This article presents a unique cylinder seal found at the site of Tell Abu al-Dhahab, in the Iraqi marshes. The cylinder seal, made of alabaster, is dated to the First Sealand Dynasty period and contains a scene with an introduction to a seated deity. It is accompanied by an inscription identifying the father of its owner as the overseer of the incantation priests. The aim of the article is both to discuss the cylinder seal, but also contextualize it within the temple where it was found and the period to which it is dated.

The Neo-Assyrian site Šibaniba (modern Tell Billa) served as a provincial center at the very edge of what is traditionally known as the “Assyrian Heartland”. Excavations in the early 1900s under Dr. Speiser of the University of Pennsylvania uncovered architecture in the southwestern portion of the mound, but a loss of records and lack of publication have prevented any comprehensive publications or analysis of the archaeological material. The architecture from Level I in the southwest corner is the remains of a palace from the latter half of the Neo-Assyrian period – comprised of an inner, paved courtyard and surrounding rooms. The analysis of this palace complex is carried out herein, with a discussion of its positioning and importance, especially during Nineveh's tenure as imperial capital. Overall, Šibaniba, despite being located so close to the Heartland, was an important administrative center in its own right – illustrated by a restructuring of the citadel's organization in the later Neo-Assyrian period and its inclusion in Sennacherib's irrigation program.

SAA 18 100 (ABL 1091) is a cuneiform text that has been at the heart of historical reconstructions of the assassination of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, since it was first properly studied by S. Parpola in 1979. In 2005, J. C. Fincke discovered a new fragment of the document (28-3-23 [K.21923]) and joined it to the then known fragment (80-7-19, 28). Fincke's join offers the opportunity to study the tablet anew. We present the first full scholarly edition of the fragments and a new historical interpretation of the text that challenges the accepted understanding of its date, nature, content, and the information it provides on the assassination of Sennacherib. SAA 18 100 appears to be an archival copy of a letter originally sent to Nineveh that reported on matters concerning the Assyrian court heard in Babylonia. The best-preserved report concerns a supposed plot looking to frame the king's son, Urdu-Mullissu, in a conspiracy, and might be a product of the pro-Esarhaddon machinations of the royal court during the final years of Sennacherib's reign.

This short letter of Samsu-iluna (1749–1712 B.C), king of Babylon, is preserved in the Slemani Museum, along with a number of other Old Babylonian documents. The article gives a brief overview of the letters of Samsu-iluna. The short letter appears to be addressed to one Ipqu-Gula, who may be a šassukkum-official (the head of the cadastre-office) from Isin. The article presents a copy, transliteration, translation of and commentary on this cuneiform document, which adds to the small number of letters sent directly by Samsu-iluna that are currently available.

Several so-called Distanzangaben (lit. “designations of distance”), found in Assyrian inscriptions, record time spans between events (mainly building activities) of Assyrian rulers. Such chronological data have mostly been studied as entities (for purposes of absolute chronology), and only rarely with regard to their composition. While some of the Distanzangaben can be explained as mere summations of the regnal years recorded in the Assyrian King List, others remain enigmatic. The present article attempts to trace the composition of every Distanzangabe. For those compiled by Tiglath-pileser I and Esarhaddon, ideological purposes seem to be implied. The one compiled by Sennacherib sheds light on the chronology of Tiglath-pileser I's campaigns.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the long-standing topographical enigma of the identification of Gaugamela. In this study, a GIS method known as viewshed analysis is employed to solve a certain historical problem.1 According to ancient sources, on the eve of the battle the approaching Macedonian army and the Persian troops that were waiting on the battlefield could not see each other because of intervening hills at a distance of c. 12 km. However, the two armies gained a full view of their respective positions once the Macedonians reached the hills c. six km away from the Persian positions. Our analysis shows that the identification of the battlefield near Tell Gomel, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, is consistent with the visibility requirements of the ancient sources, while the previous identifications of the battlefield in the vicinity of Karamleis and Qaraqosh (Stein 1942; Sushko 1936; Zouboulakis 2015, 2016) feature poor results in terms of expected visibility.

The ancient city of Nigin in the State of Lagash is largely attested in the epigraphic sources of the rulers of the First Dynasty of Lagash. Conversely, the archaeological evidence of the Early Dynastic Period is so far very scanty and limited. This paper presents a small group of documents to be dated to the Early Dynastic Period IIIb that were found out of context, but that nevertheless point to a phase of occupation of Nigin in the third millennium BC and are coherent with the information we already know about history of the city and the State of Lagash.

