The third season of excavations at Tell al Rimah lasted from March 1st to May 30th, 1966. It was sponsored jointly by the University Museum, Philadelphia, and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, assisted by grants from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels. The staff included Dr. Theresa H. Carter (Assistant Director), Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey S. Trik (architect and draughtsman), Mr. David Crownover and Miss Mary Ellen Didier (archaeologists) of the University Museum; Professor D. J. Wiseman and Miss Barbara Parker (epigraphists), Miss Elizabeth Dowman (registrar and conservator of finds), Messrs. Julian Reade, Geoffrey Turner and John Bellingham (archaeologists) of the British School. Sayyid Yasin Mahmud was the Representative of the Directorate General of Antiquities and gave valuable help with the recording of the dig in addition to his task of writing the Arabic catalogue. We were fortunate to have the assistance for shorter periods of Mr. Anthony Robertson-Pearce with the photography and Dr. Richard Adrian with the surveying, and Dr. Claudio Vita-Finzi of London University visited us to make a preliminary study of the evidence for climatic change in the area. Among other visitors whom we were happy to welcome were H.E. the British Ambassador (Vice-President of the School) and Lady Beaumont, H.E. the Mutasarrif of Mosul, Mr. G. H. Herridge (then Chairman of the Iraq Petroleum Company and a member of the Council of the School) and Mrs. Herridge, Dr. Faisal al Wailly (Director General of Antiquities) and Professor Fuad Safar (Inspector General of Excavations) with the staff of their expedition at Nineveh, and Professor Heinrich Lenzen, Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Baghdad. I must express my gratitude to all my colleagues for their help, to the local authorities for their cooperation and to the Director General of Antiquities and the Inspector General of Excavations for assisting us in every aspect of our work.

One of the most distinctive, if comparatively minor, characteristics of craftsmanship in the Early Dynastic period in central and southern Mesopotamia was the prevalence of incised drawing on stone, shell and baked clay. Since much of the work was small scale and often on very friable objects their survival is the more remarkable and clearly reflects a significant aspect of craftsmanship in the Sumerian period which did not survive the establishment of the dynasty of Akkad. In the following pages I have united a number of examples of incised drawing, some previously unpublished, in an attempt to explore further than is usual in the standard works on the history of art in Mesopotamia the scope and significance of this technique during one of the most important periods in the cultural development of the area. I have also included some preliminary observations on the role of incised drawings in the preparation of designs for execution in other media.

When in 1931, Professor Sidney Smith reported on a Luristan bronze in the British Museum such objects were comparatively rare. Since then, however, they have entered public and private collections in large numbers. This group in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, is published by kind permission of the Syndics of the Museum.

The cast bronze standards and harness ring (Plate I) are fine examples of well attested types. While the decoration of the harness ring (b) with a mouflon head and two crouching felines is conventional, the modelling of the animals and the composition of the design are exceptionally good. An unusual feature is that the horn tips, which are seized in the animals' jaws, join the ring so that the trilobate form of the object is clearly defined. Most effective also, is the contrast between the smooth surfaces of the bodies and the ring and the ribbing of horns, paws and triple girdles.

The larger standard (I, a) depicts the popular motive of the hero between two felines. Whereas on some examples he holds the beast in his outstretched arms, he is here abbreviated to a head with strongly defined facial features, single side curls and long beard. The top of his head has a spray-like design and may represent a cap. Its point, together with the animals' snouts, form the aperture for the rod which originally transfixed the standard to its base. The felines' paws grasping the hero's chin, and also their forelegs, have the horizontal ribbing of his beard of which, in consequence, they appear at first glance to form part. The shoulder muscles of the animals have the shape of a bird's head with curved beak, probably the griffin which occurs on other standards as a detached head. The circle of the bird's eye is repeated on each of the haunches, a device which effectively gives unity and balance to the whole composition. Without it the heavily decorated upper half would overweigh the lower. There is a similar circle on the rump of each animal.

As a small contribution to the volume of Iraq in honour of Professor Sidney Smith, I offer for publication a curious cylinder seal in the Kültepe style. This contribution, although inadequate, is at least fitting, because Professor Smith is well known for his contributions in this field.

