The Akkadian Period has not received the archaeological attention it deserves, despite its great historical and artistic importance. Excavated remains from the period have been more extensively reported from Syria, at such sites as Tell Brak, than from the core area of southern Iraq. The artifactual assemblage is still ill-defined, in part due to delays in the final publication of crucial excavations, including our own work at Umm al-Hafriyat and Tepe al-Atiqeh. A full assessment of the Akkadian Period also has been hindered to a significant degree, however, by errors in the dating of strata and artifacts at the key sites of Tell Asmar and Khafajah in the Diyala (see Gibson 1982), which have resulted, at these and other sites, in the disguising of early Akkadian material under the terms Protoimperial and Early Dynastic IIIB.

The excavators of the critical sequence of the Northern Palace at Tell Asmar originally assumed that the main level of the palace was pre-Akkadian because of its plano-convex bricks (Frankfort 1933: pp. 34 ff.); but subsequently they assigned this level, correctly, to the Akkadian Period (Frankfort 1934: pp. 29–39). Seton Lloyd, in his manuscript for the final monograph, maintained an Akkadian dating for the main level of the building but was persuaded to allow the date to be changed to Protoimperial for the publication (Delougaz, Hill, and Lloyd 1967: pp. 181–196). Lloyd has continued to discuss the main level of the Northern Palace as an Akkadian Period building in his own books (e.g. Lloyd 1978: p. 141). Having read the Lloyd manuscript and having witnessed the process of editorial change from the vantage point of an editorial assistant, M. Gibson was aware as early as 1963 that there were some difficulties in the interpretation of the Diyala stratigraphy, especially in the zone of transition from Early Dynastic to Akkadian.

Three chisels (Fig. 1), excavated by Woolley (1934) in the 1920s from an Early Dynastic III grave at Ur, and now in the British Museum, were believed to be made of solid gold. Recently, however, it was noticed that the gold surface was blistering in places, revealing coppery coloured metal beneath, suggesting that they were gilded.

The chisels were from a very rich grave (PG 800), known as “the Queen's Grave”. It is attributed to Queen Pu-abi (in the original excavation report her name was mistakenly transcribed as Shub-ad) and dated to c. 2600 BC. Five chisels U. 10429–33 were found with a gold saw behind a large steatite bowl which contained various copper tools. Part of the material from this grave is now in the British Museum. Other items are in the University Museum, Philadelphia, including two of the gold chisels and the gold saw, and in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad. The purpose of these gold tools has never been fully explained; presumably they were symbolic rather than functional. The two small chisels in the British Museum appear to have had handles and the excavation report lists rings of gold binding (U. 10443) as “probably belonging to their [the gold tools] handles” (Woolley 1934, p. 81). Bitumen and wood handles were found on copper chisels from Ur. The larger chisel is burnished all over and appears not to have been hafted. A small chisel (U.9130) and spearhead (U.9122) from another grave (PG 580) were also examined (Figs. 2 and 4). The tools are here referred to by their Ur excavation numbers, as in Woolley's report. The British Museum Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities registration numbers are given in the concordance below.

Seal-cutter's trial-pieces present a rarity among Mesopotamian artifacts. To my knowledge the only example apart from the trial-pieces found by C. L. Woolley at Diqdiqqeh and Ur was for decades in a Swiss private collection and is now in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin (Figs. 4b and 5).

Though trial-pieces are, like moulds, engraved in intaglio they exhibit three distinct features: form, material and a lack of proficiency of many engravings (Figs. 1–5). Most have irregular contours and uneven surfaces; of the fourteen trial-pieces twelve are limestone or calcite and two potsherds. Although some surfaces are smoothed or polished, they show scratches and indentures, and one piece has a drill-hole on the roughly hewn back. The pieces look like leftovers from or parts of broken objects. Thus material for trial-pieces was only available in, or in proximity to workshops where leftovers from larger stone objects would be available to seal-cutters. Many figures on the trial-pieces demonstrate that the seal-cutter was not very accomplished (Figs. 1f, 2b, 3), two are skillfully executed by a master (Figs. 2a, 4a); most, however, are of average quality (Figs, 1a–d, 2c, 5), evidence for a workshop with masters and apprentices. The rarity of trial-pieces suggests that most seal-cutters trained on cylinders.

