‘During the purification of Delos by Athens in this war all the graves in the island were taken up, and it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow? (Thucydides 1. 8, tr. Crawley.)

In the Near East the term ‘Bronze Age’ still represents a well-defined stage in the development of man's material civilization and can be used with advantage in conjunction with a chronological framework based on Historical evidence. In Mesopotamia, for example, the term ‘prehistoric’ can be confined to a period earlier than the beginning of the third millennium B.C., and the ‘Bronze Age’, which in Europe denotes a period which is entirely ‘prehistoric’ in the Near East signifies a stage whose efflorescence, varying in different regions, can be historically dated with fair accuracy. Within this period we can isolate the various archaeological remains of different civilizations by classifying them according to their material (pottery, bronzes, ivories, faience, &c.). Then for purposes of detailed study we can classify the objects within each of these main branches into groups (though here the division does not invariably depend on material), and a ‘grammar’ of one group can be described as the definition by their forms of the various classes in the general group, giving a series of dated or datable instances.

Previous reports on the current series of campaigns at Nimrud have from time to time referred to discoveries of post-Assyrian material, indicating an impoverished, and probably intermittent, occupation of the site during the last six centuries B.C. Analysis and identification of the finds has hitherto been impeded by two obstacles, the lack of dated comparative material from Northern Mesopotamia, and the difficulty of obtaining an undisturbed stratigraphic sequence on a mound so thoroughly ransacked by earlier excavators, who were interested only in the Assyrian levels. During the seasons 1949–53, when work was concentrated on the northern and central parts of the mound, occasional objects were found without an informative context, but it was not until we came to deal with the sites of the Burnt Palace and Nabu Temple in the southeast quarter, in 1955 and 1956, that we found the evidence better preserved, with isolated groups of material in situ. A reliable sequence was still lacking, and to fill this gap in 1957 we made a sounding on the high south-east corner, on a small plateau which showed little superficial sign of previous disturbance. Our aim was two-fold: to obtain a conspectus of the post-Assyrian levels, and to re-examine the Assyrian building beneath, the existence of which was briefly reported by Layard and Loftus. The quantity of debris, more than seven metres in depth, above the Assyrian level made it impossible to attempt any large-scale clearance, and we confined ourselves to three new trenches (O, P and R on the plan, Pl. XV) cut from north to south across the patch of virgin ground, and at the same time reopened Layard's large pit a short distance to the west. In trenches O and P we made a methodical, stratigraphic examination of six post-Assyrian levels before reaching a zone of barren debris, largely fallen mud brick, which overlay the Assyrian walls; our resources did not permit us to carry the excavation down to the Assyrian floors. In Trench R, begun late in the season, we confirmed the sequence of trenches O and P down to the fifth level. In Layard's excavation to the west, exposing the throne-room complex of the AB Palace, the post-Assyrian deposits had been extensively disturbed, but we were able to reconstruct them in part from the sides of his original cut and recovered some interesting groups of pottery and grave goods which can be related with fair certainly to the main sequence.

A number of cuneiform tablets containing chronological lists of kings of Babylonia and Assyria from various periods have been published during the last seventy-five years. None, however, of these King Lists deals with the Seleucid period, which is now covered for the first time.

The present edition of the King List is intended to be a preliminary one. Once it is subjected to the detailed criticism of the Greek historians and after the one minor philological difficulty that remains is solved by our Assyriological colleagues, we expect to republish it in a more definitive form in a larger work that we are planning on the fragments of Hellenistic history that are embedded in a considerable body of unpublished astronomical texts of the Seleucid and Arsacid periods. On that occasion, we also expect to reconsider in detail the chronological data contained in the date formulas of economic and literary cuneiform texts as well as in astronomical tablets of various types, both published and unpublished. Rather than wait until every scrap of Babylonian, let alone classical, evidence has been sifted, we have thought that the interests of scholarship would best be served by the present prompt publication, particularly since the authors of this article are primarily Assyriologists and their knowledge of Hellenistic history is therefore not very profound.