The seal illustrated on Plate III is in a private collection and was bought in Beirut; it is 1.9 cms in length, and is made of haematite; glistening particles show in some places where the stone is engraved. The central scene depicts a bearded figure seated on a stool, clad in a flounced robe of striped multicoloured stuff, with a round cap or turban. The projecting point seems to me fortuitous, and to be caused by a slip of the engraver's tool rather than with the intention of depicting the horned cap of divinity. Approaching this enthroned figure is a worshipper, beardless, wearing a round cap and a fringed garment which hangs open in the Syrian manner. He holds a staff in front of him like a sceptre. At the knee of the enthroned figure sits a monkey, above his hand is a star, crescent and sun disc. Beside this scene there seems to have been originally a four-line inscription. Two lines of the inscription were subsequently partly defaced; this is demonstrated by the very faint sign in the middle of the third line KI. I am unable to make out any other traces of partly obliterated signs. The cuneiform is to be read directly from the stone, as on the majority of Kültepe seals. The photographic print has been reversed in the illustration for ease of reference.

One of the intriguing aspects of studies on the Babylonian ‘prophecy’ texts has been the theory that, even though couched in familiar omen terminology and ostensibly predicting the future, the prophecies are post eventum and in fact reflect a specific historical period and real historical events.

It should be stressed that these ‘prophecy’ texts are in no way related to Old Testament prophecy and that they cannot be considered the collected utterances of a seer. Neither have they any relationship to the practices attested in Mari, which are probably of Western origin and not from Mesopotamia proper. The ‘prophecies’ must, I believe, be considered simply a peculiar part of the vast Mesopotamian omen tradition, from which the ‘prophecies’ appeared to differ only because they lacked protases (i.e. a clause ‘if such-and-such occurs’). The new material to be published here, however, shows that there are protases, at least in some cases. Of particular interest is the fact that some of the ‘prophecies’ can now be shown to be connected specifically with astrology.

It is perhaps not without significance that an article on a Syriac theme should appear in this volume dedicated to Professor Sidney Smith, for it is recognized that his work has influenced many aspects of Semitic studies. This brief essay is therefore offered as a small tribute.

My colleague Dr. A. D. H. Bivar very kindly drew my attention to the Syriac legend on one of the Sasanian seals in the British Museum of which he is preparing a catalogue. This seal, B.M. 119393 (Plate IV, a), may be briefly described as follows:

The provenance of the seal is unknown.

On the grounds of its profile shape Dr. Bivar assigns the date of this seal to c. A.D. 400. An examination of the script does not argue against this view. In particular, the shape of the letter š, its head closed with a horizontal stroke, has not been found so far in lapidary texts earlier than the 5 th century.

The Syriac legend of the seal, reading anti-clockwise from the back of the head of the figure, may be deciphered:

For the first word ‘br provides no satisfactory meaning, ‘bd may be interpreted as “made by”, but a verb would be out of place here. We should therefore regard this part of the legend as a pr. n., ‘abed SRYK’.

The Chicago Oriental Institute excavations in the Diyala region have contributed much to our knowledge of the latter part of the Uruk period (including the Jamdat Nasr phase) as well as to more than six later stages of Mesopotamian history. The ceramic material of these periods has been thoroughly presented in Delougaz's long and valuable publication, Pottery from the Diyala Region. Some early and middle Uruk sherds were found, but not in their proper stratigraphical context; the earliest pottery excavated in situ dates from phases ‘c’ and ‘d’ of what Delougaz calls the ‘Protoliterate Period’, and these are equivalent to the late Uruk or Jamdat Nasr phase, which extends, in the E-anna sequence, from the end of Warka IV to the beginning of Warka II. This material comes from three sites: Tell Asmar, Tell Agrab, and Khafajah. At the two former sites deep soundings driven to virgin soil produced sherds of Protoliterate ‘d’, but the stratigraphical value of these soundings is limited, as the floor-levels could not be distinguished and the sequence had therefore to be determined by depth. Protoliterate ‘d’ material also came from in and under the earliest Abu Temple at Tell Asmar. Khafajah, however, produced much well-stratified material, especially from the Sin Temple; this was founded on debris of Protoliterate ‘c’ during the same phase, and continuously repaired and rebuilt at least until ED III b.

The third season at Tell Rifa‘at in the ’Azaz Casa in the Northern Region of the Syrian Arab Republic took place from 6th July to 13th August 1964. For a further five days after this filling-in operations were continued at the East Gate. The main party left the site on 17th August.