Of the provenanced trial-pieces all but one, which comes from the Gipar in Ur, were found at Diqdiqqeh. According to the excavators Diqdiqqeh, situated one mile south-east of the city wall of Ur, developed into an artisans' quarter starting with the Ur III period. The surface of this suburb was scattered with ruins of houses and numerous seals, terracottas, amulets and beads. Proportionally these were more numerous than at Ur, which could only be explained by the location of workshops in this area.

Ellis (1967) identified a discrete group of Mesopotamian foundation deposits, the central identifying feature in each being a clay figurine of Papsukkal = Ninshubur wearing a horned cap and long robe and holding a staff. The earliest example of such an assemblage noted by Ellis (1967, 52 Table I No. 1, 53) was the collection of objects found embedded in an altar in a construction phase of the Temple of Ningal at Ur dated by its excavator to the Kassite period (Woolley: 1939, 53–65, Pl. 73). Ellis (ibid.) accepted a Kassite date for the deposit, but did raise the possibility that a later date was equally acceptable. Similar doubts as to the Kassite date of the deposit were highlighted by Rittig (1977, 20–1, 41). As the earliest example of a ritual activity that saw its floruit in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., it is important that the date of the Temple of Ningal group be correctly established. In this paper I attempt to demonstrate that the group post-dates the Kassite Period and is more probably eighth or seventh century B.C. in date.

The Temple of Ningal (Fig. 1)

Introducing his discussion of the results of his excavations on the Temple of Ningal Woolley (1939, 53) noted:

It is probable that there had always been a temple of Ningal on the south-east of the Ziggurat terrace though, it must be admitted, the material evidence of an early building is very scanty. Between the time of the Third Dynasty and of the fourteenth century B.C. there had been no rise of ground level; the best foundation offered to a new builder was the solid bedding of mudbrick laid by Ur-Nammu, and it is natural enough that the Kassite architect should have made a clean sweep of any ruins of older work that might have encumbered his site, and the more so as the building he contemplated was, so far as we can judge, of a novel plan.

The “Palace without Rival” at Nineveh, built by the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681 BC), was excavated by Austen Henry Layard in two campaigns in the mid-nineteenth century. The results of the first campaign, in May and June 1847, were published in considerable detail in Nineveh and its Remains (1849). The results of the second, from October 1849 to April 1851, were reported in less detail in Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853).

Among the Layard Papers in the British Library are the unpublished notes that served as the basis for the published reports. The notes for the first campaign, in Add. Ms. 39076, fol. 43–54, are in the form of a full narrative account, penned in Layard's best hand. The notes for the second campaign are preserved in two versions. The earlier is a rough incomplete account in two of Layard's pocket notebooks. The first covers the period 17 October to 13 November 1850 (Add. Ms. 39089C, fol. 6–12) and includes notes on Rooms E, I to S, V, Y, and DD (the latter mistakenly labelled “FF” in the notebook). The second notebook, which covers 5 December 1850 to 26 April 1851 (Add. Ms. 39089E, fol. 29v–34v), records Rooms GG, II to LL, part of MM (mislabelled “PP”), SS to WW, YY, AAA, and DDD to OOO. These are very rough field notes, sketchy and almost illegible. The later set of notes from the second campaign (Add. Ms. 39077, fol. 75r–79v) is more complete, covering Rooms I to OOO, all of the rooms excavated during that campaign. This account, which must have been compiled after the close of the excavation, is apparently based in part on the notes in the pocket notebooks. It includes a number of additional rooms, however — T, U, W, X, Z, AA, BB, CC, EE, FF, MM (full description), NN to RR, XX, BBB, and CCC — and therefore it may also have drawn on field notes that have not yet been identified. Unlike the field notes, it is written fairly legibly and in complete sentences, in the same manner as the report of the first campaign.

