Trotz der zahlreichen, bisher durchgeführten Untersuchungen über den Streitwagen im Altertum möchte ich mich hier noch einmal in einem kurzen Referat mit dem Typ des assyrischen Streitwagens und mit seinem Aussehen zu den verschiedenen Zeiten beschäftigen, denn wie im folgenden gezeigt wird, haben sich einige neue Gesichtspunkte ergeben.

Von den bedeutendsten Arbeiten sind in erster Linie zu nennen die Abhandlungen von E. Unger, Der Rennwagen in Vorderasien, U. Popplow, Pferd und Wagen im Alten Orient, J. Wiesner, Fahren und Reiten in Alteuropa und im Alten Orient aus den Jahren 1929, 1934 und 1939, sowie die ausgezeichneten lexigraphisch-kulturgeschichtlichen Untersuchungen A. Salonens über die Landfahrzeuge, die 1951 erschienen sind.

The poem describes a battle waged, at the instigation of some unnamed goddess, by Ba'al, the god of the Rains, and his twin henchmen Kašir (‘Sir Adroit’) and Ḫasis (‘Sir Cunning’) against the gods of the sea and the rivers. The battle ends in the defeat and capture of the latter.

The interpretation of this text is really very simple. It mythologizes the natural rivalry between rain on the one hand and sea and river on the other as sources of irrigation at the end of the dry season.

Henri de Genouillac (1881–1940), one of the leading Assyriologists of his time, owned a collection of cuneiform tablets and inscribed artefacts. On his death, it was divided into two parts. Whereas the majority of these objects were bequeathed to the Musée des Antiquités in Rouen, his native city, a smaller part remained the property of his nephew, Michel de Genouillac. The present paper, which offers the publication of the latter, also aims to reconstruct its history. The Michel de Genouillac collection consists of 20 Ur III tablets (9 from Puzriš-Dagan, 10 from Girsu, 1 of uncertain origin), 1 clay cone with an inscription of Gudea and 5 Sargonic administrative tablets from Girsu.

In the course of studying Old Babylonian tablets in Oxford, and particularly the Kish collection conserved in the Ashmolean Museum, N. Yoffee copied six tablets that had been presented in 1951 by St. John's College, Oxford, to the Ashmolean. Although the circumstances by which the texts were acquired are unknown, the documents themselves could easily be judged to have come from Dilbat (modern Dulaihim) on the strength of prosopographic comparisons with tablets known to have come from that site. Since S. G. Koshurnikov was preparing a comprehensive monograph on Dilbat in the Old Babylonian period, it was decided to present a brief co-operative exposition of the copies. More detailed remarks will be found in Koshurnikov's forthcoming monograph.

The history of Dilbat, on the Arahtum canal about 25 km S. of Babylon, is not surprisingly to be correlated with events occurring around its larger and more famous neighbours. Thus Dilbat was one of the towns caught up in the contest of power before the time of Sumu-la-’El in the early OB period. Although Sumu-abum claimed to control Dilbat, Alumbiumu, ruler of Marad-Kazallu, effected his own hegemony over the town in the early years of Sumu-la-’El (see notes to texts AM 1951: 2 and 6 below). In his establishment of a northern OB “core,” however, Sumu-la-’El brought Dilbat under his sway, not later than his twelfth year. Tablets from Dilbat that date to these early years are entirely those of family archives, yet these affairs reflect the political circumstances of the time. In the best attested group of documents, Ili-amranni (perhaps originally from Marad, see below) and his son Iddin-Lagamal gradually accumulate land in the time of uncertain political control.

The metal vessels known as the “Nimrud bowls” were discovered in the North-West Palace at Nimrud. Despite their clear archaeological context, the style and the iconographic themes of their decoration clearly betray that they are not the work of Assyrian craftsmen. Traditionally, they have been connected to the so-called “Phoenician bowls”. Today, a more general Levantine origin for the Nimrud bowls is proposed, although it has hitherto not been possible to determine their exact provenance. A review of the Nimrud bowls focusing specifically on their shape and decoration techniques provides new hints, hopefully contributing to a better understanding of the manufacture and function of these vessels. Furthermore, some characteristics shared by these vessels highlight the unity and homogeneity of the cluster and help to identify the manufacturers.

In 1951 the Directorate General of Antiquities in Baghdad acquired a limestone statue of apparently Sumerian date. The dealer from whom the purchase was made claimed that he had found the statue at Tell Aswad, an ancient mound situated on the left bank of the Euphrates some 24 km. to the north-west of Ramadi. Shortly afterwards a team was dispatched by the Directorate to examine the mound and in the course of executing small trial trenches near the surface of the mound encountered structures of plano-convex mud-brickwork. In view of certain peculiarities in the style and proportions of the Tell Aswad statue doubts were voiced among members of the Directorate as to its genuineness, and in consequence approaches were made to various eminent archaeologists and art historians with a view to eliciting their professional opinions concerning it. On the basis of photographs supplied by the Directorate the consensus of opinion among the experts was that the statue showed certain stylistic differences from hitherto known Sumerian statuary which by themselves at least were not sufficient to mark the piece as definitely genuine or definitely false.

