At a remote and boulder-strewn site east of the Dead Sea, between Dhiban and Shihan, F. de Saulcy found a carved stone in 1851, which he described and illustrated in Voyage en Syrie (Vol. I, 324 and 333). The stone remained in position until the Duc de Luynes conveyed it to the Musée du Louvre in 1864 (Les Monuments Palestiniens et Judaiques by R. Dussaud, 1912).

The Shihan stele, as it is called, is carved on a block of blackish-green basalt just over a metre high and fifty-eight centimetres wide; it is chipped and broken all round the single male figure in high relief which occupies nearly all the remaining space. The body is squat and very muscular, the attitude is tense and alert, but the legs are missing below the knees.

The Era Epic is the expression of frustrated patriotism. Babylonia had been reduced to ruins and impotence by a people called the Sutû, and the author is trying to explain the reason and to give promises of a glorious future. The reason given is that the god Era, a god of pestilence, had been angry. No grounds, ultimately, for this anger are suggested: it was the god's nature. His commander-in-chief, the god Išum, finally persuaded him to relent. The last of the five tablets, in which the text is written, begins at the point in the narrative where Era has been appeased.

One distinctive feature is a long epilogue. The Epic of Creation is the only other Babylonian epic with a similar ending, but this is less detailed. The Era Epic names its author, and specifies the particular blessings that would come upon gods, kings, nobles, rhapsodists, scribes, and houses that heed this ‘song’. These promised blessings account for many of the copies which have come down to us. The whole epic inscribed in minute writing on a single tablet, single tablets of the five, or short extracts, were used as amulets. Miss E. Reiner has written on this use of the Epic in J.N.E.S. 19 (1960), pp. 148–155. Often the tablets have two corners cut away and a horizontal hole through the remaining tab, as though to fit the tablet into a frame. Such a tablet forms the basis of the present publication. It is a Neo-Late-Babylonian tablet from Ur, U.18122, which contained the whole of Tablet Five written in a minute hand. Unfortunately only illegible traces of the obverse remain, but most of the reverse is preserved, if legible with difficulty. In addition to the copy (Plate XXXVI), we give a full edition of the Fifth Tablet based on collations of all the London fragments. A copy is also given of Bu. 91–5–9, 69+177+225, which has previously been read from inadequate photographs. In view of the useful list of MSS. of the Epic given, with full bibliography, by B. Kienast in Z.A. 54, pp. 244–249, we leave readers to refer to that for details.

The land of Kirruri, frequently mentioned by the Assyrians, is a key area for the understanding of Assyrian political geography, and has been the subject of a number of attempted identifications. Billerbeck placed it in the region centred on the pass of Kalishin, whilst Streck identified it with the plain west and southwest of lake Urmia, bounded by Ushnu, Urmia and Solduz. Consideration of the references to Kirruri in the light of more recent knowledge shows the impossibility of these areas for an identification, inasmuch as Kirruri was within (albeit only just within) the area of customary Assyrian control from the early ninth century, whereas the areas mentioned by Billerbeck and Streck were still not firmly in Assyrian control when Sargon II came to the throne in the late eighth century. Forrer placed Kirruri much nearer to metropolitan Assyria, siting it in the Harir plain (often known as the Dasht-i-Harir) north of Shaqlawa, although he did not give his arguments in detail. The question was re-examined by L. D. Levine, who accepted Forrer's siting as in the right area, but too limited in extent. More recently J. E. Reade, in a useful article, has returned inter alia to the question of the position of Kirruri, placing it in the area between Koi Sanjaq and Rania near to the Lesser Zab, adducing as the main specific evidence for this siting Tukulti-Ninurta II's campaign of 886 B.C.

This note on three unpublished glass inlay plaques from a badly burned and fragmentary alabaster pedestal cup (Fig. 1) found in the period IVB (late 9th c. BC) level at Hasanlu is offered as an addendum to John Curtis's article “Glass Inlays and Nimrud Ivories” in a recent issue of Iraq. The pieces are of interest because their method of manufacture appears to differ greatly from those published in the Iraq article.

The Nimrud plaques and two of the three Hasanlu plaques, Plaques A and B (Fig. 2a), show rosettes or flowers. While the use of a flower motif, and perhaps its significance, is similar, the similarity ends there. The third Hasanlu plaque, Plaque C (Fig. 2a), is unlike the other two. It had no identifiable decorative design and was inlaid with a circular piece (now missing) near the center.