A second season of a new programme of excavations at Tell Brak in northeastern Syria took place from mid-March to late May 1995. Our sincere gratitude for continuing support goes especially to the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, in particular in Damascus to the Director-General, Professor Dr Sultan Muhesen, the Director of Excavations, Dr Adnan Bounni, and to all their colleagues who assisted us in many ways. We also thank Sd Jean Lazare of the Antiquities Office in Hasake and Sd Ass'ad Mahmud of Der ez-Zor Museum. Our representative was again Sd Hussein Yusuf who provided invaluable assistance in all aspects of our work, for which we are very grateful. Funding was generously provided by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, and the British Academy, to all of whom sincere thanks are expressed.

The excavation team in 1995 comprised Dr Roger Matthews (excavations director), Ms Helen McDonald (registrar and pottery specialist), Professor Farouk al-Rawi (epigraphist and archaeologist), Dr Susan Colledge (palaeobotanist and environmentalist), Dr Keith Dobney (zooarchaeologist), Dr Wendy Matthews (micromorphologist), Ms Fiona Macalister (conservator), Ms Kim Duistermaat, Mr Geoffrey Emberling, Mr Nicholas Jackson, Mr Tom Pollard (archaeologists), Ms Amy Emberling and Mr Jake Emberling (camp support).

Textile fragments from the excavation of royal graves at Nimrud in 1988–89 (see Iraq 51 (1989), p. 259) may at first appear disappointing. After the magnificent array of gold jewellery, these scraps may seem of very minor interest, but though technically limited, their original fine execution can still be recognised as befitting a royal burial. The burials probably date to the second half of the eighth century BC.

The queen's body inside the bronze coffin of Tomb 2 was covered with what first appeared to be a solid layer of brittle dark brown wood, but on examination patterns of threads and weave structures could be identified in many areas. The colour varied, different layers being slightly tinged with purple and red, and careful separation by Kathryn Tubb in the Institute of Archaeology Conservation laboratory revealed different styles and qualities of woven cloth. Lines, which at first suggested to the eye the graining of fine wood, proved to be folds, in some areas probably fine pleating or goffering, and it was clear that a mass of delicate fabrics had been present, clothing and wrapping the body, or lying piled up over it (Fig. 5).

It is typical of Mesopotamian studies that periods well supplied with documentary evidence are frequently those for which archaeological evidence is least reliable. Such is the case with the earlier part of the second millennium B.C. (Porada et al. 1992: p. 119). While the situation has improved somewhat as a result of several recent publications (Gasche 1989; Hill et al. 1989; Kepinski-Lecomte 1992), many gaps remain. The paucity of reliable data from Mesopotamia has certainly hindered attempts to understand relationships between that area and the often better documented material cultures of neighbouring regions.

The present report represents an attempt to tackle one aspect of these problems by presenting a group of metal weapons of secure north Mesopotamian provenance, which can be reliably dated to the early second millennium B.C., the Old Babylonian period in particular. The material presented here is the first substantial assemblage of Mesopotamian weapons of this date to be published.

The earliest agricultural settlements in the al-Ḥajar region of southeastern Arabia were large, well-planned centres with a sophisticated and varied architecture. Because of their close environmental relationship with the al-Ḥajar mountain range and in order to distinguish them from the late 3rd millennium buildings and tombs of the type initially discovered and excavated on the island of Umm an-Nar, I have named these first settlements the al-Ḥajar oasis towns. To date, al-Ḥajar oasis towns have been identified at the sites of al-Khashbah, Firq, Bisyā, al-Ghubra, ʿAmlā, Bāt, Hili and Bidya, but there is every reason to believe that they also existed at Ṭawī Sim and Maysar, and at locations in Wadi Jizzi, Wadi Tayin, Wadi ʿAndām and Wadi Ḥalfayn (Fig. 1).

