On 12th November 1820 died in Mosul a little known young man named Carl, or Charles, Bellino. Aged only 29, he had already taken a serious place among those who laid the foundations of the study of cuneiform. Yet already in 1890 a German scholar writing an important study of its decipherment by Grotefend, confessed that he had almost no information about Bellino's life and career. As my German and Austrian friends and colleagues, (notably Professor K. Bittel, who felt a special interest in his young fellow-Württemberger), had most helpfully provided me with interesting fresh material about this young pioneer scholar of Mesopotamian studies, linked closely with England, I here offer it combined with other gleanings in the form of a brief biography in honour of Sir Max Mallowan. This will, I hope, supplement the very short accounts which are all that at present are available in print.

Carl Bellino was born on 21 January 1791 at the little town of Rottenburg (or Rothenburg) on the lovely river Neckar, near Tubingen in the then Kingdom of Württemberg, as the eldest of five children of Franz Josef Bellino (b. 1762) a silk and salt merchant and senator of that town and his first wife Anna Maria Beck, daughter of the postmaster of Günzburg. Franz Josef was himself born at Buchhorn (now called Friedrichshafen) in 1762 and was connected with Michael Bellini, a merchant of Venetian origin from Amsterdam who married Elizabeth Bianchi (or Weiss) at Heilbronn in 1727.

Each season of excavations at Tell al-Hiba confirms Jacobsen's proposed identification first made in 1953 that Tell al-Hiba rather than Telloh, as formerly believed, is the site of ancient Lagash.

During the first two seasons of the excavations in 1968–69 and in 1970–71, no less than fourteen foundation stones identifying the temple oval in which they were found as the Ibgal of Inann a were unearthed. Nine of the stones were accompanied by inscribed copper foundation figurines,figurines which represented Šulutula, the personal deity of Enannatum I, the builder of at least Level I of the Ibgal. As Hansen has indicated, however, in a wadi a mile to the north of the Ibgal fragmentary cones stating that Enannatu m was the builder of the Ibgal have been recovered. In addition it may be well to say that no such cones have been found within the extensive area of the Ibgal which has been excavated. Why this is the case is not yet known. The foundation stones and the companion figurines found in situ are, however, solid evidence that the physical location of one of the temples mentioned in the texts as being located in Lagash has been ascertained.

Nous ne nous éloignons pas de Nimrud en consacrant ces lignes à l'heureux successeur de Layard qui y passa tant d'années pleines de succès.

Mon sujet est modeste. Son but est de proposer une identification du personnage que représente un bas-relief de Teglath-phalasar, découvert par Layard dans le “Palais du Sud-Ouest”, et conservé au Musée Britannique. La scène représente deux guerriers assyriens qui poursuivent un cavalier ennemi. Deux lances s'enfoncent dans la croupe de son cheval qui se cabre, tandis que l'homme, serré de près, lève le bras en signe de reddition. C'est la nationalité de celui-ci qui nous intéresse. (planche III)

J'ai le regret de ne pas pouvoir suivre l'avis de mon savant confrère et ami R. D. Barnett, qui est le dernier à avoir publié ce monument. Il pensait pouvoir reconnaître dans le casque du cavalier aux abois celui d'un Urartéen, non sans faire suivre cette identification qu'il propose, par un point d'interrogation. Mais le casque urartéen est différent: il ne couvre pas la tête largement, ses bords s'arrêtant à la hauteur des oreilles; la crête en est courte, large et épaisse.