The Nimrud plaques are many in number and were purposefully made for their function as inlay pieces. However, the three found at Hasanlu were cut from two or more larger objects for reuse as inlays in the alabaster cup along with carnelian and Egyptian Blue beads and a broken glass bead (Fig. 3a, b). The decorated obverse surfaces of Hasanlu Plaques A and B appear to have been made by the mosaic technique. Unlike the petals on the Nimrud plaques, which are now a uniform opaque white glass, the petals on Plaques A and B have a central section of glass of one color outlined by glass of the same consistency but of another color. The round center of the flower is yet another color.

The introductory formulae of Neo-Assyrian letters sent to the king or a superior official during the eighth century B.C. attest to a highly standardised form of letter writing (especially in the address), proving scribal sensitivity to an established letter writing etiquette. The introductory formula reflects the office of the sender; exactly the same formula (including the greeting) may be used by successive officeholders. Yet these formulae are by no means entirely uniform. In particular, the presence or absence of a blessing may tell us about the sender's relationship with the Assyrian king.

This paper contributes in small part to the re-examination of the assumed relationship between Sumer and the surrounding areas. It is concerned with metals, metal-working and metal goods, and more particularly with the weapons which begin to appear in some profusion during the third millennium both in Sumer and in other areas round about. The thesis proposed here is in two parts. On the one hand, it will be argued that between Sumer in the ED III period and north-west Mesopotamia there are striking parallels in the use of materials, the techniques of manufacture and the objects produced, parallels which suggest that the developments were simultaneous in both areas. On the other hand, it will be suggested that the northern products were not derivative or simply produced in tandem with those of Sumer, but that they show evidence of originality and equal participation in the process of innovation and development.

In view of the need for brevity this paper concentrates on a segment of the evidence, the weapons from the group of sites around Carchemish (Tell Kara Hassan, Serrin, Amarna and Hammam) whence Woolley obtained grave-groups by purchase in the early years of this century (Woolley, 1914; for more detailed information on the similar recovery of first millennium grave-groups from Deve Hüyük see Moorey, 1980: 1–4), from Carchemish itself (Woolley and Barnett, 1952: 218–26), and the metal objects from the hypogeum at Til Barsib (Thureau-Dangin and Dunand, 1936), the metal grave-goods from Woolley's excavations in the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Woolley, 1932) and the finds from the “A” cemetery at Kish (Mackay, 1925; Hrouda and Karstens, 1967; Moorey, 1978).

In approaching the problem of Archive keeping at Mari, it might be profitable to inspect, at the outset, the archaeological evidence. On doing so, one is immediately struck firstly by the heterogeneous arrangement of objects in storage and secondly by the apparent lack of a noticeable system in organizing the archives. A spot check of other second millennium palaces which produced appreciable quantities of texts reveals this observation to be generally applicable. In almost every major segment of the Mari palace, a cluster of chambers, really store-rooms, contained a collection of tablets, varying in size. In addition, a text or two would be uncovered here and there at unexpected quarters. For this scattering, Hammurapi's victorious troops were often blamed. This accusation is contradicted, however, by the evidence, documented with archival tags, that after its initial victory, Babylon attempted to preserve Mari's archives under a modicum of order.

In the south-east section of the palace, dubbed by Parrot as the “Eastern” and “Workshops and Store-rooms” Quarters, at least twelve chambers sheltered tablets, many of which dated to the days of Yaḫdun-Lim and his (son (?) and) successor Sūmū-Yamam. On the opposite end, tablets were found in four rooms and in one large chamber of the Administrative Quarters. More to the centre of the palace, and around the vast open courtyard no. 106, the largest proportion of tablets were stored. Rooms 115 to the east, 110 to the north-west, and 108 to the west came the closest to being strictly archival in character.

The text published as no. 394 (plates CCLXXVIII f.) in U.E.T. VI, (Second Part) is written, as there described, on a complete tablet measuring 14 × 7 cms. This tablet was found during the excavations at Ur, but in circumstances unknown, for it bears no excavation-number nor mark of any kind, and in fact can be identified henceforth (until it receives a museum-number) only by the number it bears in the aforesaid publication. This is the first obscurity of a text which abounds otherwise in that disconcerting quality.

