The 2003–2006 Suburban Survey at Tell Brak investigated the spatial dimensions of the city's urban origins and evolution via intensive systematic surface survey. This report places this research in the broader context of research on Near Eastern urban origins and development, describes the survey and remote sensing methods and summarises the results, which challenge several long-held models for the timing and geographical origins of urbanism in the Near East. Urbanism at Brak coalesced over the course of several centuries in the late fifth and early fourth millennia BC, when it evolved from a series of spatially discrete settlement zones into a 130-hectare city, without the benefit of irrigated agriculture. Other urban phases occurred in the late third millennium (70 hectare) and in the Late Bronze Age (45 hectare), all with different urban morphologies. Brak's final settlement occurred in the Abbasid period, when a 14-hectare town grew around the Castellum. In addition to the timing, growth and variability of urban form at the site, the Suburban Survey also documented well preserved off-site ancient landscapes of tracks, field systems and irrigation canals.

The 2001 excavations in Area H on Hamoukar's lower town produced a wealth of information on a residential neighbourhood of a late third-millennium BC city. The excavations were intended to address several issues, including chronology, urban form and the final abandonment of the site. Toward these ends, a broad exposure of over 400 m2 was opened, revealing a prosperous neighbourhood that had been sacked and abruptly abandoned. This report addresses two aspects, its architecture and ceramic assemblage, in detail. The architecture demonstrates broadly shared principles in spatial patterning and planning, as well as similarities in construction, with variations connected to socioeconomic status. The ceramics represent a snapshot of the assemblage of the late or post-Akkadian period, including many whole or reconstructable forms. Contrary to the expectations of abrupt climatic change models, Hamoukar remained settled and urbanised after the proposed 2200 BC Akkadian collapse, and its abandonment was the result of a sudden and violent military event.

This article discusses the two main royal palaces constructed in Kalḫu during the ninth century: Ashurnasirpal II's Northwest Palace and Shalmaneser III's Military Palace. Through a re-examination of the architecture of both palaces, it will be argued that the two were more alike than has been commonly assumed. The military nature of the Military Palace did not preclude the presence of most types of spaces that were already present in the Northwest Palace. By discussing the differences and similarities between the kinds of spaces, decoration and spatial organisation found in each palace this article tries to offer a new analysis of both, and of the nature of Late Assyrian royal palaces more broadly.

Scholars had once assumed that all of the relief programmes in Sennacherib's “Palace Without Rival” at Nineveh depicted events solely from his first three military campaigns. In 1994, however, E. Frahm successfully reconstructed a heavily damaged epigraph from the throne room specifically identifying the city of Ukku as the topic of the relief programme on Slabs 1–4 of this room's western wall. We know from Sennacherib's annals that Ukku was a target of the king's fifth campaign, aimed at enemies to the north of the Assyrian heartland in the Zagros mountain range. I have therefore re-examined the palace reliefs in order to identify other fifth-campaign programmes that have previously been overlooked. In this article, I argue that Rooms XXXVIII and XLVIII, in addition to the images on the western wall of the throne room, contain representations of Sennacherib's fifth campaign. With this identification substantiated, I then explore the typological aspects of these fifth-campaign programmes to classify their visual features.

This article presents new editions of three Old Babylonian wisdom texts. Text A contains dialogues between different professionals and their customers(?), Text B is a dialogue between a friend and his fellow, and Text C contains several riddles. All three texts are poorly preserved and the interpretation is tentative in many points.

This article re-examines the cuneiform evidence for the upper end of the Old Babylonian metrological systems for capacity and area. We demonstrate that the reading 1(šar2) gal šu nu-tag “one large šar2 that the hand cannot touch” is not supported by that evidence, and show instead that the phrase's final sign is not tag but gi4 “return” or “repeat”. We then consider several likely interpretations of this reading, arguing that the size of the largest units in both systems is probably sixty times smaller than previously assumed, but nevertheless more than adequate for practical needs. Editions of two important metrological cuneiform texts are appended.

Middle Assyrian texts have a phrase ṭuppa ṣab¯atu, which is usually understood to mean “to take (possession of) a tablet”. There is a corresponding type of tablet called a ṭuppu ṣabittu (plural (ṭuppatu ṣabbutātu). This article contends that ṭuppa ṣabātu is a technical term for drawing up a formal document, and that ṭuppu ṣabittu is a “formally drawn-up tablet”, normally if not invariably involving at least one seal impression, used both in private commercial contexts and in public administration. It is further maintained that this usage survives into Neo-Assyrian times, when its most frequent (but not exclusive) usage is at the end of a legal document where a witness (often identified as a scribe) is described as ṣābit ṭuppi: this has been understood to mean that this scribe retained possession of the document, or that a third party “kept” the document. In the light of the fresh Middle Assyrian evidence, it is preferable to see it as referring to the scribe “who drew up the document”.

The text of úru àm-ma-ir-ra-bi, the longest extant Sumerian balaĝ-lament, is in the process of recovery and reconstruction from Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform tablets. This article presents a previously unpublished Babylonian tablet fragment that holds part of the composition's hitherto unknown eleventh tablet. The fragment also contains part of the catchline to the twelfth tablet, also unidentified until now, and is thus an important source for the reconstruction of úru àm-ma-ir-ra-bi.

This article studies a small Late Babylonian tablet inscribed with a drawing previously interpreted as showing a ziqqurrat. It is demonstrated that the tablet does not depict a whole ziqqurrat but most probably only a stairway to the first level of a ziqqurrat. The stairway is of a previously unknown type but there are parallels with the ziqqurrat of Ur-Namma at Ur.

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.

Lack of archaeological and comparative ethnographic data has limited our ability to interpret textual information that refers to ancient Mesopotamian irrigation works. This paper presents ethnographic data from modern Iraq regarding the construction, use and maintenance of a traditional irrigation system. Because traditional construction methods make use of organic materials similar to those available in the past, the data presented in this paper are considered to provide a set of analogies that can assist the interpretation of textual evidence and hence lead to a better understanding of irrigation practices in ancient Mesopotamia.