Excavations at Kish, 1928–9

Extract

LAST winter was the seventh consecutive season of the Herbert Weld (for Oxford) and Field Museum Expedition at Kish, when Mr. Watelin, in charge of the excavations, reached virgin soil 28 feet below plain level, and 61 feet below mound level. At the end of the sixth season (1927–8), Watelin, Mr. Henry Field, and Mr. Eric Schroeder found the series of vaulted brick tombs and four-wheeled chariots, described in Art and Archœology, 1928, November, pp. 155–68. The Neo-Babylonian reconstruction of the temple Ehursagkalamma by Nebuchadnezzar and Nabunidus, whose pavement lies 20 feet below mound level, may be seen in the back ground on the photograph in Illustrated London News, 1930, 8th February, p. 206. Where the deep wide excavations now appear, stood a large mound, when Mr. Mackay and I first attacked this great tal in 1925. This mound marked Z on my plan of Kish, contained above the red stratum or temenos platform (see below) a ruined building from the periods of Sargon of Agade and the first Babylonian dynasty. Outside the wall near the ziggurat we found that year a marble statuette after the style of the one published in Art and Archœology, 1928, November, p. 160, with the cartouche on the right shoulder as figured on p. 602.