A far more serious defect is the condition of its surface. Upon the ‘body’ of the tablet a thin overlay of finer clay seems to have been spread, and the inscription made upon this, no doubt with the view of obtaining greater clearness. The result has been unfortunate—over irregular spaces the overlay has become detached, carrying away the signs with it. Occasionally it is possible to trace a faint impression on the ‘body’ clay below, where a mark of the stilus has penetrated the overlay, but much has disappeared completely, and much of what remains is very indistinct. It has been peculiarly difficult to reproduce this text; the copy published is the last of several attempts, and is itself, no doubt, capable of improvement through younger and better eyes. A necessity experienced throughout was to adhere as faithfully as possible to what the tablet seems really to carry, i.e. in detachment, where necessary, from many partial duplicate readings which ‘ought’ to exist, and which there is a constant temptation to ‘find’ in the sadly defective lines of no. 394. For the collation of several signs in the K. tablets published in R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish, plates 27–29 I am much beholden to Dr. E. Sollberger.

Les fouilles d'Y. Calvet, membre de la mission française à Larsa dirigée par J.-L. Huot, ont mis en évidence entre 1987 et 1989 trois grandes maisons d'un quartier situé dans la partie nord-est du tell, occupé au début du 2e millénaire avant J.-C. Bien que seule la poursuite des fouilles puisse le vérifier, il s'agit d'un quartier qui se différencie des quartiers contemporains d'Ur, de Nippur, de Sippar, de Tell Halawa et de Tell Harmal. L'une des trois maisons fouillées confirme le caractère exceptionnel de ce quartier, en offrant des aspects qui la distinguent de toutes les autres demeures fouillées, non seulement sur ce site, mais également ailleurs. Ces particularités partent du plan et de l'organisation de la maison; l'analyse volumétrique a déjà fait l'objet d'une étude détaillée.

In recent numbers of this journal, P. R. S. Moorey has, as readers will remember, contributed two very useful articles, attempting to reconstruct certain operations of the Oxford (Weld)—Field Museum excavations at Kish (1923–1933), which had never till then been adequately reported. For this purpose, he had at his disposal both the interim reports published at the time and the unpublished correspondence between Langdon and Watelin, still surviving in the Ashmolean Museum, on which these reports were partly based. Of these two articles, it is perhaps the second which has proved most stimulatingly informative to Mesopotamian archaeologists, since it goes far towards clarifying vitally important stratigraphic evidence, which the excavators at the time were hardly in a position to understand. Moorey's work on the records of the Ingharra sounding had also to take into consideration a great volume of information subsequently acquired by means of comparable excavations elsewhere and a diversity of more recent archaeological studies. This would have been easier if the records themselves had been of the sort which we should today expect from a competent field director, supported by the usual specialist assistants. Instead they present a curious picture of collaboration between a French archaeologist in the field and an American philologist at Oxford. Watelin was doubtless, in Langdon's words “a great archaeologist”; but his reports, translated, interpreted and sometimes “improved on” by Langdon, are in some passages mutually contradictory and in others incomprehensible. There are no sections save for two inadequate diagrams; plans, only of selected buildings, and approximate levels are only occasionally given in feet or metres beneath an arbitrary “plain-level” or below the surface of the mound, (which naturally undulates precipitately). Unhappily Watelin died in 1934, the year in which the outstanding report was published, having made clear that he regarded it only as “an interim record of work still proceeding”.

In Plates II and III of this study three new pieces of the Etana legend are presented, and the beginning of Tablet II is described on the basis of a fragment published in another collection. The new texts are Sm 1839, 83–1–18, 489, and Sm 157 + 1134; the last-mentioned piece results from a recent join, Sm 157 by itself having been first published in R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish, pl. 54. The texts are discussed in four sections, and are concluded with some general remarks on the composition. Attention may particularly be directed to the fourth section which significantly enlarges the Etana story.

