In his Anabasis recounting his march on Babylon with the Persian prince Cyrus in 401 B.C., Xenophon provides his readers with many descriptive details about the area that would come to be called Mesopotamia. He speaks of villages, of wheat, barley and dates, of fields under cultivation and of many other indications of settled life. He also offers a brief description of the flora and fauna of Mesopotamia, in which he mentions wormwood, aromatic shrubs, wild asses, bustards, gazelles and ostriches. Musil, who travelled extensively in this region at the beginning of the twentieth century, commented favourably on the accuracy of some aspects of the picture drawn by Xenophon.

Yet, for all the verisimilitude of Xenophon's description, anyone who has travelled in Mesopotamia, or who is familiar with the accounts of it found in later classical authors such as Strabo or Pliny, cannot help but feel that something is missing in Xenophon's account. What is missing is any reference to pastoral life in the region, particularly the camel pastoralism long associated with Arabia and Arabs. Sheep are mentioned, in passing, only once in the sections of the book devoted to Xenophon's passage through this area, in association with the villages of Cyrus's mother, Parysatis, situated along the upper Tigris, and there is no mention whatsoever of goats or camels, or of nomadic pastoralists who might have herded flocks of such animals. This dearth of positive evidence for nomadism in Xenophon's account might tempt one to conclude that pastoral nomads—at least Arab nomads of the kind described by Strabo and Pliny—had not yet arrived in this area in 401 B.C. But Xenophon himself thwarts such a ready conclusion by calling the part of Mesopotamia lying east of the Khābūr river “Arabia”, a name which in itself implies the existence of Arab nomads.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a further investigation into the method of manufacture of an important eighth–seventh century B.C. glass vase (Plates Ia, IIa) from Syria or Assyria now in the Corning Museum collection. It is somewhat similar to the well known Sargon vase in the British Museum. In our initial study we focused on methods used to finish this cast glass vessel, particularly the drilled handles, the interior walls, the profiled bands and polished outer surface. In the present study we have again focused on the drilled handles in order to determine the type of drill bit, the type of drill, abrasive and lubricant. The reason for this particular emphasis was that several important questions in our initial study were left unresolved. In addition, a serendipitous finding and subsequent research in the field of ancient Egyptian lapidary offered new insights and working hypotheses.

The very interesting Ur III text UET V, 796, that was treated by W. F. Leemans in 1960, was recently given fresh attention by M. Roaf, in an article which appeared in this same journal. The main problem raised by this text, which records a very large shipment of copper received at Dilmun, is the relationship between the weight standard of Dilmun and that of Ur: the former makes only use of minas, while the latter uses minas and talents. Already in Leeman's treatment of UET V, 796 it was established that the Dilmun mina weighed 2⅔ Ur minas. Collation of the text, provided by J. N. Postgate, allowed Roaf to suggest the restoration, in line 1, of the figure 13, ˹7˺ [50] which perfectly fits the equivalence between 611 Ur talents 6⅔ Ur minas and the corresponding numbers of Dilmun minas (i.e. 13,750 minas).

Given this, it seems appropriate to attempt an evaluation of the absolute weights of the Dilmun and Ur units and to make some comment about (a) the articulation of the Dilmun system, (b) the possible relationship between this system and the others that were in use in various areas and periods of the ancient Near East.

In their recent edition of inscribed material from Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud, Dalley and Postgate (1984: No. 95, pp. 159 ff., Pl. 22) have published and discussed a text recording the measurements, apparently in preparation for their covering in gold leaf, of statues for a temple of Nabu, probably the Nabu Temple at Kalḫu itself. As extant, “face B” begins with the dimensions for the statue or statues of the uridimmu (UR.ID[IM?]), which is probably to be identified as an upright figure with human head, arms and torso but the lower body and legs of lion, a type known in the Assyrian period on the palace reliefs and among the apotropaic foundation figurines (Wiggermann, in press: § VII C 5; cf. Green 1985: 77, with Fig. 1 and Pls. XIIIb, XIVa, b).