The series “Topography of Babylon”, known from its first line as DIN.TIRki = Bābilu, was first put together from several fragments by Eckhard Unger in a chapter contributed to F. Wetzel, Die Stadtmauern von Babylon (WVDOG 48, 1930), then repeated with some minor changes (not always for the better) in his book Babylon, Die heilige Stadt (1931). In a long review of the latter book in ZA NF 7 (1933) B. Landsberger and F. H. Weissbach made a number of improvements in the text and its translation. But the only major additions to the preserved text as presented by Unger have come from tablets excavated at Kish, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and published by P. E. van der Meer in Volume 5 of this journal (1938) and in Archiv für Orientforschung 13. While cataloguing the Ashmolean collection I have succeeded in joining not only two of the fragments published by van der Meer but also six more pieces of this same tablet, which now has at least parts of every line with the exception of a few at the beginning and end. It is the purpose of the present article to present an edition of this important tablet, with its duplicates, containing as it does an almost complete list of the “daises”, i.e. chapels, of Marduk (parakkí), a section which was largely missing, together with the gates, walls, rivers and streets of the city, the totals for the different items, and a section at the end describing the ten districts of the city which is also partly new. The article is dedicated to Sir Max Mallowan, who has lectured on Babylon at Oxford, in the hope that he will find some interest in a dry catalogue of the city's topographical features such as this tablet offers.

During 1970 the Ashmolean Museum acquired at auction in London two Syriac-inscribed bronze censers of a now well-known but insufficiently studied type decorated with New Testament scenes in relief and with incised ornament on their plain surfaces. The following speculations about these objects are offered in admiration to Sir Max Mallowan, and as a reminder of bumpy but delightful journeys to certain ancient monasteries in the Mosul area where such objects will have been used: forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.

Several fresh examples of these censers have come to notice in recent years, so that the number known to exist in museums or private collections must now exceed 30 or even 40, while the number still in ecclesiastical possession is presumably very much greater. All of those recently acquired by museums must once have belonged to churches or monasteries of the Near East; and one may suspect that some of these communities have either recently been robbed or, more probably, have been induced to sell or succeeded in selling some of the more battered contents of their sacristies.

“Evil Hittites without respect for the command of the gods, whisperers of treachery”—these and similar reproaches were hurled by Sargon II's scribes against the peoples of Syria and Palestine who would not submit to the Assyrian yoke, or who having submitted sought relief in rebellion. Sargon's anger marked a crisis in the long but intermittent Assyrian relationship with the Anatolian peoples of North Syria and the Taurus, loosely termed “Hittites”. The purpose of this article is to review the sources for this relationship from the fall of the Hittite Empire, c. 1200 B.C. until the final extinction of the Syrian successor states by the Assyrians under Sargon. In it I shall concentrate on the less well-known evidence of the hieroglyphic inscriptions and refer to the comparatively better-known Assyrian cuneiform documentation only in so far as it illuminates these. It is a study which I hope may be appropriately dedicated to Sir Max Mallowan, whose archaeological work has provided so much material of the latter type, and whose interests amply attested by his publications have always centred on the tracing of links between various cultures, not the least between Assyria and the West.

Prehistoric archaeology, perhaps even more than historic archaeology, constantly poses more problems than it solves, and so gives rise to interpretations that may not be possible to uphold. Such a state of affairs now exists at the late Neolithic site, Umm Dabaghiyah. This is a small site containing four main levels of a single culture and, for this reason, seemed an ideal candidate for total excavation. It is high time we knew the component parts of at least one village for every early period and culture, but our present preoccupation with minutiae, allied to vertical stratigraphical digging, while bringing about a knowledge of detail, has also confined our present understanding of early sites to the results of greater or smaller soundings only. However it is possible to combine both stratigraphic digging and reasonable detail with horizontal expansion, the only drawbacks being that it takes longer and so costs more money, than the straight cut to bedrock. Largely owing to the encouragement and advice of Sir Max Mallowan, factors which, I am proud to acknowledge, have accompanied me throughout my archaeological career, as near as possible total excavation is now being carried out at the site.

CT XXXVI was published in 1921, more than fifty years ago. At that time relatively little was known about the nature and scope of the Sumerian literary documents, and one cannot help but admire Gadd's clear, careful, accurate copies of the ten Sumerian literary pieces included in the volume, and his lucid, succinct, unpretentious summation of their contents. Needless to say some misreadings and miscopies were inevitable at the time, and in any case, it is always much easier for a collator, perched on the shoulders of the original copyist, and profiting from the latter's pioneering effort, to recognize, and now and then identify, a sign missed by his predecessor, especially if it is poorly preserved. As will be evident from the following pages, the corrigenda to Gadd's copies are quite small in number. Nevertheless, in not a few cases they help to clarify the meaning of a phrase or a line and, now and then, even of an entire passage. It is a pleasure and privilege to present these collations on which I spent several recent summer months in the British Museum, in a volume dedicated to Max Mallowan, who in a lifetime of creative archaeological and scholarly activity, has done so much to clarify and interpret the history and culture of Ancient Mesopotamia by both the spade and the pen, and who moreover, like the present writer, was Cyril Gadd's warm friend and admirer.