Les ziggurats sont probablement les monuments les plus caractéristiques de la Mésopotamie antique. À ce titre, elles ont fait l'objet de nombreuses études. Pour la plupart, celles-ci portent sur la fonction ou l'aspect de ces édifices. À l'heure actuelle, on ne sait toujours pas bien à quoi elles servaient ni même quel aspect elles avaient. La masse considérable de ces bâtiments a empêché que des fouilles de grande envergure y soient menées, à quelques rares exceptions près, mais on sait qu'elles se présentaient sous la forme de gigantesques tours à étages ou plus précisément d'une superposition de terrasses de taille décroissante dont la dernière était très probablement surmontée d'un temple (Fig. 1). Les bâtiments fouillés n'étant conservés que très partiellement — la ziggurat d'Ur, la mieux conservée avec celle de Tchoga Zambil, a livré une première terrasse à peu près complète et une partie de la deuxième (Fig. 2) — de nombreuses hypothèses de reconstitution s'affrontent, notamment quant au nombre et à la taille des terrasses. On ignore également quelles cérémonies avaient réellement lieu dans le temple du sommet évoqué par Hérodote pour la ziggurat de Babylone.

Le propos de la présente étude n'est ni de définir la fonction exacte de ces bâtiments, ni même d'en préciser la morphologie mais de s'intéresser uniquement à leur mode de construction et aux moyens mis en œuvre. Nous disposons, en effet, grâce aux fouilles partielles menées sur plusieurs bâtiments, d'informations concernant les techniques et les matériaux de construction. Par ailleurs, l'étude des textes nous apporte quantité de données sur les ouvriers, leur statut ou l'organisation du travail. À l'époque de la troisième dynastie d'Ur, où apparaissent les premières ziggurats, se met en place une véritable bureaucratie qui impose une standardisation non seulement des mesures (et notamment des dimensions des briques) mais également des tâches journalières demandées aux ouvriers. Cela nous permet de mettre en parallèle les données textuelles et les données archéologiques afin d'essayer de comprendre quels furent les enjeux «logistiques» liés à ces constructions et quelles furent les solutions techniques apportées. On s'en tiendra donc à une période assez courte et bien définie dans le temps marquée par l'apparition de ces bâtiments: l'époque de la troisième dynastie d'Ur.

The paper presents the edition of cuneiform tablet BM 102353, from Yorġān Tepe (ancient Nuzi). Though various scholars have examined the document, and information about its content has been partially distributed, it is the first time that copy, transliteration and thorough commentaries are provided. The text presumably was written during the fourth generation of Teḫip-Tilla's family. It is an antichretic contract in which a young girl is lent, and therefore some comments on children in the documentary evidence from the Kingdom of Arrapḫe are in order.

En 1964, pendant la première campagne de fouille entreprise en Iraq, à Tell al Rimah, par les archéologues de la Joint Expedition of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the University Museum, Philadelphia, ceux-ci découvrirent un orthostate en marbre de Mossoul en procédant au dégagement de la façade d'un temple correspondant au niveau II. Ce bloc de pierre, qui se trouvait dans un renfoncement jouxtant la porte de l'antichambre, était là en évident réemploi puisqu'il portait, sculpté en relief sur un de ses côtés, et brisé, la moitié seulement d'un visage grimaçant interprété conventionnellement, dans l'iconographie mésopotamienne, comme étant celui du géant Humbaba auquel Gilgameš se mesura victorieusement (Epopée de Gilgameš, II, 3 ss.). D. Oates, rendant compte de cette trouvaille, la commentait ainsi: “… the other half of the face had disappeared … this damage preceded its re-use in the position in which it was found for the plaster of the revetment covered both the scar and the surviving part of the mask. It is possible that the orthostat had formed part of the decoration of the original building and it may have occupied the same recess at a lower level, where the demon Humbaba might have served as guardian of the gate”.

In a note, published in 1934, on the currencies of East Syria under the Roman Empire, I described some clay tesserae from Palmyra which resemble coins in their shape and types, and suggested that they might have been used to supplement the regular metallic currency in emergencies. Some further examples of these tesserae have come to my notice, which add a few details to the account given, and a kindred group has been described in the reports of the excavations at Seleucia-on-Tigris.

The tesserae stamped with designs borrowed from official coins, in all the cases that I have seen, are copies of the types of Sidon noted in the previous article, B.M.C. 87 of the second century B.C. (Fig. 2) and B.M.C. 217 of A.D. 116/7 (Fig. 1). There are now three specimens of the former and four of the latter in the Ashmolean Museum, all from the same dies: they seem to have been produced by a process which resembled striking from dies rather than moulding.