Recent excavations at Tell Brak, Syria, have explored the site's early urban expansion, including excavation of Late Chalcolithic mass graves in a small mound at the site's outer edge. This mound built up rapidly and is primarily composed of industrial rubbish, particularly ceramics and flint debitage. The rubbish layers also contained nearly one thousand clay container sealings bearing stamp-seal impressions. The most important images represented are human figures in combat with lions, and caged single lions. These images date to ca 3800 BC and are evidence for the early development of the iconography and ideology of power and leadership.

New fieldwork at Ur has begun to investigate urban scale, city organization, and the environment of the city's hinterland. Analysis of new sources of declassified aerial and satellite imagery from the 1950s and 1960s, recent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photos, and a systematic surface collection show that Ur may have expanded to between 120–500 hectares in size during its later periods of habitation, far larger than the sixty hectare maximum size previously estimated. Traces of buried architecture visible in the UAV photos and topographic models generated from UAV photos allow for the generation of hypotheses about the city plan of Ur during the Late Larsa/Old Babylonian and Neo Babylonian periods. Relict watercourses mapped in the vicinity of the main mound indicate how the city might have been supplied with water in some periods. Alongside this site-based work, historical aerial and satellite imagery provide an updated picture of ancient hydrology, environment, and settlement patterns around Ur.

Excavation at Tell Brak during 2001 and 2002, the twenty-first and twenty-second seasons of work at the site, continued research on occupation of the fourth and third millennia BC, periods in which Brak is known to have been particularly important in regional and interregional political and economic interactions. Work on the fourth millennium BC focused on two interrelated questions: the size and complexity of the local Late Chalcolithic (Northern Middle Uruk) city and the effects of the arrival of settlers from southern Mesopotamia as a part of the “Uruk expansion”. In addressing the second of these questions, we opened two new areas (TX and UA, Fig. 1) that appeared from surface finds to preserve in situ Late Uruk occupation. Our work on the mid- to late third-millennium occupation has focused on Area TC, which centres on a large building complex of the late Early Dynastic period and overlying levels. The curving southern wall of the building led us to term it the “Brak Oval”; the excavated portion of the building is a large-scale bakery with facilities for storing and grinding grain and a series of rooms arranged around an interior courtyard, although it so far appears to be a few curves short of a full oval. We have now recovered around 250 seal impressions from a variety of contexts in the building itself. The size of the building and the use of seals within it suggested that it might be part of a larger architectural complex, such as a palace or temple, and in the past two seasons we looked for a continuation of the building to the north and west. We also investigated earlier stages of the Oval's construction and excavated overlying buildings, the latest of which is a domestic structure made of pisé that dates to the end or just after the end of the Akkadian period.

Assyriologists have long been aware of the evidence for a cult of the dead in Assyria and Babylonia, but there is at present, to the writer's knowledge, no systematic study of the subject. She has therefore examined the evidence relating to the cult of the dead, and attempted to compare the attitude towards dead kin shown in the cult with what we know of relations between living kin and of concepts of descent. In this study, comparisons are occasionally made with other societies not culturally connected with Mesopotamia. The writer's interest here lies in the application of social anthropology to the study of Mesopotamian society. Traditionally anthropologists have studied the type of society formerly called “primitive”, now more often called “small-scale” or “pre-industrial”. Ancient Mesopotamia was not a society of this type, but a peasant society, with a comparatively elaborate technology and a wide field of social relations, at least among the power-holding groups. Social anthropologists have only recently begun to study peasant societies. It will be appreciated that the writer has no formal training in social anthropology, and that this attempt is, therefore, highly tentative.

The factors determining the existence and importance of a cult of dead kin in a society have not been clearly revealed by comparative study. Scheinfeld has indeed shown that all societies that have such a cult have also the institution of inheritance of property, but the evidence examined by him does not permit the conclusion that inheritance is a precondition for the existence of a cult of deceased kin.