BM 96706 (Plates 26–27): Šulgi, Provider of the Ekur: His Divine Birth and Investiture (See Plate XV)

The study of Assyrian history involves problems of a unique character within the ancient Near East. The quantity of relevant material is greater than that for any other kingdom of comparable duration and influence, yet it is so one-sided in content and purpose that it creates as many problems as it solves. While Assyria flourished as an international power, from c. 1350–1100 B.C. and from c. 850–600 B.C., documents rich in historical information were regularly compiled, of which a fair selection have come down to us. No other nation has left so detailed a report of a single military campaign as that of the Eighth Campaign of Sargon II, nor such extensive records of a reign as those for Aššurbanipal. This kind of material is supported by chronological lists both of the līmu-officers (high officials who functioned for one year and gave their name to that year) and of the kings of Assyria with lengths of reign (probably derived from the līmu-lists, since the kings shared in this office). These provide the only solid basis for the whole of Near Eastern chronology from the middle of the second millennium and downwards. In addition archives of administrative documents and official correspondence give valuable insights for some periods. However, the conversion of these sources into history, in any realistic sense of the term, depends on the addition of a good measure of interpretation, and this the texts do not provide. They are the official records of a centralized military state, and, save for the chronological lists and day-to-day documents, they are intended to glorify the king.

Das erste als hochsumerischer Tempel erkannte Gebäude war der “Weiße Tempel” auf der Anuzikurrat in Uruk-Warka, der im Jahre 1930 freigelegt werden konnte. Er wurde damals etwa auf die Schicht Uruk VI datiert, spärer gelang es, mit einer in eindeutiger Lage gefundenen gemalten Djemdet Nasr Scherbe, das Alter des Tempels in die ausklingende Djemdet Nasr Zeit zu datieren. Die Tatsache, daß das Gebäude auf einer Zikurrat stand, gab die Gewißheit, daß es sich um einen Tempel handeln müsse. Gleichzeitig wurde mit dieser Anlage aber auch eine in Eanna 1929 freigelegte große Anlage aus Kalksteinblöcken als Tempelanlage gesichert. In der Folge wurden nun vor und nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg, vor allem in Eanna, eine ganze Anzahl weiterer Gebäudegrundrisse freigelegt, die alle miteinander verwandte Grundrißformen aufwiesen. Schon nach der Grabungskampagne 1933–34 hatte Ernst Heinrich versucht, die damals (die meisten nur sehr teilweise ausgegrabenen) verwandten Anlagen zusammenzustellen, er faßte sie unter dem Namen “der Langhoftempel in Uruk” zusammen. Später, noch bevor der Tempel C vollkommen freigelegt war, ist Heinrich von der Bezeichnung Langhoftempel zurückgetreten. Er nimmt nun an, daß alle Mittelräume überdeckt waren, der große T-förmige Teil des Tempels C, der sogenannte Rumpfbau war tatsächlich überdeckt (ich komme später darauf zurück). Bis auf den Weißen Tempel auf der Anuzikurrat gehörten alle Anlagen der Schicht Uruk IV an, auch der Kalksteintempel, der möglicherweise in Uruk V bereits entstanden war, in Uruk IVc und Uruk IVb aber weiter bestand. Im gleichen Aufsatz wird bereits darauf hingewiesen, daß der sogenannte Tempel B wahrscheinlich als Kultraum, nicht aber eigentlich als Tempel aufzufassen sei.

