New sources of original material rarely emerge; therefore the opportunity to examine such a vital episode of archaeological history as the Joint Expedition to Ur, from a contemporary's perspective, and gain a valuable insight to the ways in which the metallurgical finds were gradually understood and interpreted, is one to be seized enthusiastically. Access to the previously private family archives of James R. Ogden, when linked with the archive material in the British Museum (BM), has enabled me to reconstruct the tentative conversations among the key players, concerning the identity of the metalwork found and the techniques used to make the items, the results of which still form the basis of much of our current understanding of the ancient metals of the Royal Cemetery at Ur.

The information that was learnt from the metallic discoveries at Ur had a tremendous impact on the understanding at the time about the antiquity of the craftsmanship involved. Much modern research has simply repeated or discussed what has been previously written, without examining the source material or understanding how the original conclusions were arrived at. It is therefore important to look afresh at the contemporary discussions, at the methods used and the conclusions reached. The processes of how knowledge was initially created are in themselves worth studying as they reflect the behavioural mores of the time and explain much about the dynamics of the different relationships between those involved. These were formative years in the development of archaeology as a discipline. It was a period not so much for providing all the answers, as for seeking ways to find answers to questions that had not been posed before; a matter more of process than conclusion.

Between 745 and 700 BC the Assyrian empire established itself in much of the Levant, becoming a Mediterranean as well as a Mesopotamian power. People from former Syro-Hittite states and the coasts of Phoenicia and Palestine were dispersed across the empire, bringing their own social conventions, cultures and expertise in fields ranging from cookery and metallurgy to music and architecture. Many Assyrian kings in previous centuries had demonstrated their respect for these high cultures of the West; Herzfeld (1930: 186–93) was one of the earlier scholars to consider the extent of their indebtedness. Now kings who had visited the West and who had seen how people lived there, built western features into new palaces at Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh.

A clear allusion to this process resides in use of the phrase “like a Hittite palace”, literally tamšil ekal mat Hatti, “a replica of a palace of the land of Hatti”, i.e. the kind of palace or palatial structure familiar in the Syro-Hittite, Luwian and Levantine territories which eighth-century Assyrians still called after the Hittites. Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon and Sennacherib all recorded the construction of buildings like this, to which the term bit hilani (with minor variants) was also applied; Esarhaddon recorded building in both Hittite and Assyrian styles, and Ashurbanipal too built a bit hilani. The clearest relevant archaeological evidence consists of some remains on the western side of the main royal palace of Sargon at Khorsabad. P.-É. Botta, the first excavator of these remains, assigned them the name of Monument isolé, Monument X or Temple (henceforward simply Monument X).

The purpose of the present paper is to review the question of the “bâtiment isolé” located at the north-west corner of the royal terrace at Khorsabad. The author seeks first to demonstrate how this building can be connected with the one depicted on relief 12 in Room VII of Sargon's palace, and secondly to propose a reconstruction both of the plan and the elevation of the building, incorporating all the special features belonging to it (column, capital, roof and so on). In order to do so, the author compares typically Assyrian plans, such as those of reception suites, with the remains of the “bâtiment isolé”. The reconstruction of the elevation of this building will partly be based on the relief from Room VII and partly on archaeological remains, such as column bases like those found at Khorsabad (Palace F and Residence K) and at Nineveh.

Les recherches récentes ont permis d'identifier certains symboles personnels des rois néo-assyriens. Parmi les figures emblématiques on trouve le lion et le taureau dont le rôle est primordial dans l'art et la poésie de la Cour pour symboliser le pouvoir du monarque. Il est évident que le scorpion, symbole des reines, donc du harem royal, est à mettre en parallèle avec le lion et le taureau, symboles des rois. Il reste à savoir si d'autres symboles ont été attribués aux membres de la Cour.

Cet article porte, en premier lieu, sur les figures symboliques de la maison royale et en identifie deux nouvelles, le symbole en forme d'oméga et le dromadaire, qui sont associés à Sîn-ah-uṣur, le frère favori et grand vizir de Sargon II. Notre interprétation essaye de prouver que les symboles figurés reconnus sur les briques à empreinte et les sceaux provenant de Dûr-Šarrukîn et de Kalhu ont permis d'identifier les symboles de dignitaires. Ces figures constituaient l'emblème ou la marque de propriété des membres de la maison royale (le roi, son épouse et son frère) et des dignitaires de la Cour. Tout cela permet d'interpréter de nouveau les figures symboliques dont l'importance apparaît de premier ordre dans l'idéologie royale à la Cour de Sargon II.

