not it is justifiable to speak of a Jemdet Nasr period, distinct from the Late Uruk and Early Dynastic periods, and a concern to specify items of material culture, particularly pottery, which may assist in the identification of such a period in both temporal and geographical terms. Recent and future excavations at the site, and elsewhere, are likely to provide some of the pointers, but it is perhaps too often the case that excavations of the early part of this century are dismissed as below modern standards and therefore not worthy of detailed study. It is hoped that this article can show the value of re-analysing old excavations from a contemporary viewpoint, particularly by drawing upon comparative material from a range of other excavated sites in order to place the Jemdet Nasr assemblage within a wider Mesopotamian context.

I Possess two copies of this qmaha. The differences between the two are slight, though one is a recent copy and the other is dated 1273 A.H., and I surmise that both are derived from an older document in priestly possession. Mistakes in this earlier and already corrupt manuscript are reproduced as conscientiously as the rest of the text, and of mistakes and obscurities there are not a few. It is natural that these should occur, especially as the ancient language has long ceased to be used by the people. Priests, however well intentioned, miss out lines or, still worse, edit passages which they find incomprehensible, and, moreover, the practice of employing a fellow-priest to dictate the text ordered by a client is a common one and leads to misspelling and faults.

As for the original composition, I assume it to have been made somewhere about the time of the priest Ramuiia, who collected most of the ritual prayers into one volume, since the whole qmaha is based on the prayer given in that volume: ‘I prayed, lifting my eyes’. The ‘ancient roll’ mentioned by the copyist at the end of the qmaha may have been this original, or it may not. Ramuiia's date is probably to be placed during the first years of the Arab conquest.

The major obstacle facing the student of Mesopotamian post-Assyrian ceramics is the lack of reliably dated pottery earlier than the Seleucian-Parthian material from Seleucia and Ctesiphon. The condition of the sites from which this pottery was recovered precluded stratigraphic recovery, even when this was attempted. Gibson's work at Nippur led him to suggest (1975: 76) that many ceramics classified as late Neo-Babylonian pottery are actually Achaemenid and some considered Achaemenid are Seleucid. The extensive excavations conducted at Babylon in the 1890's yielded material from the period of Achaemenid control, but the relevant sections have not been fully published. These ceramics were excavated on a palace site and are not “common ware”, or pottery in ordinary daily use.

Pottery from sites in southern Mesopotamia varies in its value for the study of mid-first millennium B.C. regional ceramics. This variability results from its manner of recovery and its context. The late pottery excavated at Ur by Woolley and his predecessors was almost entirely from graves (see Taylor 1855a and 1855b; Hall 1919) and included a large number of shapes with imprecise stratigraphic attributions. However, the corpus recovered was of great value for its typological variety. In one sense, the Ur pottery is a “perfect” collection of its period, because it is the result of intentional rather than accidental deposition and is therefore likely to show one form of contemporaneous usage. Once the large Ur corpus has been checked, it may be used to illuminate material from smaller sites, or from surveys.

Unter dem Titel “Le Trésor d'Ur” ist 1968 in Paris erschienen der Band IV der Serie Mission Archéologique de Mari von André Parrot, “avec pour l'épigraphie la collaboration de Georges Dossin.” Es handelt sich dabei um einen Depotfund André Parrot's im sogenannten vorsargonischen Palast des 3. vorchristlichen Jahrtausends in Mari. Dem in einem größeren Gefäß verwahrten und mit einer Schale abgedeckten Fund im Hof 27 lag eine facettierte, 11·9 cm. lange Perle aus hartem Lapislazuli bei, die eine Inschrift in altsumerischer Sprache und Schrift trägt. Die erste Lesung und Deutung dieser Inschrift (insgesamt sieben Zeilen Keilschrift) stammen von dem Grabungsphilologen, dem bekannten Gelehrten aus Lüttich, Georges Dossin. Hier ist alles wahrhaft sensationell: haben wir es doch diesmal nicht zu tun mit einer blossen Sammlung kultur- und kunsthistorischer Objekte, die man vergraben hatte, um sie vor räuberischen Händen zu schützen. Die beiliegende Perle sollte nach Meinung des Ausgräbers angeben, von wem der Schatz stammt und für wen er bestimmt war. Im Kapitel II ist er in mehreren Abteilungen beschrieben und abgebildet. André Parrot hat die Bestandteile des ganzen Schatzes von 1 bis 52 numeriert: von der Statuette einer nackten Göttin aus Metall über zwei kleine Statuetten einer nackten Frau aus Elfenbein zu einem großen Anhänger in Form eines löwenköpfigen Adlers aus Lapis und Gold, zu mehreren Gewandnadeln aus Bronze und Edelmetall, vierzehn Rollsiegeln und vor allem eben jener länglichen, flachen Perle aus Lapislazuli mit der erwähnten Inschrift in sumerischer Sprache.