The Late Babylonian tablet BM 92687 preserves a unique Babylonian birds-eye-view sketch of the Earth's surface. The sketch, commonly called “The Babylonian Map of the World” or “Mappa Mundi”, occupies the lower half of the obverse while the remainder of the obverse and entire reverse préserve related textual information. The tablet was first published almost a century ago by F. E. Peiser in ZA 4 (1889), 361–370, and has since attracted a great deal of attention. In 1906, R. C. Thompson re-copied the tablet as CT 22, 48. This second copy served as the basis for later studies by E. F. Weidner in BoSt 6 (1922), 85–93 and E. Unger in Unger, Babylon, 254–8 (1931). Unfortunately, neither the early copy by Peiser, nor CT 22, 48, is completely reliable. The two copies disagree on a number of points, and a new collation of the tablet revealed a number of errors. For instance, Peiser drew two nagû at the bottom of the map which are omitted in CT 22, 48, and both copyists read the label in the lowest oval inside the circle (no. 8) sideways! Thus a new copy and edition of the text is warranted although a few signs may have disappeared over time. (Copy: see Fig. 2 p. 152; photographs, Plate X).

This paper discusses the impact of the foundation of major cities in Mesopotamia in the early Islamic period (c. 636-900 CE) and their impact on the agricultural economy and rural settlement in the area. It considers the potential agricultural productivity of the area, the availability of river transport, the fiscal structure of the early Islamic state and the way in which it created demand for foodstuffs, and the development of the qaṭīca as a form of landholding which provided security of tenure and hence the encouragement of long-term investment in agricultural infrastructure.

The twelfth season of excavations at Nimrud lasted from March 2nd to May 16th, 1962. The expedition was generously supported by contributions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the British Museum, Les Musées Royales d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. My thanks are once again due to all my colleagues on the staff. Mr. Jeffery Orchard, Secretary of the School in Baghdad, was Assistant Director and catalogued the ivories and other finds. Both in the field-work and in the cleaning of the ivories we were fortunate in having the assistance of Mrs. Olwen Brogan, F.S.A., a field archaeologist of very wide experience, and of Mrs. Prudence Harper, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Mr. Peter Hulin, of Oxford University, was the epigraphist, Mr. Nicholas Kindersley took charge of the photography and of the pottery, Mr. Terence Mitchell acted as registrar, and Mr. Julian Reade gave valuable help with the ivories and also undertook the reconstruction of a large panel of glazed bricks which was one of the major finds of the season. The laborious work of cleaning and conserving the ivories was in the hands of Miss Ann Searight and Miss Stephanie Page. All members of the staff shared in the supervision of the excavations and helped most willingly with tasks other than their own. Sayid Selim al-Jelili was once again the representative of the Directorate General of Antiquities and a most valuable member of the expedition. This year we encountered many unforeseen problems, and we owe an especial debt of gratitude for their unfailing help to the Director General of Antiquities, Sayid Taha Baqir, the Inspector General of Excavations, Sayid Fuad Safar, and to members of their staff, in particular Sayid Akram Shukri, Director of the Iraq Museum Laboratory, Sayid Ali Nakshabandi and Sayid Isa Toma who worked with us at Nimrud. We must also express our thanks to the Iraq Petroleum Company, who most generously lent us valuable equipment for the lifting of the throne base of Shalmaneser III and its transport to Baghdad, and to Mr. Robert Ayton who took charge of the operation. Among visitors to Nimrud during the course of the season we were particularly glad to welcome Miss Margaret Munn Rankin, a member of the Council, and Dr. Donald Harden, a member of the Executive Committee of the School.