The ruins of Pird-i Kinachan, “the Maiden's Bridge”, are situated on the left bank of the river Sirwan, to the south-west of Halabja. The purpose of this article is to document the remains of this bridge, which are no longer accessible since they have been submerged in the reservoir of Darband-i Khan, and thereby to assist future investigations in the region to identify the location of the city of Shahrizur and other cities which flourished in the plain of Shahrizur during the Abbasid period.

The existence of these ruins was first reported by Čirikov, on whose account Minorsky depended in writing: “A Sassanian bridge on the Sirwan defended by the fortress of Shamiran indicates the line of communication between Qasr-i Shirin and Nim-rah”. Sirwan is the name of the upper part of the Diyala river, from the Darband-i Khan gorge eastwards; Shamiran is the mountainous district which extends from the Sirwan southwards and from the Zimkan river westwards (see accompanying map, Plate XXXII); Nim-rah or Nim-az-rah is the other ancient name of Shahrizur, with the meaning “half-way”, which refers to its position between Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians, and Shiz, the city in Adharbaijan which housed their main fire temple.

Edmonds mentions the bridge by its nam e Pird-i Kinachan, but he did not see it. During his visit to the land of the Kakais, which extends to the east and south-east of Halabja, he did however see the remains of two other bridges: one of these is near the village Kosawa, about 25 km. upstream from Pird-i Kinachan, and the other is 15 km. further east and referred to as Pird-i Kurhan, “the Young Men's Bridge.” He was able to see four piers of the former, from a distance, and five of the latter.

One of many distinguished contributions to Near Eastern archaeology made by Professor Sir Max Mallowan has been the investigation of Late Assyrian Nimrud. Thus it would seem fitting to dedicate to him this small note on a type of object previously unidentified in Assyria, from Late Assyrian Rimah.

The Late Assyrian settlement at Tell al Rimah was of a provincial nature and in no way comparable with contemporary cities in the Tigris valley. That it was a centre of some local importance, however, can be seen from the fittings of a shrine built about 800 B.C. high on the north-west side of the central tell, and cut into the ruins of the great temple and high terrace that had dominated the town a thousand years earlier; the discovery and description of these buildings has been reported in previous numbers of this journal. Undoubtedly the outstanding single find from the later shrine is the limestone stele of Adadnirari II I (Iraq 30, Plate XXXVIII). In addition, beside the doorway leading to the cella were found in situ two limestone orthostats, each in the shape of a lion's head spitting out the blade of a dagger (Iraq 30, Plate XXXVII). Scars in the black plaster above them suggested that they had originally supported engaged pilasters. A second pair of similar orthostats was also recovered in debris outside the temple doorway. These discoveries together with a number of small votive offerings found in the cella have been described in the earlier report. Th e purpose of this article is to publish several pottery objects, in particular a group of large “offering stands”, which were also found in the cella and represent a type apparently well-known in the third and second millennia B.C. but not previously recovered in a Late Assyrian context.

Among the tablets from Sippar in the British Museum catalogued by E. Leichty, four unidentified prism fragments were found. Fragments of two of these had earlier been rejoined and copied by Pinches. All four prism fragments come from relatively small five-sided prisms and are written in neo-Babylonian script. The prisms share features that suggest they may be fragments or duplicates of the same or very similar inscriptions: appearance and orthography (texts 1 and 2); identical lines and columns showing third-person verbal forms (texts 2 and 4); and similar closing sections (texts 1 and 3). Transliterated and translated below, the texts of the prism fragments are not identifiable as duplicating in style or content any other known inscription of an Assyrian king. They are for this reason interesting.

1. BM 56617 (87–7–14, 996b + 1815), joined and copied by Pinches, is the largest of the fragments published here. The records of the British Museum state that the prism fragment comes from Aboo-Habba (Sippar). The fragment preserves four of its five faces; the top and bottom of the prism are broken away. The preserved portion of column i begins with the usual opening titles of the king and thus the missing portion above–at least 5 lines–probably contained an invocation to a deity. The prism should probably be assigned to Esarhaddon, although his name does not appear in the inscription, because of the appearance of Sennacherib's name as the first name in the genealogy that follows the king's titles.

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.