Associated with the ruins of the al-Ḥajar oasis towns are extensive cemeteries of Beehive tombs. These well-built funerary structures, usually circular or oval in plan, have a single, paved, corbelled chamber, encompassed by one or two contiguous walls of carefully selected, skilfully laid, flattish limestones. Their beehive shape is formed by spanning the gap at the top of the corbelling with large, flat stones and piling more flat stones on top of these to form a domed superstructure (Fig. 2a–b). While generally similar in appearance as a class, the Beehive tombs may nevertheless vary in size, in the number of their walls, in the shape of the entrance (which may be triangular, wedge-shaped or rectangular) and in whether features such as external plinths or kerbstones are present. It remains to be determined whether these variations have any social, regional or chronological significance.

Of all figures seen in Mesopotamian art, the naked or kilted human male figure with curls of hair on either side of his face is one of the most familiar. A form of this figure was portrayed already in the Jemdet Nasr period; he became common in Early Dynastic III, and particularly in the Akkadian period, after which he was less popular, though he was revived from time to time, probably until Achaemenid times. Since the early identification with Gilgamesh has been abandoned, he has been referred to by many names: the “six-locked hero”, “wild man”, “naked hero”, or whatever. Long ago Erich Ebeling cited evidence that his Akkadian name was talīmu, the “twin”. F. A. M. Wiggermann, in his article “Exit talim!”, and later in his valuable book Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, has argued that this familiar figure was instead referred to in Akkadian, at least in the first millennium B.C., as laḫmu, the “hairy one”, the “Hairy”. This identification has been accepted by numerous other scholars.

Wiggermann presents the following evidence for his identification (listed from the most general to the most specific, rather than in Wiggermann's own order):

1. Lexical evidence to show that the root lḫm means “to be hairy”, and that the noun laḫmu means “the hairy one”.

2. Various citations of the noun laḫmu that in general are consistent with the identification.

3. A very specific association of the term and the image in the Neo-Assyrian texts which prescribe the preparing of figurines to be buried in houses and palaces for protection against evil spirits. This evidence is the same as was used by Ebeling for his identification of the “wild man” as talīmu, which Wiggermann wishes to discredit.

O Ashur, great lord! O Adad, great lord! The lot of Yahalu, the great masennu of Shalmaneser, King of Ashur; Governor of Kipshuni, Qumeni, Mehrani, Uqi, the cedar mountain; Minister of Trade. In his eponymate, his lot, may the crops of Assyria prosper and flourish! In front of Ashur and Adad may his lot fall!

Millard (1994: frontispiece, pp. 8–9) has recently published new photographs and an annotated edition of YBC 7058, a terracotta cube with an inscription relating to the eponymate of Yahalu under Shalmaneser III. Much ink has already been spilled on account of this cube, most usefully by Hallo (1983), but certain points require emphasis or clarification.

The object, pūru, is a “lot”, not a “die”. Nonetheless the shape of the object inevitably suggests the idea of a true six-sided die, and perhaps implies that selections of this kind were originally made using numbered dice, with one number for each of six candidates. If so, it is possible that individual lots were introduced when more than six candidates began to be eligible for the post of limmu. The use of the word pūru as a synonym for limmu in some texts, including this one, must indicate that eponyms were in some way regarded as having been chosen by lot.

Lots can of course be drawn in a multitude of ways. Published suggestions favour the proposal that lots were placed in a narrow-necked bottle and shaken out one by one, an idea that seems to have originated with W. von Soden (see Hallo 1983: 21). The new photograph shows clearly that the last line reads, not li-l[i]-a, as given by Millard, but li-d[a]-a, i.e. liddâ, “fall”, as proposed by Hallo.

The intention of this article is to continue the process of comparing modern archaeological data relating to Babylon and its buildings with the ancient written sources. Previous work has produced results for the topography of the city, particularly the location of the city's gates, quarters and temples, and has achieved some success with two individual structures, namely the temple of Marduk under the mound Amran ibn Ali, and the eastern city wall at its junction with the river defences to the south of the same mound. A newly published text adds considerably to the textual material avail able for study of the cult-centre of Marduk, so that it is useful once again to go back inside E-sagil (E-sangil).