The 22nd season of excavations at Tell Brak took place in April and May of 1998, with David Oates as Project Director and Geoff Emberling as Field Director. It is our pleasure to mention institutions and people who made the project such a success. This season was primarily funded by the Adelaide Milton de Groot Fund (in memory of the de Groot and Hawley families) of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of the University of Copenhagen, Dell Computer Corporation and the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Michigan also generously provided funds and equipment. We would like to thank Dr Sultan Muhesen, Director-General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria, for his encouragement and interest, as well as Dr Adnan Bounni, Director of Excavations, and our representative, Abd el Messih Baghdo. The excavation team this season was exceptionally enthusiastic and dedicated. Jack Cheng was registrar, a position that included designing an excavation database as well as photography and drawing; Tim Skuldboel and Torben Larsen were surveyors; Lisa Cooper, Zenia Hoeserich, Stine Rossel, Suanna Selby and Laura Tedesco were site supervisors; Michael Charles and Mette Marie Hald supervised the notation program; Jill Weber worked on faunal material; Jean-François de Lapérouse of the Metropolitan Museum was objects conservator; Henry Wright analysed samples of chipped stone; and Donald Hansen and Joan Oates gave crucial help in architecture, excavation and ceramic analysis. David Oates provided helpful advice and support. We thank them all for their many contributions to work in the field and to this report.

The third season of excavations at Tell Taya lasted from late September, 1972, into January, 1973. Work was sponsored by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, which provided a grant towards the costs. Further vital support came from generous anonymous donations; from the British Academy; from the Royal Ontario Museum; from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and from the Ashmolean Museum. My own work has been made possible by tenure of a Gerald Averay Wainwright Fellowship. Staff on the site, besides myself, comprised my wife, S. Nan Shaw, conservator and registrar; Mr. George Farrant, architect; Mr. Stuart Brown and Miss Margaret Stout, site supervisors; Miss Susan Dobinson, who was responsible for the pottery; Mr. Nicholas Stainforth, general assistant; and Mr. Hilary Stuart Williams, architectural assistant. I am very greatly indebted to all of them for their hard work and patience. Sd. Khalid Sawit al-Durra represented the Iraq authorities, and I am further grateful, for assistance of many kinds, to numerous members of the Directorate-General of Antiquities, both in Baghdad and Mosul, and to the local government officials in Tell Afar.

The excavations at Yanik Tepe, a prehistoric mound twenty miles south-west of Tabriz, were begun in 1960, when building levels of one period only were all that could be investigated. The site clearly required further excavations, if possible on a larger scale, and these were carried out during a period of eight weeks, beginning in mid-August 1961. All archaeological excavations must have an over-riding purpose, and that of the work at Yanik Tepe, itself a seemingly obscure settlement in a little known region, is to try to make this region to some extent comprehensible to students of the archaeology of Iran and of the Near East as a whole. The site was chosen originally by me with this objective in mind, with the particular hope that it might provide some much needed evidence for the prehistory of eastern Anatolia, and perhaps also of Trans-Caucasia, more especially during the third millennium B.C., commonly called the Early Bronze Age. But the purpose and extent of the excavations at Yanik Tepe were never intended to be confined to one cultural period, however interesting. It was hoped to reveal the story of this agricultural community in north-west Persia over a considerable period of time. This hope has already been realized, since the excavations of 1961, though requiring continuation in 1962, have uncovered remains of Late Chalcolithic levels of the mid-fourth millennium B.C. and of later periods down to c. 600 B.C. and beyond, in areas of the mound untouched in 1960 (see Fig. 1). The sequence of cultural periods is a very long one, even though there are gaps, especially in the second millennium B.C., for which other sites may have to provide the material evidence. Yanik Tepe was never a major town, but it should add very significantly to knowledge of the ancient Near East.

The group of tablets here published was excavated at Nimrud in 1952 in the administrative wing of the North-West palace, an area given the site name of ZT. Six tablets come from ZT.14, 16, and 17, and were found with tablets of a commercial nature dating to the later half of the 7th century B.C. The rest of the group was found in ZT.4 with the Nimrud letters. This room ceased to be used at some date not precisely determined and was filled up with earth containing tablets dated to the period from Tiglath-pileser III to Sargon. The dated tablets, among those from ZT.4 described below, are from the reign of Sargon, with one exception which mentions a limmu hitherto unknown. ZT.14, 16 and 17, continued to be used until the final destruction of Nimrud and the tablets were lying on the floor in a deep pile of burnt debris.