During the excavations in Nineveh carried out by R. Campbell Thompson on behalf of the British Museum in the years 1929 to 1932, many glazed Assyrian bricks were recovered and partly published in the excavation reports. Bricks were found in the years 1927–8 and 1929–30, respectively, when the Temple of Nabu and the so-called Palace of Assurnasirpal II were being excavated. Bricks were said to have come from the South-East area of the Temple of Nabu, where the excavators thought they had found the palace of King Assurnasirpal II. Actually, as recognised then by Thompson himself, the area between the temples of Nabu and Ishtar, where the palace of Assurnasirpal was thought to be, is characterised by later installations that reused Assyrian materials and structures (Fig. 1a–b). Confusion is due to the frequent presence of the word é.gal (“palace”) at the beginning of the inscription that was stamped onto the bricks. However, the word é.gal probably does not refer to a palace proper, but was used as a production mark: the brick was produced by and/or within the administrative structure (“palace”) of the Assyrian king, whose name usually follows the word é.gal (“palace” of + Assyrian king's name), independently from its final location or use either for a palace or a temple.

Thus, as reconstructed by Julian Reade, the Temple of Ishtar should be considered the likely source for the Assyrian materials found when excavating the South-East quadrant in the years 1927–8 and 1929–30, although the Temple of Nabu itself cannot a priori be totally excluded.

BM ME 124945–6, a relief of Assurbanipal, was discovered in the ruins of Room M (the so-called ‘Throne Room’) of the North Palace in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, and is now on display in the British Museum (Fig. 1). The slabs are divided into two registers: an upper register and a lower register, which are separated by a broad wavy band, each side of which forms the bank of a river. Two rivers flow horizontally in parallel in the centre of the slabs. The presentation scene appears in the lower register, which shows the Assyrian king Assurbanipal (668–631 BC) reviewing war spoils taken from Babylon after the city was captured by the Assyrian army in late 648 BC. The aim of this paper is to examine the spoils represented on the relief and, by carefully analysing Assurbanipal's inscriptions, to clarify how textual accounts of the event or events are reflected in the narrative scheme of the composition.

The presentation scene is further divided into three rows by simple horizontal lines, each forming a ground line that normally indicates the recession of space based on the principle of “vertical perspective” in which distant figures are placed higher than nearer ones. The king is represented on the right of the scene, occupying the upper and middle rows (Fig. 2). He is mounted on a chariot and is accompanied by courtiers and soldiers who all face to the left of the scene. An epigraph is engraved above the horses of the king's chariot. On the far side of the scene, Assyrian soldiers, in the upper row, proceed towards the king. The first person is a eunuch raising his right hand; he is followed by a bearded man (Fig. 3). Then there are three soldiers, each holding a particular item of booty (Fig. 4). These men are followed by two wheeled vehicles: one is carried on the shoulders of several men (Fig. 5) and the other pulled by a group of soldiers (Fig. 6). To the far left of the scene, prisoners are led away by soldiers. In the middle row, four foreigners face right (Fig. 7), and behind them stand two scribes making a record in front of one pile of bows and quivers and another of severed heads (Fig. 8). More soldiers follow from the left with a team of horses. The lower row shows a procession of prisoners; all of them move from left to right (Fig. 9). To the far left, there are two sets of chariots, the horses of which are being led by soldiers (Figs. 10 and 11). The overall composition, except for the lower row, is arranged symmetrically facing to the centre, with special emphasis on the king.

In der Handschriften-Abteilung der Thüringer Universitäts- und Landes-Bibliothek Jena befindet sich ein Holzkasten mit der Aufschrift „59 persische und babylonische Cylinder vom Residenten Rich in Babylon gefunden und ins Britische Museum geschenkt“. Es handelt sich um Gipsabgüsse von Rollsiegeln (Abformungen der Objekte, keine Abrollungen). Statt der angegebenen 59 sind heute allerdings nur 57 Stück vorhanden. Das bedeutet, daβ im Laufe der Zeit zwei Exemplare verloren gegangen sind. Die Stücke sind vermutlich im 19. Jh. in den Besitz der Jenaer Universität gelangt. Bemühungen, die Herkunft zu ermitteln, sind ohne Erfolg geblieben. In den Geschenkbüchern der Universitäts-Bibliothek konnten sie nicht nachgewiesen werden. Es ist auch nicht gelungen, den Schreiber der Aufschrift auf dem Kasten zu bestimmen, der mit dem Signum „S.“ in lateinischer Schrift zeichnet.

In 1968, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary translated the Old Babylonian term aširtu, which in the OB period corresponded to the Sumerian expression igi-kar2, as “an offering of a pious gift to the gods”. In texts from the preceding Ur III period, however, the expression igi-kar2 has usually been associated with the expression gurum2 (written IGI.GAR) and translated “inspection”. In 1982, Piotr Steinkeller demonstrated, in a short article published in ASJ, that igi-kar2 and gurum2 refer to two separate words. He showed that the compound verb igi…kar2 denoted “to examine” in both the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods. For the compound noun igi-kar2 in the Ur III period, Steinkeller referred to the Umma text TJAMC IES 126, where the expression appears together with the institution an-za3-gar3, which — in accordance with its Akkadian equivalence dimtum — has been understood as “some type of fortified building”. This connection led Steinkeller to propose the meaning “provisions, supplies” for igi-kar2 in the Ur III period, seemingly more appropriate for a delivery to the military structure of an-za(3)-gar3.