The next section (ll. 10 ff.) concerns statues of the suḫurmāšu, or “Goat-fish” (literally “Carp-goat”), and kulullû, “Fish-man”. As Dr. Dalley points out, these creatures are known among the apotropaic figurines and named in the appropriate rituals (Dalley and Postgate 1984: 162, n. to ll. 15–19; citing Rittig 1977 for the figurines). An example of the Goat-fish omitted from Rittig's catalogue is shown on Plate V; its inscription (er-ba taš-mu u ma-ga-rù), corresponding to the form prescribed in KAR, no. 298, rev. line 5 (Gurney 1935: 70 f.; Rittig 1977: 157, 167) proves the identity as the suḫurmāšu(cf. Rittig 1977: 188 f., § Ib.2; 206; Green 1983: 93, n. 54; Wiggermann, in press: § VII C 10 b). The mention of statues of the type in the Nimrud text is a significant testimony to their original presence in the repertoire of Assyrian monumental art, for which no examples are now known (notice their absence in the review by Kolbe 1981), although an example is to be found on one face of a ninth(?)-century smaller-scale stone altar from Nineveh (Plate VIa), and statues of the creature appear to be depicted on a Middle Assyrian (Fig. 1 ) and post-Assyrian (Plate Xc) seals. This fact further supports the apparent identical, or at least very close, repertoires of apotropaic figures as foundation figurines and in monumental sculpture (Green 1983).

Die Studie behandelt Fischknochen, die während archäologischer Ausgrabungen durch das “Oriental Institute” der Universität von Chicago und die British School of Archaeology in Iraq auf dem Tell Abu Salabikh/Iraq geborgen wurden. Ein kleiner Tell des Materials stammt aus der Kampagne von 1963, die unter der Leitung von D. Hansen stand. Diese kleine Aufsammlung von insgesamt 51 Fischresten (Tab. 1) erhielt ich durch Vermittlung von R. Englund, Berlin, von R. Biggs, Chicago, zur Begutachtung zugesandt. Sie lagen “among the debris in the rubbish pit where the tablets were found” (Biggs, brieflich; s. auch Biggs 1966). Der weitaus größere Tell des Fundguts kommt aus den von N. Postgate, Cambridge/GB, geleiteten Ausgrabungen von 1975 bis 1983 in der Stadt auf dem Tell von Abu Salabikh, die Zeugnisse aus dem 3. Jahrtausend v. Chr. und zwar aus der Frühdynastischen Periode I bis III ans Tageslicht förderten (Postgate 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1983; Postgate und Moon 1982).

Während der Ausgrabungen wurde im allgemeinen nicht gesiebt. Lediglich “the material from a large ashy deposit (trenches 6G76 and 6G86) was partly dry-sieved and 1/10th of that also flotated” (Postgate, brieflich). Dadurch erklärt sich die größere Fundzahl aus diesen beiden Schnitten im Vergleich zu derjenigen aus den übrigen Fundstellen, hier als Einheit zusammengefaßt: 4J87/88, 5I10/98, 6G36/45–47/63/64/75. Außerdem wurden Fischknochen in Gräbern geborgen: 4J88, 5I31, 6G45/56/64/66/75.

The external manifestations of ancient trading networks have generally been of greater scholarly concern than the internal needs and systems of the societies which created and participated in them. Both aspects of commercial relations are, however, inextricably linked. Preliminary research supports the idea that much of the movement of luxury goods in Southwest Asia during the third millennium B.C. was generated in response to the specific and unique demands of Sumerian society, and that such commercial enterprises continued under the Akkadian rulers. This hypothesis can be used to explain the distribution of certain metals in the third millennium, notably tin and silver. The sources of the tin used in ancient Southwest Asia have, despite considerable research, remained a mystery for years (see most recently Muhly 1985).