The main group from ZT.4 are typical products of the Assyrian civil service, whose scribes are shown on the monuments laboriously noting down loot and captives on the field of battle. A list of treasure; vessels and utensils in gold, silver, copper and iron (ND. 2490) could be of this category, and there is a whole group of lists dealing with captives and subject people which are an echo of the extensive transportation and resettlement schemes for which the Assyrians were first notorious. ND. 2497 gives a register of people according to their profession or age; ND. 2485 is a list of people which gives the number missing, no doubt on the road to Calah, and ND. 2443 is a list of captives with the names of their captors or masters. Two other tablets of this kind can be connected with historical episodes; ND. 2619 is a list of horsemen and chariot drivers recruited mostly in Babylonian towns and amongst the Aramean tribes in the area. This points to the end of Sargon's thirteenth campaign, when his annals relate that chariotry, cavalry and footsoldiers from Bit-Iakin were drafted into the Assyrian army. ND. 2646 is only a fragment, but mentions Hamath people, as well as other nationals, being allocated to various commands, and could be connected with Sargon's reduction of Hamath, after which contingents of Hamathite troops were incorporated into the Assyrian army.

The 23rd season of excavation at Tell Brak took place from March 13 to May 16, 2000, with David Oates as Project Director, Geoff Emberling as Field Director, and Helen McDonald in charge of the house and recording of pottery and objects. The season was co-sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and was primarily funded by the Adelaide Milton de Groot Fund, in memory of the de Groot and Hawley families, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; we also gratefully acknowledge significant support from the National Geographic Society (grant #6738–00), the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, and the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. We would like to thank the Director General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria for his encouragement and interest. We also thank Ammar Abdul Rahman from the Department of Antiquities in Damascus, who paid us a visit during the season, as well as our representative from Hassake, Hussein Yusuf. The excavation staff was a pleasure to work with: Donald Hansen, Selma al-Radi, Marta Ameri, Jean Evans, Walton Green, Melanie Hatz, Torben Larsen, Tomasz Pazdej, Laurie Tedesco, David Thomas and Tim Skuldboel were site supervisors; Jack Cheng was registrar and photographer; Henry Wright conducted a series of soundings and gathered controlled samples of material relating to fourth millennium occupation of the mound; Michael Charles and Mette Marie Hald once again ran the botanical sampling programme; Jill Weber analyzed faunal remains; Susan Rees was conservator; and David and Joan Oates supported the project through the off-season and in the field with their expertise and enthusiasm.

For Barbara who introduced me to Iraq and Donald who introduced me to cuneiform

The Uruk period is one of the most fascinating in the archaeology of the Near East. Its great temples, fine sculpture and glyptic, metal-working skills, and, above all, introduction of writing, mark it as the summit and the turning point in the beginnings of urban civilization. By these characteristics its spread can be traced up the Tigris and Euphrates into central Syria and Anatolia, and eastwards across Iran. Beside the impressive products of its architects, artists and clerks, the Uruk culture proclaims its presence most loudly through its pottery. Among the pots and pans, the most common is one of the simplest and least attractive of all near eastern pots, the bevelled-rim bowl (Glockentopf, écuelle grossière à lèvre bisautée).

The British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq returned to Abu Salabikh for a second season from September to December, 1976, and we must first record our gratitude to all those who made the excavations possible. As last year our thanks go first to Dr. Isa Salman, Director General of Antiquities, Dr. Abdul-Hadi al-Fouadi and all members of the Directorate without whose co-operation our work would have been impossible. To our representatives, Sd. Sabah Abboud, M.A., and Sd. Abdul-Mejid Muhammad, goes the appreciation of the team, both as a whole and individually, for their unfailing courtesy and assistance. Financial support for the excavations was given by a number of institutions to all of which we wish to acknowledge our indebtedness: the British Academy (Albert Reckitt Archaeological Fund), the Trustees of the British Museum, Birmingham City Museums and Art Gallery, the C. H. W. Johns Fund, University of Cambridge, the Manchester Museum, the National Geographic Society, Washington D.C., and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. As last year we owe a special debt to Professor G. Gullini and members of the Italian Archaeological Institute in Baghdad for the hospitality of their superb dark-room facilities which they generously placed at our disposal. I should also like to record our gratitude to Monberg Thorsen A/S for a gift of cement which enabled us to add a kind of bathroom to our facilities at the site.

