The story of the encounters of Gilgamesh with the ‘Ale-wife’ and with Ur-shanabi the ferry-man, in his quest for the secret of immortality, is partly preserved on tablets from the Nineveh libraries and from Babylon, and partly on a fragment of Old Babylonian date. This last was purchased, from among a group of tablets said to come from Sippar (Abu Habba), by Bruno Meissner, for the Berlin Museum in 1902. It provided the first tangible evidence of the existence of a text earlier than the ‘canonical’ Assyrian and, by overlapping part of the story already known, revealed something of the literary changes which had taken place during the intervening centuries. More recent discoveries have shown that there were several Old Babylonian text-types.

The Meissner Fragment is the lower part of a tablet with four columns, two on either face, containing fifteen and fourteen lines of the obverse and fifteen and fourteen of the reverse. Translations of the text may be found in the late Alexander Heidel's book and in A.N.E.T. The first column narrates the care of Shamash for Gilgamesh, probably included in Tablet IX of the ‘canonical’ version. In columns two and three the hero explains his search to the Ale-wife, who attempts to dissuade him with her famous carpe diem speech, a speech not inappropriate to one of that profession.

Archaeological evidence alongside textual sources allow for a deep reading of the meaningful encounters ancient peoples had with their built environments and the ways in which these spaces were connected to cultural values and priorities. This paper argues that the sensory affordances of the first-millennium b.c. temples of Nabu, the god of wisdom and writing, manifested the exclusive, specialised knowledge that was associated with this god in a manner that differentiated these built environments within the active, sensory landscape of the Neo-Assyrian royal citadel. This potential of the Nabu temples is best shown in the most well-preserved examples at the capital cities of Kalḫu (modern Nimrud) and Dur-Šarrukin (modern Khorsabad). These two temples of Nabu have the same combination of architectural features that produced this sensory experience, despite being in different cities and despite having different spatial layouts. These features include: (1) a sense of emphatic placement of the temples on the royal citadels and distinctive exterior features; (2) an indirect route towards the cult rooms of Nabu that passed through multiple courtyards, passage-chambers, and doorways with remarkable architectural programmes; (3) and akītu-suites, which were associated with the Assyrian akītu-festival and adê-ceremony. The appreciation of knowledge and of experts (Akk. ummânu) materialised in these built environments expresses developments in royal ideology and the preferences of Neo-Assyrian kings, in particular during the eighth and seventh centuries b.c. This examination of the temples of Nabu demonstrates the ways in which a sensory-oriented approach adds a unique perspective to previous archaeological and textual studies, as well as insight into the relationship between cultural and ideological values and complex sensory landscapes of past societies.

The buildings on the citadel of Nimrud, ancient Kalah or Kalḫu, constitute a most impressive monument (Fig. 1; Postgate and Reade 1980), but the sporadic way in which they have been excavated leaves many questions unanswered. One puzzling area lies north and north-east of the great North-West Palace. It includes the ziggurrat, and the shrines of Ninurta, of Ištar Šarrat Nipḫi (formerly read Bēlat Māti) and of the Kidmuri (or Ištar Bēlat Kidmuri). Their interrelationships have yet to be established, and texts refer to further gods resident at Kalah. Excavations in this quarter were conducted by Layard, Rassam, Rawlinson, Loftus and Smith in the nineteenth century, and by Mallowan in the 1950s, and were resumed by staff of the Iraq Directorate-General of Antiquities in the early 1970s. This paper summarizes some of what we know or may deduce about the area, and defines some of the remaining problems; it does not include, except in passing, the relatively well-known Nabû Temple to the south. I have endeavoured to refer to all items except sherds found during British excavations in the area, but have not attempted the detailed publication which many of the objects, groups of objects, and pottery records may merit.

A possible arrangement of the buildings in this area of Nimrud about 800 BC is given in Fig. 2, but it is a reconstruction from inadequate evidence. The relative dates, dimensions, locations and orientations of many excavated structures are arguable, and the plans published by different excavators cannot be fully reconciled. Major uncertainties concern the ziggurrat, the citadel-wall, the Kidmuri shrine and the area between the North-West Palace and the Ninurta shrine. There are many minor uncertainties. My reconstruction includes speculative features, while omitting some excavated walls which I regard as secondary.