The first two seasons of excavation by the Iraq Directorate-General of Antiquities at Eridu (Tell Abu Shahrein) lasted from December to March in 1946–47 and 1947–48. They were directed by Professor Fuad Safar, with myself as Technical Adviser. A third season was already in progress when I left Iraq early in 1949, to take up a new post as Director of the newly founded British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. Preliminary reports on the excavations were published by Professor Safar and myself in the journal Sumer, as will be seen from the short bibliography below, and they were followed by various specialist articles and commentaries. The final publication has raised some more complicated problems, and, to judge by the many enquiries on the subject which Professor Safar and I myself have received, it seems probable that archaeological colleagues and others may be interested in the steps more recently taken to make this important material generally available.

In his introduction to the Nimrud wine tablets Professor Mallowan has pointed out that the closest source of iron for Assyria were mines noted by Layard in Kurdistan, notably in the Berwari valley north-east of Amadiya, and also in the Tiyari mountains “particularly in the heights above Lizan”.

Iron was also observed by Layard only “three or four days journey from Mosul”, “in great quantities scattered on the sides of mountains,” and his information is confirmed by the Rev. George Percy Badger who visited Kurdistan between 1842 and 1850. He gives the following information, “of iron they have abundance in several parts of Tiyari, this they smelt and beat out into rude ploughshares and such other tools as they require for tillage. The people of Asheetha, however, are famed for tempering steel, and the best packing needles used by Kurdish muleteers are made in this village”. Deposits in the Kurdistan mountains may also have been the closest source of supply for the land of Muṣaṣir.

Although we can suspect that these sources were exploited by the Assyrians, archaeological and documentary evidence is lacking and this preliminary study concerns other possible sources in Anatolia and Syria with reference to Assyrian textual references and evidence concerning the most important deposits known to-day, including those recorded in the last century. At the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st millennia B.C. the expansion of the Assyrian armed forces necessitated regular and increasing supplies of smelted iron ore which could be used in the production, not only of weapons, but of tools and implements for use in building, agriculture and other allied crafts.

Unter dem Titel “Le Trésor d'Ur” ist 1968 in Paris erschienen der Band IV der Serie Mission Archéologique de Mari von André Parrot, “avec pour l'épigraphie la collaboration de Georges Dossin.” Es handelt sich dabei um einen Depotfund André Parrot's im sogenannten vorsargonischen Palast des 3. vorchristlichen Jahrtausends in Mari. Dem in einem größeren Gefäß verwahrten und mit einer Schale abgedeckten Fund im Hof 27 lag eine facettierte, 11·9 cm. lange Perle aus hartem Lapislazuli bei, die eine Inschrift in altsumerischer Sprache und Schrift trägt. Die erste Lesung und Deutung dieser Inschrift (insgesamt sieben Zeilen Keilschrift) stammen von dem Grabungsphilologen, dem bekannten Gelehrten aus Lüttich, Georges Dossin. Hier ist alles wahrhaft sensationell: haben wir es doch diesmal nicht zu tun mit einer blossen Sammlung kultur- und kunsthistorischer Objekte, die man vergraben hatte, um sie vor räuberischen Händen zu schützen. Die beiliegende Perle sollte nach Meinung des Ausgräbers angeben, von wem der Schatz stammt und für wen er bestimmt war. Im Kapitel II ist er in mehreren Abteilungen beschrieben und abgebildet. André Parrot hat die Bestandteile des ganzen Schatzes von 1 bis 52 numeriert: von der Statuette einer nackten Göttin aus Metall über zwei kleine Statuetten einer nackten Frau aus Elfenbein zu einem großen Anhänger in Form eines löwenköpfigen Adlers aus Lapis und Gold, zu mehreren Gewandnadeln aus Bronze und Edelmetall, vierzehn Rollsiegeln und vor allem eben jener länglichen, flachen Perle aus Lapislazuli mit der erwähnten Inschrift in sumerischer Sprache.

When the Assyrian king is shewn standing with a bowl in his right hand, he most commonly grasps a bow in his left. The excavations of Sir Max Mallowan at Nimrud have provided two of the relatively few cases in which the bow is replaced by some other object. One is the fine ivory plaque from the north-west palace on which Aššurnaṣirpal II holds the eagle-headed sickle. The other is the ivory panel from the Nabu temple which depicts a king with bowl and axe receiving officers and tributaries. I hope, therefore, tha t the two reliefs discussed here, on which the bowl is combined in one case with a sword and in the other with a staff, will be of interest to Sir Max, whose teaching and friendship I have been privileged to enjoy.