Gurga Chiya and Tepe Marani are small, adjacent mounds located close to the town of Halabja in the southern part of the Shahrizor Plain, one of the most fertile regions of Iraqi Kurdistan. Survey and excavation at these previously unexplored sites is beginning to produce evidence for human settlement spanning the sixth to the fourth millennia, c. 5600–3300 cal. b.c. In Mesopotamian chronology this corresponds to the Late Neolithic through to Chalcolithic periods; the Halaf, Ubaid, and Uruk phases of conventional culture history. In Iraqi Kurdistan, documentation of these periods—which witnessed many important transformations in prehistoric village life—is currently very thin. Here we offer a preliminary report on the emerging results from the Shahrizor Plain, with a particular focus on the description of material culture (ceramic and lithic assemblages), in order to establish a benchmark for further research. We also provide a detailed report on botanical remains and accompanying radiocarbon dates, which allow us to place this new evidence in a wider comparative framework. A further, brief account is given of Late Bronze Age material culture from the upper layers at Gurga Chiya. We conclude with observations on the significance of the Shahrizor Plain for wider research into the later prehistory of the Middle East, and the importance of preserving and investigating its archaeological record.

Trade in metals, notably the precious metals gold and silver, and the base metals copper and tin, represents one of the major aspects of Bronze Age commerce. It has been argued that the first large-scale growth of a metals trade, during the mid-third millennium B.C., stimulated the development of international commerce and made possible the wealth of the EB II period in the Aegean, Anatolia and the Near East. Trade in metals continued to be one of the most important elements of commerce down to the end of the Bronze Age. Thus a proper understanding of the nature and the scope of this trade is essential to the study of Bronze Age civilization and the nature of foreign relations in the third and second millennia B.C.

Since these metals were available only in certain areas, trade was essential for the development of metallurgy in those parts of the ancient world without native mineral resources, especially the Aegean and Mesopotamia. As virtually no work has been done on sources or uses of silver in the Bronze Age this paper will concentrate upon trade in gold, copper and tin. Technological developments will be discussed only in so far as they made possible the utilization of certain types of ores and hence influenced the growth of trade.

The purpose of this paper is to present several pieces of evidence concerning Samarians, Urartians and Nubians, most of them in the royal army of Sargon II, following the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C. and its submission to Assyria. The main evidence is new, and comes from a small group of administrative cuneiform tablets, conveniently labelled Horse Lists, which have been published as Nos. 99-118 in volume III in the series Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud (CTN III) edited by Stephanie Dalley and J. N. Postgate. The new evidence has drawn attention to certain passages in the royal inscriptions of Sargon, for which a few new readings, interpretations and deductions are here offered that throw some light on the treatment of Samaria and its people by Sargon. The new evidence can also be used to highlight two groups of men whose equestrian talents were imported and put to good use at the heart of the Assyrian royal army.

The material that has been assembled comes chiefly from the reign of Sargon II, but has a wider timespan than a single reign, for in many respects Sargon (721–705) can be shown to have followed the example of his illustrious predecessor Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727) ; and the evidence from texts continues down into the reign of Ashurbanipal. One aim of the study has been to break through the stereotyped phrases of Assyrian royal records, to show that in fact the Assyrians did not rule through tribute, booty and forcible deportation alone; they imported horses from Egypt by trade, and they employed foreign advisers and expert officers in their army. Another aim is to show in one respect how the royal inscriptions can be complemented with various legal and administrative records, and to demonstrate the value that each kind of source has for the other; published tablets from Nineveh, Nimrud and Tell Halaf have contributed supporting evidence to the better known, formal accounts of campaigns.