Given the exalted position of Marduk's temple at Babylon as the supreme sanctuary of Babylonia in the first millennium, it is no surprise that there survives a relatively large number of documentary sources which shed light on this building, its ground-plan and its interior. These include building inscriptions, of course, but such texts are not informative about lay-out so much as the work undertaken. Rituals are also useful, in that they sometimes describe the progress of processions in temples, but the most rewarding texts for those who would wish to know more about the ground-plan of the temple, its architecture and cultic fixtures and fittings, are: a) metrological texts which give measurements of temples, and b) “topographical” and other texts which list the ceremonial names of shrines, gates, throne-daises and other cultic fixtures and fittings.

To the memory of the library's excavator,
my good friend Walid al-Jadir

As reported in Iraq 49, four tablets of the bilingual version of Lugale, the myth of Ninurta, were excavated in the library of Šamaš's temple at Sippar: complete manuscripts of Tablets I, III and IX, and a fragment of Tablet XIII. All the tablets have brief colophons, three of which identify the owner of the tablet as Nabû-ēṭir-napšāti, a member of the Potter family (Paḫāru), who is known from other colophons as the son of one Marduk-šuma-uṣur. They all come from niche 3 A.

The tablets are given here in copy, photograph and transliteration. The transliterations are based on a first draft made directly from the original tablets in 1986, the year that they were discovered. The copies are provisional, having been traced from the photographs, which, with the transliterations, must be regarded as the primary witnesses to the cuneiform. Collations were made from a different set of photographs, not published here, which became available after the copies were made. Such collations are marked in the text with an asterisk.

Since the text of the Tablets given here was already fundamentally complete in the Old Babylonian version when the myth as a whole was last edited, there is no call for a fresh translation. Where the new sources add significantly to our knowledge is in filling out the often extensive lacunae of the bilingual version, especially in Tablets III and IX. The changes in the Sumerian text that seem to have been engendered by the exercise of furnishing it with an Akkadian translation are a matter which needs to be tackled with reference to the whole text, and a topic which cannot be addressed at length here. Nevertheless, some commentary on these and other points has been provided by A. R. George and follows the transliterated text as an appendix.

The tablet IM 124645 was excavated in 1986 in niche 3 A of the library. It offers a version of an incantation from Tablet III of Mīs pî, the series of rituals that accompanied the restoration and re-animation of divine statues. In the incantation a purification priest requests the gods Ea, Šamaš and Asalluḫi to “determine the destiny” of the divine statue so that it may be provided with a mouth to eat and ears to hear. Our knowledge of this incantation is slightly improved by the discovery of the new manuscript.

In addition, IM 124645 clarifies our understanding of a tablet from Hama inscribed with a longer version of the incantation. By virtue of the subscript of the Hama tablet, ana lumun(ḫ ul) ṣēri(m u š), “against the evil portended by a snake”, this incantation was considered by its editor, translators and others to be a n a m . b ú r. b i. The incantation is catalogued by W. R. Mayer as Ea, Šamaš, Marduk/Asalluḫi l b. Mayer lists as duplicates the two Kuyunjik fragments, Sm 290 and Sm 1414. Of these two pieces the former is clearly Mīs pî, and duplicates the beginning of the incantation (Sm 290 rev. 6′–10′ // IM 124645 1–4). The latter piece, still unpublished, duplicates slightly more of the text (Sm 1414 1′–8′ // IM 124645 1–7), indeed enough to show that, like IM 124645, it lacks the section characterized by verbs in the 2nd person pl. (Hama 7–11). Thus Sm 1414 joins IM 124645 as a second published source for the shorter version of the incantation, while the Hama tablet remains, for the moment, the sole certain witness to the longer version. Sm 290 is too barely preserved to be sure which version it held.