Following is a speculative attempt, using archaeological and scientific evidence, to explain the reasons why tin bronze is of limited distribution in Southwest Asia and the eastern Mediterranean during the third millennium. Tin bronze occurs in third millennium contexts in Mesopotamia, the Troad, and central Anatolia, and rarely elsewhere until late in the millennium. Such a pattern of distribution might be explained by the presence of tin deposits in each of these areas, exploited to fill only local needs, but geological research has failed to detect tin ores in any of these places. Since some source of tin was clearly being exploited to supply these areas and because there seems to have been differential access to it, geological presence or absence of tin must not have been a determinative factor. An alternative explanation is here developed by examining the nature of the tin trade and of the entities involved in it.

The founder of The Horniman Museum, Frederick John Horniman (1835–1906), was engaged in the tea trade and in this capacity he travelled throughout many countries of the world. He was a great collector of objects relating to the study of man and his environment and among the Museum's famous collections of ethnographica from all parts of the world there is also a small number of Mesopotamian cylinder seals. Nothing is known about the provenance of these 13 seals. They are illustrated on Plates XI and XII.

The island of Bahrain has this century been notable for two main reasons: its identification as Dilmun (Telmun), known from Sumerian to Neo-Assyrian times, and the striking presence of thousands of burial mounds (a recent estimate is 172,000—Larsen 1983). Both have been the cause of some disagreement and difference of interpretation. Recent archaeological work has made the issue of the mounds, their place and interpretation, somewhat clearer. This is none too soon. Comparatively little effort has been made to elucidate the island's own internal archaeology. None of the numerous Bronze Age settlements on the island has been systematically excavated. Bahrain's archaeological framework, instead, is mostly based on the Danish Expedition's limited excavation of Qala'at al-Bahrain in the 1950s and 60s, which remains largely unpublished.

One of the results of this lack of settlement exploration and the inadequate publication of that already carried out is that the dating of the burial mounds, or at least those of Bronze Age date, has proved problematic, as has the whole of Bahrain's archaeological sequence. Recent work elaborating the ceramic chronology of the North Wall Sounding at Qala'at al-Bahrain by Larsen has been of considerable help. This has enabled broad guidelines to be established for the ceramic sequence from about 2300 B.C. to around 1700 B.C., the period to which the mounds date.

The exact nature and function of the winged disk in Western Asia have been the subject of discussion and disagreement for over half a century. There is no shortage of evidence; representations are found over a very wide geographical and chronological span. However, a new monument has recently come to light in Arabia, and it affords an unparalleled context for the winged disk. This study investigates in detail the proposal made by Winnett in 1970, that the Aramaic deity ṢLM, known mainly from inscriptions in the area of N.W. Arabia around the city of Teima, is the winged disk, and analyses cuneiform sources for the cognate Akkadian god Ṣalmu. The evidence shows that Ṣalmu may indeed be a name for the winged disk in cuneiform, and there are good indications that the winged disk was an object on which oaths of loyalty were sworn to the king and probably also to the crown prince during the neo-Assyrian period. Probable references to Ṣalmu as the winged disk in personal names and in various texts dating to the late second and early first millennia B.C. are assembled. Some evidence that Hebrew 'edūṯ and late Babylonian Adēšu are West Semitic words for the winged disk is presented. In the second part of the study the title šamšī, meaning “his/your majesty”, is investigated, and evidence is presented to show that the winged disk was adopted as the visual equivalent of the verbal title šamšī, and marked both mortal kings and certain deities who could claim to be head of a pantheon in a particular city or country. The symbol, whether representing a human or divine king, proclaims the sovereign's protection under oaths of loyalty which were guaranteed by dire curses and enforced by sympathetic magic on oath-breakers.