The reliefs are sculptured on either side of an unprovenanced block of grey “Mosul marble” of which the lower part is missing. It is in the reserve collection of the British Museum, BM.90985, and I am greatly indebted to Dr. R. D. Barnett, Keeper of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, for bringing it to my attention and encouraging me to publish it. The approximate maximum dimensions are: height 21 cm., width 26 cm., depth 9·6 cm. The edges are smoothly worked and the top is slightly convex. Both faces are in a poor state of preservation. Part of the obverse (Plate XXIIIa), especially the right side of the royal figure, is water-worn and there are several small, unweathered pits which look like the marks of gunshot. On the reverse (Plate XXIIIb) the king's head is partially obliterated by the effecte of water action.

The discovery at Balawat of the famous Bronze Gates of Aššurnaṣirpal II and Shalmaneser III by Hormuzd Rassam in 1878 was a landmark in the history of Assyrian art, but provoked little curiosity about the history and character of the site itself. This was due in part to the pronouncement of Wallis Budge, who visited the site in 1889 and later declared, “From every point of view it seemed unlikely that Shalmaneser would have set up such a wonderful monument as the ‘Gates’ in an out-of-way place like Tell Balawat … there is no room on the mound for a temple, still less for a temple and palace, however small… Mr. H. Rassam may have obtained from Tell Balawat the plates and the coffer, etc., which he sent home, but if he did the natives must have taken them there”. Hilprecht, writing in 1903, accepted Rassam's statement without question, although he soundly condemned both the morality and the method of his excavations. But Budge's authority created a doubt that lingered long among scholars who were not field archaeologists. The 3rd. edition of the British Museum Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities (1922) refers to the gates as “said to have been found at Tell Balawat”. A visit to the mound in 1942 by Professor Seton Lloyd, then Adviser to the Directorate General of Antiquities in Iraq, convinced him of the truth of Rassam's account, but it was not until 1956 that Professor Mallowan sought direct confirmation by excavation.

One of many distinguished contributions to Near Eastern archaeology made by Professor Sir Max Mallowan has been the investigation of Late Assyrian Nimrud. Thus it would seem fitting to dedicate to him this small note on a type of object previously unidentified in Assyria, from Late Assyrian Rimah.

The Late Assyrian settlement at Tell al Rimah was of a provincial nature and in no way comparable with contemporary cities in the Tigris valley. That it was a centre of some local importance, however, can be seen from the fittings of a shrine built about 800 B.C. high on the north-west side of the central tell, and cut into the ruins of the great temple and high terrace that had dominated the town a thousand years earlier; the discovery and description of these buildings has been reported in previous numbers of this journal. Undoubtedly the outstanding single find from the later shrine is the limestone stele of Adadnirari II I (Iraq 30, Plate XXXVIII). In addition, beside the doorway leading to the cella were found in situ two limestone orthostats, each in the shape of a lion's head spitting out the blade of a dagger (Iraq 30, Plate XXXVII). Scars in the black plaster above them suggested that they had originally supported engaged pilasters. A second pair of similar orthostats was also recovered in debris outside the temple doorway. These discoveries together with a number of small votive offerings found in the cella have been described in the earlier report. Th e purpose of this article is to publish several pottery objects, in particular a group of large “offering stands”, which were also found in the cella and represent a type apparently well-known in the third and second millennia B.C. but not previously recovered in a Late Assyrian context.

Everyone who worked at Nimrud will remember the regular ritual of bread-making performed by the guard's daughter or wife, often accompanied by a dog bearing a distinct resemblance to the one in the seal impression. This makes only the most tenuous connection with the great discoveries at Nimrud of Sir Max Mallowan, in whose honour this volume is dedicated. The seal impression on Plate XXX, drawn on Fig. 1, is on a Middle Assyrian tablet from Tell al Rimah, published by Saggs, dated by the eponym of Adad-bel-gabbe in the later years of Shalmaneser I.or early reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I. The owner of the seal is probably Sin-šuma-lišir, a tax collector responsible for taxing a three year old donkey in Qaṭara, a place in the vicinity of Tell al Rimah, which was fairly certainly called Karana in the Old Babylonian period.