Kani Shaie is a small archaeological site in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, centrally located in the Bazian Basin, a narrow valley at the western edge of the Zagros Mountains along the major route between Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah. Its main mound was inhabited almost continuously from the fifth to the middle of the third millennium, c. 5000–2500 B.C.E. This period of Mesopotamian prehistory, corresponding to the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, witnessed major transformations such as initial urbanism and intensification of interregional interaction networks. The recent resurgence of fieldwork in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is beginning to reveal local trajectories that do not always match the established chronological framework, which is largely based on changes in ceramic technology and styles observed in northern Mesopotamia. Here, we discuss the ceramic sequence retrieved from a step trench at Kani Shaie spanning the entire Late Chalcolithic (c. 4600–3100 B.C.E.). A bottom-up approach to potting traditions at the site allows an initial assessment of the relationship between local communities in the Zagros foothills and large-scale developments in the Mesopotamian world. We argue that the evidence from Kani Shaie reflects a long process in which different communities of practice made active choices of adopting, adapting, or rejecting non-local cultural practices.

More than eight decades have passed since Edmonds's introduction to the rock-cut Tomb of Qizqapan, yet there are still ambiguities and questions regarding a number of aspects, specifically its dating. Different dates from the Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian periods have been proposed for this monument. However, out of all the proposed eras, none has been fully accepted by the majority of archaeologists, and disagreements regarding the date still continue. This article reviews and analyses previous proposals and discusses and evaluates other elements which affect the dating of this monument. The results show that by taking into account several factors, the most probable date for this tomb is the fourth century B.C., contemporaneous with the late Achaemenid and the early Seleucid period. The conclusion is that Qizqapan does have a Median identity but not a Median period date.

Building on recent advances in the field of Neo- and Late Babylonian medicine, this paper presents the edition and thorough analysis of two unpublished medical tablets from the collections of the British Museum (BM 30918 and BM 31071). In the first part, the archival and social context of these tablets will be explored, while also reporting on findings about how they might fit into the larger corpus of Late Babylonian medical texts. The two tablets are published in the second part of the paper. The aim of this paper is to illustrate that the discussed tablets contribute a lot to our understanding of how medicine as a scientific field worked in the latter half of the first millennium B.C.E. It advances further and draws up more comprehensively the thesis about the “personalisation” of medical knowledge, put forward only recently in the scholarly literature. In addition, it also collects evidence that ties Itti-Marduk-balāṭu, an important member of the Egibi family, to the craft of incantation priests (āšipūtu); this person has so far been known mostly for his activity as a businessman.

The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) investigates settlement and land use from the Neolithic to the present in the Erbil Governorate of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which includes a large portion of the core of the Assyrian Empire. In seven field seasons, it has documented a broad settlement landscape in a region of great social and political importance, especially in the Bronze and Iron Ages, including 728 archaeological sites. Its field methodology combines traditional surface collection with the use of historical aerial and satellite photographs, mobile GIS, and UAV (drone) photogrammetry. Preliminary results show some unexpected patterns: a high density of culturally Uruk settlements in the fourth millennium B.C., variable urban morphologies in the Early Bronze Age; and large but low-density settlements at the end of the Sasanian period or the early Islamic period. The project is explicitly testing several hypotheses about centralized Neo-Assyrian landscape planning in the imperial core. These hypotheses appear to be confirmed, although the situation was more complex than in surrounding provinces, probably due to the longer history of continuous settlement.

This article presents a new absolute chronology for the archaeological site of Abu Salabikh, Southern Iraq, during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. The main goals of this study were to synchronise the sequences of the West and Main Mounds, corroborating the dating schemes based on archaeological and textual finds, and assigning an absolute date to the transition between Uruk and Early Dynastic (ED) periods. Previously published dates and newly produced 14C measurements were used in tandem with Bayesian statistical models to arrive at more precise time estimates. Some inconsistencies in the results point to possible disturbance of the archaeological sequence in the context of tannur kilns and highlight the need for careful sample collection and selection methodology. The results suggest a hiatus in settlement between the Uruk and ED periods c. 3000 BC, and confirm the date of c. 2650-2500 BC for the Early Dynastic ED IIIa Fara-style texts.