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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
The copper rein-ring illustrated in this article is at present privately owned, and was shown to me in London in 1947: it is published here by kind permission of the owner. It is said to have been acquired in Nasiriyah in 1922, and to have come from the Samawa district. There is little doubt that this object must have been found at some Sumerian site such as Kish or Ur; it may be dated to the end of the second or the beginning of the third Early Dynastic period, c. 2500 B.C.
Electrum, silver and copper rein rings of this type, surmounted by a model animal, have been found at Kish and at Ur, and a variant form was discovered in a tomb at Til-Barsib, near Carchemish, on the upper Euphrates. This specimen is of particular interest because the animal appears to be an onager, or wild ass, which was evidently known to the Sumerians not later than the middle of the third millenium B.C.
page 52 note 1 Ur rein-rings; see Woolley, C. L., Ur Excavations, II, Plate XXXIV, XXXIX, CLXVI, CLXVII. Kish rein-ringsGoogle Scholar; see Watelin, L. C., Excavations at Kish, IV, Geuthner, 1934, Plates XXIV, XXVGoogle Scholar.
page 52 note 2 Woolley, loc. cit., Plate XCII. It may be, however, that we must allow for the limitations imposed on the artist by his inability to render perspective.
page 52 note 3 Woolley, loc. cit., Plate CLXVI.
page 53 note 1 See the interesting article by Hilzheimer, M. in O.I.C. 10 Google Scholar, entitled “Animal Remains from T. Asmar.” also the discussion by Woolley, loc. cit., p. 272, where there is a clear summary of evidence on the domestication of onagers.
page 53 note 2 Woolley, loc. cit., p. 272.
page 53 note 3 Watelm, loc. cit., p. 30 f.
page 53 note 4 Langdon, S., Excavations at Kish, I, Geuthner, 1924, Plate VIIGoogle Scholar.
page 54 note 1 M. von Oppenheim, Tell Halaf (translated by Gerald Wheeler), Plate LIII, and illustrations in Vol. I of the definitive publication in German.
page 54 note 2 B.M.Q., VIII, Plate VIII, and p. 38 f Google Scholar.
page 54 note 3 H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals, Plate XXII (a).
page 54 note 4 Thureau-Dangin, F., Rituels accadiens, pp. 99–108 (VAT. 7849)Google Scholar, describing the order of procession for the chariots of Enurta, Shamash and Adad in the akitu festival of Nisan at Erech.
page 54 note 5 See discussion by Frankfort, H. in O.I.P., XLIV, P. 46 f Google Scholar.
page 54 note 6 Watelin, loc. cit., p. 3 3, and Plate XXV, No. 3.
page 55 note 1 Contenau, G., Manuel d'Archéologie Orientale, II, p. 820 Google Scholar, fig. 588.
page 55 note 2 Türk Tarih Kurumu Belleten, I, 1937, p. 210 f.Google Scholar, and Figs. 2, 35-40.
page 55 note 3 Gadd, C. J. in Iraq, VII, p. 23 Google Scholar.
page 55 note 4 O.I.P., LX, Plates LVIII-LX, and p. 13 Google Scholar. It is interesting to compare the Agrab chariot with the Hittite model represented on a bas-relief from Malatia, where a gigantic god is shown with one foot resting on the step of a minute chariot cab, which is drawn by a pair of asses or onagers (?). The type of cab is clearly based on much older Mesopotamian models, cf. G. Contenau, op. cit., IV, p. 2205, and Fig. 1236.
page 55 note 5 G. Contenau, op. cit., IV, p. 2096, Fig. 1159. See also ibid., p. 2210, for references to rein-rings not mentioned in this article, and Figs. 1240-1242, including an interesting specimen from Cappadocia, showing a rearing horse with its forelegs resting on a man's shoulders.
page 55 note 6 It should also be noted that in ancient Iran the horse and chariots were depicted at an early period. A copper wand from Tepe Hissar is surmounted by a model of a ploughman and his team of oxen, and from the same site there is an alabaster model of an equine (?) and a cylinder seal engraved with a chariot scene. See Schmidt, E., Excavations at Tepe Hissar, Plate XLVIII, H. 4885 Google Scholar, Plate XXXIII, and Fig. 118.