The village of Tell Rifa'at had grown since 1956 from 5,000 to 7,000 inhabitants. This is partly due to the fact that it is situated in a very fertile area with easily accessible water and has attracted nomads who during recent years of drought have lost their flocks and been forced into a sedentary existence.

The Expedition owes a great debt of gratitude to the Syrian Department of Antiquities, to Dr. Adbul Hak, the then Director-General, to Dr. Feisal Serafi, Director of the Northern District, and to our two Inspectors, M. Ali Abu Assaf and M. Soubhi Saouaf. M. Saouaf was particularly helpful to the Expedition, assisting it in every way and going far beyond his normal duties. The members of the Expedition were, with three exceptions, all students of London University taking the Extra-mural Diploma in Archaeology.

The coins here discussed are all surface finds from Tell Rifa‘at, one of the largest mounds in the ‘Azaz Casa, thirty-five kilometres north of Aleppo. They were collected together by the excavator of the site, Dr. M. V. Seton-Williams, during the course of three seasons' excavations at the site, 1956, 1960 and 1964. Although none of the coins is from stratified deposits, their range in time from the second century B.C. to the fourteenth century A.D. and their number afford an interesting sidelight on the later history of the site. They all fall within the range of the excavator's Level 1 : Roman to Hellenistic, first century A.D. to fourth century B.C., although the coin evidence now indicates occupation or interest in the area down to the fourteenth century A.D.

Plate XI illustrates a white magnesite cylinder seal, surmounted by a small recumbent ram in silver, which was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum at Sotheby's sale of the Ernest Brummer Collection on 16th and 17th of November, 1964.

The cylinder is engraved with a continuous design in two registers, combining cattle with reed buildings. The ram is probably attached to the end of a copper spindle, or what remains of it, designed to rotate in a perforation drilled through the axis of the cylinder. This cannot in fact be verified, for the ram is now immovable and nothing can be seen at the opposite end of the perforation except a tough filling of earth mixed with products of corrosion, which could not be removed without danger to the cylinder. An unexpectedly fine perforation is seen on each side of the ram itself, placed rather high, as if to take an exceedingly thin suspending thread. This perforation, too, is now obstructed.

The proportions of the seal, as well as the style and subject of its design and of the ram which forms its handle, all associate it with the latest proto-literate or predynastic phase of Sumerian culture; specifically, with the third level of the Archaic Temple sequence at Uruk (Warka).

The bas-reliefs to which attention is drawn in this article both stood originally in the palace of Sennacherib (705–681 B.C.) at Nineveh, and were removed to Europe during the nineteenth century. The history of the excavations which produced them is a familiar one: Layard, the man primarily responsible, reckoned that he had exposed nearly two miles of sculpture in this building alone, and he was naturally unable, without adequate time, money, or assistance, to record and publish all his discoveries fully. So far the only widely accessible book to include more than a small selection of the wall-slabs has been Sidney Smith's Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum from Shalmaneser III to Sennacherib; interest otherwise has until recently been sporadic and, on the whole, highly discriminating. It is only now that a full publication of Layard's notes and drawings is being prepared, by Dr. R. D. Barnett of the British Museum, and even so the partial re-excavation of the palace by Dr. Tariq Madhlum has already revealed how incomplete these are. The slabs from Nineveh fall into two main categories: those taken to London as parts of long narrative series, and those left in position to await reexcavation. There are, however, in the British Museum and elsewhere, many other fragments whose importance is not dependent on their context, and it is to this group that the two slabs discussed below belong.

The present paper is intended as a continuation of a previous article and a report of work done on a number of small fragments, most if not all fragments of prisms, found during the excavations at Nimrud in the years 1955–1957. The majority of these fragments are inscribed with parts of the Annals of Ashurbanipal. The text of two fragments, ND. 5414 and ND. 5416, was identified as part of the Annals of Sennacherib. Only two fragments, ND. 5537 and ND. 6205 E, remain unidentified, though there can be little doubt that they belong together with the Ashurbanipal texts. In several cases one or more fragments join other fragments. After the division of the texts between London and Baghdad it is often impossible to check new joins resulting from study of the texts. The exact character of a join will be indicated in the catalogue of the fragments which will be given below. A concordance listing the correspondence between the standard versions of the Annals and the texts published here will be added for reference. Copies of the texts are presented on Plates XIV–XXIX (these follow the approximate order of the excavation numbers given below).