The Sealand I dynasty ruled in southern Mesopotamia in the latter part of the Old Babylonian and at the beginning of the Middle Babylonian period. Unprovenanced archival documents dating to the middle years of this dynasty were published by Dalley in 2009. Most of these documents pertain to the palatial administration of resources. The present article aims at establishing a number of accounting principles and practices that were in place at a Sealand I palace. The administration of animal husbandry is examined in depth and its underlying principles of resource management are presented; these suggest that this palace functioned as an extended household providing resources for its own needs and for a number of temples.

The two sites of Al 'Ubaid and Eridu in southern Iraq are among the most significant historically for our understanding of the 'Ubaid culture. Al 'Ubaid is the type site while Eridu has yielded, not only the best known 'Ubaid occupation sequence, but also evidence of the development of the settlement from its beginnings as a village to its later floruit as a town, complete with a temple and an extensive extra-mural cemetery. Both sites have been partially excavated, Al 'Ubaid on two occasions and Eridu by at least four expeditions. The results of all these various explorations have been published so that we have a good idea of the nature of both sites. I was able, with T. J. Wilkinson, to visit Al 'Ubaid and Eridu in June 1990 (Fig. 1). During our visits we found indications of the firing of 'Ubaid pottery on the surfaces of both sites; this discovery was unexpected since the existence of pottery kilns had not been mentioned in the published accounts. The purpose of this note is to draw the attention of archaeologists to these remains, to describe them briefly and to discuss their significance.

The opportunity to visit Al 'Ubaid and Eridu came during a reconnaissance of prehistoric sites in Iraq carried out with the encouragement of Dr Muayad Said Damerji, then Director General of the State Organization of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq. I wish to thank Dr Damerji and his staff for the welcome they extended on that occasion and the assistance they provided. I also wish to express appreciation and thanks to T. J. Wilkinson, then the Assistant Director of the British Archaeological Expedition in Iraq and an old friend and colleague, who accompanied me on the reconnaissance and gave valuable help throughout.

In 671 BCE, Esarhaddon advanced south from the Levant and attacked Egypt, sacking Memphis. About seven years later, in response to repeated Kushite uprisings and following an initial campaign into Lower Egypt, Ashurbanipal's army reinvaded Egypt, marching as far as Thebes where, according to Assyrian accounts, the temples and palaces were looted and their treasures brought back to Nineveh. The Assyrians had been in conflict with Egypt for some time, but these clashes had always taken place in Western Asia, where the two states fought for control and influence over the small Levantine kingdoms. Not until Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal did Assyria penetrate into the heart of Egypt, attacking its two traditional capitals of Memphis and Thebes. This period of intensified antagonism, along with its consequence — increasingly direct contact with Egyptian culture — brought into greater focus Assyria's relationship to the Egyptian imperial tradition. I would like to propose here that Assyrian royal ideology, as expressed in art, developed in part out of an awareness of and reaction to the great imperial power of New Kingdom Egypt, in particular that of the Ramesside period of the thirteenth and early twelfth centuries. Indeed, it is more the reaction against Egyptian tradition that seems to have stimulated what we understand as characteristic and distinctive of Assyrian art, but at the same time, even these elements may owe some inspiration to Egypt. In this way, the New Kingdom Egyptian empire served as both precedent and “other” for Assyria, which began to develop its own imperialist ideology during the contemporaneous Middle Assyrian period.

iṣkakku kap-ta-ru-ú mu-ḫa-šu ù it i-ši-is-sú-ú ḫurâṣa(m) uḫ-ḫu-uZ mu-uḫ-ḫa-šu ta-am-liabanuknê(m)

‘A weapon of Caphtor with pommel and base overlaid with gold and pommel inlaid with lapis lazuli.’

A Fragmentary fresco from the Palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari of a flange-hilted dagger or dirk with pointed shoulders (or ‘horns’) provides a possible illustration of a type of weapon described in the inventory and merits attention when Levantine-Cretan-Mycenean connections are discussed. In 1961, N. K. Sandars drew attention to this text, convincingly traced the ancestry of the Mycenean flanged daggers and swords (her type B, with rudimentary ‘horns’) to the Asiatic mainland, and suggested that the wealth of weapons in Graves IV and V at Mycenae could be explained as ‘loot from foreign arsenals’. The Mari fresco (which must have been painted before Hammurabi destroyed the palace in his 33rd year in 1759 B.C.) together with the contents of tomb 22 at Jericho reinforces this conclusion and therefore precludes identifying the weapon on the fresco as an import from Crete, although the inventory phrase kap-ta-ru-ú can be interpreted from a technical point of view (see below).