The current excavations taking place on the island of Ana in the Euphrates have naturally focused attention on the available literary references. The Islamic sources are especially rich and to some extent we are relatively well-served for the classical period too, not least from the graphic account provided by Ammianus Marcellinus of the Emperor Julian's attack on the island fortress in A.D. 363. It is clear from that account that the city was a Persian stronghold. Hence the presence of Anatha in the late fourth century Notitia Dignitatum must either be an anachronism or, more likely, an homonymous site: everything we know of the location of the Roman military installations in Mesopotamia and Syria after the peace concluded by Jovian in 363 militates against so advanced a post well down-stream from Dura Europus which itself was never re-occupied after the mid-third century sack.

What then was the status of Ana/Anatha in the earlier centuries of the Roman Empire? Apart from the reference in an unknown context in a fragment of Arrian relating to Trajan's Parthian War with the implication—as one would expect—that it was then Parthian, the literature is silent until the campaign of Julian. Fortunately we have some interesting epigraphic references which offer a clue.

This paper makes available some of the main results of Hormuzd Rassam's excavations at Borsippa (Birs Nimrud and Ibrahim al-Khalil) and Kutha (Tell Ibrahim), supplementing the broad accounts in his own book Asshur and the Land of Nimrod and in his other publications. Further technical information on Rassam's expeditions, with full references to records that I have consulted in the British Museum central archive, may be found in my introduction to Erie Leichty's Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Volume VI, pages xii–xxxiv. In compiling the account given here, I have had the benefit of advice from several scholars including, especially, Donald Bailey, John Curtis, and Irving Finkel. The drawings are by Ann Searight. There is a list of the objects illustrated, with additional discussion, at the end.

Hormuzd Rassam was born in Mosul in 1826. During much of 1845–54 he worked on the British excavations in Assyria and Babylonia, first as Henry Layard's assistant and then as agent of the British Museum under the nominal supervision of the consul, Henry Rawlinson, in Baghdad. He later continued to serve the British crown, and eventually settled in England. In 1878 he recommenced excavations in Mesopotamia on behalf of the British Museum. He worked under a permit which allowed him to export everything he found except duplicate objects, which were to be surrendered to the Ottomans; most of his finds are now therefore in the British Museum.

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.

In the Library of the Institute of Archaeology, London, there is a collection of aerial photographs of Iraq taken by the R.A.F. during the 1930s. One of a pair, taken near Zairwan (36° 26′ N; 41° 59′ E) demands publication for the information it gives on the extent and structure of the Roman limes (Plate XX).

The photograph shows a stretch of wall with faces of large orthostats and filled with material whose nature cannot be determined from the picture. The wall runs along a low ridge. There are remnants of other structures against the wall and others, less well preserved, spreading down the slope of the ridge. These structures seem to be of poor masonry and almost certainly post-date the wall itself. There is no reason to suggest that they have any rôle in connection with the functioning of the wall. On the other side of the ridge are clear traces of what is probably a road with small mounds running along either side of it.

Zairwan is north of Jebel Sinjar and to the north-east of the important town of Singara. It stands at the foot of the mountains and gives its name to a pass of no great quality running through them.

K 6177 + 8869 is a copy in Neo-Babylonian script, now in the British Museum's Kuyunjik collection, of probably no more than two short inscriptions. Only its bottom half is extant, and so the first inscription is lost to us all but its last few fragmentary lines, which conclude a prayer (Text A). After a ruling a second, much better preserved text is given, and it is this, an inscription of Sennacherib in high literary style, which is of interest here (Text B). Text B describes the Tablet of Destinies (ṭuppi šīmāti), with the figure of Aššur apparently depicted on it, presumably by means of a seal impression. The text continues with a description of a representation of the king standing in homage before Aššur, which, if the text has any unity of construction, would also suggest a seal impression. The text is concluded with a routine royal prayer.

The tablet—or rather half of it, the fragment K 6177—was known to pioneers in Sennacherib studies, having appeared accredited to that king in Bezold's Catalogue (II, p. 768), but it was deemed of too little significance to warrant more than passing reference by Meissner and Rost (Senn., p. 119). The join to K 8869, which provides Text B with its conclusion, was made by W. G. Lambert, who kindly brought the piece to my attention.