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The Animal Remains from Abu Salabikh: Preliminary Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Juliet Clutton-Brock  and
Richard Burleigh
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Extract

Animal remains from two seasons of excavation at the Tell of Abu Salabikh (1975–1976) were examined during a month's visit to the site in October 1977. A proportion of this material was then selected for further study and was kindly sent on loan to the British Museum (Natural History) by the Department of Antiquities, Baghdad. Work is continuing on these specimens and on the equid skeleton described by Postgate and Moorey which had been loaned to the Museum a year earlier. The photographs, Plates XIV–XVI, were taken on site by Mr. David Nicolson and our thanks are due to him for his patience in the face of dust and sandflies.

The collection of animal remains was large, numbering perhaps more than 10,000 elements which were mixed with an equal or greater number of human bones. The animal bones were in a very fragmentary condition as is usual with the remains of food. They had suffered further breakage by the action of the compacted soil of the floors under which they were buried as well as by disturbance and re-burial following human interments. Furthermore the very high concentration of salts in the soil contributed to the fragmentation process. Shortage of time prevented analysis of this comminuted bone but the dimensions of every measurable element were recorded.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1978 , pp. 89 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1978

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References

1 Postgate, J. N.Moorey, P. R. S., Excavations at Abu Salabikh, 1975 (Iraq 38 (1976), 156Google Scholar, Pl. XXIVa).

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5 See above, note on p. 93.

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7 See above, note 4.

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