In these pages, respectfully dedicated to Sir Leonard Woolley, I should like to give a catalogue of, and some random notes on, a group of texts from Ur and el-‘Obēd which may be called, with some qualification, ‘the early inscriptions.’ This label is meant to cover all the non-economic texts of the time between the Jemdet-Naṣr Period and the Guti Dynasty.

SAA 18 100 (ABL 1091) is a cuneiform text that has been at the heart of historical reconstructions of the assassination of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, since it was first properly studied by S. Parpola in 1979. In 2005, J. C. Fincke discovered a new fragment of the document (28-3-23 [K.21923]) and joined it to the then known fragment (80-7-19, 28). Fincke's join offers the opportunity to study the tablet anew. We present the first full scholarly edition of the fragments and a new historical interpretation of the text that challenges the accepted understanding of its date, nature, content, and the information it provides on the assassination of Sennacherib. SAA 18 100 appears to be an archival copy of a letter originally sent to Nineveh that reported on matters concerning the Assyrian court heard in Babylonia. The best-preserved report concerns a supposed plot looking to frame the king's son, Urdu-Mullissu, in a conspiracy, and might be a product of the pro-Esarhaddon machinations of the royal court during the final years of Sennacherib's reign.

Nergal-ereš begegnet uns erstmals im Jahre 803 v.Chr. als Gouverneur der Provinz Raṣappa. Der Stellung dieses Amtes innerhalb der assyrischen Verwaltungshierarchie entsprechend hielt er auch das Eponymat dieses Jahres, des siebenten der Regierungszeit Adad-nararis III. (810-783 v.Chr.). Damit hatte er bereits am Beginn des von uns verfolgbaren Abschnittes seiner politischen Laufbahn eine ziemlich hohe Funktion inne. Über seine Herkunft und Abstammung wissen wir nichts. Dem Zeitgeist dieser Epoche entsprechend wird seine Familienzugehörigkeit in keinem Text erwähnt.

797 v.Chr., im Eponymat des Bēl-tarṣi-ilimma, fügte Adad-narari per Dekret die Provinz Ḫindānu dem Verwaltungsbereich Nergal-ereš's hinzu und ließ dies auf einem Steinmonument in Ninive festhalten. Die Schlüsselrolle, die Nergal-ereš vermutlich bei den militärischen Unternehmungen des Königs westlich des Euphrat spielte, führte in der Folge zu einem weiteren Anwachsen der politischen und territorialen Macht des Gouverneurs. Die Tell al-Rimah-Stele erwähnt neben Raṣappa und Ḫindānu die Provinzen Lāqê und Māt Sūḫi sowie eine Reihe von Städten in ihnen. Die Saba'a-Stele fügt dem noch das Gebiet um Qatni und Dūr-katlimu nebst weiteren Orten im Euphrat-Habur-Gebiet hinzu.

The district in which the Expedition operated is roughly triangular in shape. The base of the triangle is conveniently defined by the railway line running from Tall Halaf to Nisibin which demarcates the frontier between Turkey and Syria, a distance of about 75 miles: the two sides, each about 50 miles long, are marked by the lines of the rivers Khabur and Jaghjagha which converge at Hasaka into a single stream. Below Hasaka the steppe on either side of the lower Khabur becomes drier towards its southern end, being more remote from the rain-belt which hangs around the Turkish hills. Moreover, the wadis which drain into the basin of the upper Habur-Jaghjagha triangle have mostly been sucked dry before they can filter through to the southern steppe. Thus the climate in the district of Brak and Chagar Bazar resembles that of Ninevite Assyria and differs from the drier Babylonian conditions of the country below the latitude of Hasaka. The summers are indeed intensely hot, even the northern stretches of the steppe then become arid, and only the Khabur and the Jaghjagha retain perennial water. In the Spring, however, there comes a magical change, and striding northwards between these two rivers one treads upon a gaily variegated carpet of wild flowers. As far as the eye can see there is mile upon mile of scarlet ranunculus and golden marigolds interspersed with tall and smiling hollyhocks. Far to the southwest loom the wild and inaccessible hills of the Jabal ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and Baida, where till within living memory monuments of the early dynastic age had stood undisturbed for nearly five thousand years.

Textile fragments from the excavation of royal graves at Nimrud in 1988–89 (see Iraq 51 (1989), p. 259) may at first appear disappointing. After the magnificent array of gold jewellery, these scraps may seem of very minor interest, but though technically limited, their original fine execution can still be recognised as befitting a royal burial. The burials probably date to the second half of the eighth century BC.