In 1978 a small archive of about twenty-five cuneiform tablets was discovered at the site of Tell Ali, which stands on the left bank of the Lower Zab more or less where travellers from Aššur to Nuzi and Arrapha would have crossed the river, some 42 km west of Kerkuk (Ismail 1982, 117). These tablets are now in the care of the Iraq Museum. We present here copies of almost all the texts by Dr Ismail, with her transliterations, alongside translations and commentary which are the joint work of the two authors.

Documentation of animal husbandry has been rather scarce among the Middle Assyrian archives hitherto recovered. A few texts have been published from Aššur (see Jacob 2003: KAJ 115; 225; 267; 97; WVDOG 94 73; VS 21 26), and some of the best evidence came from Tell Billa, ancient Šibaniba, north-east of Nineveh (Finkelstein 1953, especially Nos. 21 and 36). It is clear that the Durkatlimmu archives will soon provide much fresh evidence (see passages cited in Jakob 2003, 365 ff.). This small archive from Tell Ali is contemporary with the bulk of the Durkatlimmu texts, and resembles them in various respects. Small as it is, it conveys a clear picture of the Assyrian state's interest in animal husbandry as a source of meat for special occasions and of wool and goat-hair to meet the state's requirements for everyday textile production.

The cuneiform scribal art in the first millennium was, by and large, one of conservatism. The creative activity of scribes of the first millennium was often relegated to the composition of commentaries and explanatory works on the great canonical series. Out of this artistic torpidity came a last gasp of genius. The horrifying destruction of Babylon and the hope of its reconstruction inspired a certain scribe, Kabti-ilani-Marduk (V 42), to compose Erra and Išum. Written on five tablets of about 750 lines altogether, our current text is reconstructed from thirty-seven exemplars from sites such as Assur, Nineveh, Babylon, Ur and, most recently, Me-Turnat (T. Haddad).

The story, entitled šar gimir dadmē, “King of the Entire Inhabited World”, presents little actual action. In almost Job-like fashion, the vast majority of the narrative consists of dialogue between the deities Erra, Išum, the Sebetti and Marduk, whose interactions in the divine realm ultimately lead to the destruction of Babylon and other major cities. Indeed, much of the scholarly activity concerning Erra and Išum has revolved around the significant difficulties presented by this dialogue.

A fragment of a two-column tablet containing a bilingual text from Nimrud, CTN IV 170, has turned out to belong to the same tablet as CTN IV 188, a manuscript of the fourth tablet of the series mīs pî “Mouth-Washing”. With the help of the new fragment, it becomes possible for the first time to reconstruct the second and third versions of a Sumerian Kiutu incantation to the sun god Utu-Šamaš.

The study of ancient Near Eastern trial procedure has a long history, and the judicial systems of several periods have been investigated in detail. What remains lacking is a thorough and systematic treatment of the trial law and procedure from the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, though numerous legal texts have been studied. Recently two dissertations by F. R. Magdalene and S. E. Holtz have described the adjudicative process from the bringing of charges by an accuser through various stages and actions, including the taking of witness statements, interrogation, the examination of physical evidence, courts' demands for further evidence, summonses, and the issuing of conditional and final verdicts. Both also provide a basis for further investigation of this southern Mesopotamian legal system, which seems to have followed longstanding traditions but also contains indications of new developments.

While both studies examine several hundred trial-related documents, one particular text that has been the subject of interpretation since the late nineteenth century receives scant attention. The document in question is Dar. 53. A close analysis of its text raises significant questions with regard to a particular aspect of trial procedure during the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. The text has never been satisfactorily treated, and recent references to it in scholarly literature in fact have led to erroneous conclusions about what it reveals in general, and regarding law and procedure in particular. Despite a consistent belief that the text records a trial, Dar. 53 actually arises from pre-trial demands and the resulting negotiations.

The proposal to develop an Iraqi-British project to protect and promote cultural heritage in Southern Iraq was first mooted at a lunch in the British Museum on 24 September 2007, involving Major-General Barney White-Spunner, Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, and John Curtis, Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. The lunch had been arranged to provide Major-General White-Spunner with recent information about the state of the Iraqi cultural heritage, as he was due to be deployed to Iraq in February 2008 as Commander-in-Chief of British troops and General Officer Commanding the Multi-National Division South-East. At the lunch, it was suggested that the greatest need would be to arrange for the inspection of archaeological sites and, if necessary, to arrange for the protection of them, and also to consider facilitating the reopening of some provincial museums. It is known that archaeological sites particularly in Southern Iraq suffered grievously from looting, particularly after the Second Gulf War, and most provincial museums were sacked following the First Gulf War in 1991 and again in 2003. Major-General White-Spunner immediately recognised the importance of these proposals and appointed a project manager, Major Hugo Clarke, to work up a scheme with John Curtis. The project has been made possible by a generous grant from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, that has covered all costs except those incurred in Iraq, which have been met by the British Army.