The impression depicts a woman kneeling before a fire holding between her hands, what I suggest is a circular lump of dough, watched hopefully by a large dog. This is a typical breed of Assyrian guard dog, with pointed nose, pointed ears, thick neck and curly tail, and it has relatives in the area today. It was reproduced in bronze and buried under floors to contend against supernatural enemies. These two are in a shelter of some kind, hut or tent, but the absence of tent poles suggests the former. The poles of the Arab tents on the Aššurbanipal reliefs are most carefully depicted, and although this is over 600 years later, the Middle Assyrian seal engravers were equally meticulous over detail.

Lorsque notre collègue D.J. Wiseman me demanda de participer à l'hommage que l'on préparait dans Iraq pour fêter le 70e anniversaire de Sir Max Mallowan, je ne pouvais que répondre affirmativement. Une amitié vieille de près de quarante ans nous lie aussi solidement que le bitume des constructions sumériennes: Arpatchiya après Ur, Chagar Bazar, Brak et pour finir, ce feu d'artifice de Nimrud avec cette fabuleuse moisson d'ivoires, quelle magnifique succession de victoires! Impossible pour un fouilleur de souhaiter mieux.

Lorsque je remonte dans le passé — le nôtre — je crois bien que notre première rencontre se situe en 1935, à Beyrouth, à “l'Hôtel Bassoul et d'Orient”. Lui rentrait de Chagar Bazar, je regagnais Mari. Dans cet hôtel vieillot, poussiéreux — les archéologues sont toujours ménagers des deniers qu'on leur accorde pour leurs missions — nous avions parlé céramique et figurines. Je me remémore parfaitement cette scène. Relevant les moustiquaires des lits de fer, pour pouvoir étaler nos plans et nos relevés, nous nous efforcions de trouver des comparaisons entre nos trouvailles. Chaque fois qu'aujourd'hui je passe devant “l'Hôtel d'Orient” qui risque fort de ne plus attendre longtemps la pioche des démolisseurs, car le quartier se métamorphose d'année en année, c'est Max Mallowan que j'évoque irrésistiblement! 1935–1974, telle est la tranche de nos existences, pendant laquelle nos destinées furent parallèles.

The ruins of Pird-i Kinachan, “the Maiden's Bridge”, are situated on the left bank of the river Sirwan, to the south-west of Halabja. The purpose of this article is to document the remains of this bridge, which are no longer accessible since they have been submerged in the reservoir of Darband-i Khan, and thereby to assist future investigations in the region to identify the location of the city of Shahrizur and other cities which flourished in the plain of Shahrizur during the Abbasid period.

The existence of these ruins was first reported by Čirikov, on whose account Minorsky depended in writing: “A Sassanian bridge on the Sirwan defended by the fortress of Shamiran indicates the line of communication between Qasr-i Shirin and Nim-rah”. Sirwan is the name of the upper part of the Diyala river, from the Darband-i Khan gorge eastwards; Shamiran is the mountainous district which extends from the Sirwan southwards and from the Zimkan river westwards (see accompanying map, Plate XXXII); Nim-rah or Nim-az-rah is the other ancient name of Shahrizur, with the meaning “half-way”, which refers to its position between Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians, and Shiz, the city in Adharbaijan which housed their main fire temple.

Edmonds mentions the bridge by its nam e Pird-i Kinachan, but he did not see it. During his visit to the land of the Kakais, which extends to the east and south-east of Halabja, he did however see the remains of two other bridges: one of these is near the village Kosawa, about 25 km. upstream from Pird-i Kinachan, and the other is 15 km. further east and referred to as Pird-i Kurhan, “the Young Men's Bridge.” He was able to see four piers of the former, from a distance, and five of the latter.