The queen's body inside the bronze coffin of Tomb 2 was covered with what first appeared to be a solid layer of brittle dark brown wood, but on examination patterns of threads and weave structures could be identified in many areas. The colour varied, different layers being slightly tinged with purple and red, and careful separation by Kathryn Tubb in the Institute of Archaeology Conservation laboratory revealed different styles and qualities of woven cloth. Lines, which at first suggested to the eye the graining of fine wood, proved to be folds, in some areas probably fine pleating or goffering, and it was clear that a mass of delicate fabrics had been present, clothing and wrapping the body, or lying piled up over it (Fig. 5).

This paper presents a review of the building work undertaken by Kurigalzu I and II. In doing so it aims to demonstrate that Kurigalzu I (x–1375 B.C.) was responsible for one of the most extensive and widespread building programmes for which evidence has survived in Babylonia. It also highlights the unequivocal evidence that it was Kurigalzu I who founded the city of Dur-Kurigalzu.

A new look at five stamp-seal amulets prompts the author to consider a particular type of Pazuzu-head amulet that has so far gone unnoticed and to publish for the first time the intaglio design on the reverse of one of them.

Fragments of a cuneiform description of Babylon, containing the names of the town, its temples, and gates, have been published by Prof. E. Unger in W.V.D.O.G. XLVIII, pl. 82 and in his book Die Stadt Babylon, 229 ff. Notes on these tablets have been published by B. Landsberger in Z.A. XLI. 287 ff. There are seven fragments: 1. V.A.T. 13101 (Photo W.V.D.O.G. XLVII, pl.82);2. V.A.T.554(Reisner, Hymne No.5, Photo W.V.D.O.G.XLVIII, pl. 82); 3. B.M. 34878 (Photo W.V.D.O.G. XLVIII, pl. 82); 4. V.A.T. 13200 (Matouš, L.T.B.A. 1, No. 72, Photo Z.A. XLI, pl. VIII); 5. K. 3089 (P.S.B.A. XXII (1900), 559); 6. V.A.T. 401 (Photo Z.A. XLI, pl. VII); 7. K. 15122 (King, Suppl.).

The three tablets of the Ashmolean 1924–846, 1924–810, 1924–849 are partly duplicates, but fill large gaps. 1924–849 is a duplicate of V.A.T. 13101, col. I. V.A.T. 13101, col. I, fills the gap in 1924–849, obv. It contains the various names of Babylon, and according to its colophon it is an extract of the first tablet of the series, TIN-TIR(ki). This proves that V.A.T. 13101 is not the fifth tablet of the series TIN-TIR(ki), but that its colophon means— as B. Landsberger has already suggested in Z.A. XLI. 288—that five tablets have been written on a single one. V.A.T. 13101 does not give the whole series, but only extracts of five tablets.

Als gegen Ende des Monats Hibur in einem uns leider nicht ganz genau festlegbaren Jahre während der Regierungszeit Aššur-bel-kala's (līmu: Ili-iddina) die Prinzessin [x]-iššite erkrankte, wurde der mašmāšu Aššur-išmanni beigezogen. Er verordnete offenbar eine Salbe, für die 14 Drogenbestandteile erforderlich waren. Wir besitzen die Quittung über den zweckgebundenen Empfang dieser teils pflanzliehen, teils tierischen Substanzen in der Tafel VAT 18057, die H. Freydank demnächst in seiner Sammlung mA Texte der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin veröffentlichen wird. Ich danke Herrn Freydank sehr herzlich für seine Erlaubnis, den Text hier bereits verwenden zu dürfen.

Knapp zwei Monate später wird wieder ein Kind im Königshaus krank — diesmal ein Prinz namens Ulalu (übrigens kein sehr schmeichelhafter Name, wenn nicht gar “Schwächling” hier appellativisch für ein noch unbenanntes Kleinkind gemeint ist; einen Prinzen Ulalu kennen wir sonst nicht, wissen allerdings auch nicht, ob er vielleicht die zur Debatte stehende Krankheit und Behandlung gar nicht überstanden hat). Wieder verschreibt Aššur-išmanni eine Salbe, diesmal noch etwas komplizierterer Zusammensetzung — ich zähle 20 Drogenbestandteile — und auch dieses Mal hat uns der Zufall die Quittung erhalten in dem von F. Köcher als BAM 263 veröffentlichten Text VAT 10044. Eine beträchtlich verbesserte Kopie des in BAM noch missverstandenen und fehldatierten Textes wird wiederum H. Freydank vorlegen, mit dem ich gemeinsam in Berlin beide Texte nebeneinander gründlich kollationieren konnte.