Excavations continued on a wide range of projects in Iraq during 1989 and the earlier part of 1990. Particular emphasis was laid upon research excavations, although some rescue projects continued. We are extremely grateful to the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage and its Director-General, Dr. Mu'ayyad Sa'id Damerji, for assistance throughout the period of excavations. The reports have been compiled by Roger Matthews and Tony Wilkinson from information supplied directly by the excavators to whom, as always, we are especially indebted and whose indulgence we seek for any mistakes contained herein.

As usual, the sites are arranged alphabetically, ignoring non-specific initial words such as al-, Tell, Khirbet, etc.

In Revue de Musicologie XLIX (1963), 3–17 (henceforth cited as RM XLIX), and again in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger (= Assyriological Studies No. 16, Chicago (1965), 268–272, henceforth cited as AS 16), Mme. Duchesne-Guillemin has put forward a theory for the tuning of the Babylonian harp, based on a tablet from Ur, U.3011, and another tablet of unstated provenance in the University Museum, Philadelphia, CBS 10996. The CBS tablet contains a list of intervals with their names, repeated twice over, while the Ur tablet gives the names of the nine strings, presumably of the harp, followed by part of a similar list of intervals (extremely fragmentary). Starting from the observation that the third string has the name “thin string”, Mme. Duchesne-Guillemin infers that the semitone occurred between the third and fourth strings, so that the harp would have been tuned to a scale equivalent to our C major, running from C to the D in the octave above (using, as throughout this article, names of notes and scales in a relative not absolute sense). Observing further that the list of intervals contains three rising fifths followed by four descending fourths, she suggests that the list is a tuning cycle, in which the inclusion of thirds and sixths is explained by the principle that “c'est la superposition des gestes sur les mêmes cordes, pour les regler et les corriger, qui constitue l'accord” (her italics; see RM XLIX, 15), though this view is modified in RM LII. The inclusion of the tritone—an impossible tuning interval—she can only explain by the necessity for completeness (ibid). She remarks incidentally that the fourth string, named “Ea made it”, is to be identified with the Greek μέση.

Among the tablets excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur there is a text containing incantations and rituals against slander and witchcraft. A hand copy of this tablet has been prepared by the present writer for inclusion in a forthcoming volume of texts from Ur; its publication may, however, be anticipated by the following edition, which is offered as a tribute of respect and esteem to the eminent excavator.

Incantations against witchcraft have been known since the early days of Assyriology from the large compilation known to the Assyrians as Maqlû “Burning”. These incantations are for the most part addressed to the Fire God; the usual practice was to make figurines of wood or wax representing the sorcerer and then to destroy them by fire, while invoking the assistance of the Fire God. An alternative was to place the figurines in a small boat and launch this on the water, where it would either float away downstream or capsize in a storm, and it is this procedure to which the present tablet is devoted. The interest attaching to this procedure with the boat is shown by the fact that the two incantations from Maqlû which refer to it have been quoted in extenso by such authorities on Babylonian magic as Morris Jastrow and R. Campbell Thompson; further examples of it will therefore not be unwelcome.

The occasion of the seventy-fifth birthday of Professor Emeritus C. J. Gadd provides a welcome opportunity to add a humble footnote to one of the pages of his life's work.

In 1958 Professor Gadd published his model edition of the Harran inscriptions of Nabonidus, discovered in 1956 by the late Professor D. S. Rice whilst examining the ruined Great Mosque at Harran. Professor Gadd agreed with Rice and others that the find-place of the three stelae H 1 B, H 2 A and H 2 B disposed of any doubt which might ever have arisen, on the basis of Pognon's discovery of the related stela H 1 A at Eski Harran, as to the correctness of the traditional identification of Islamic Harran with the ancient city of that name.

Whilst the site of the ancient city of Harran is not seriously questioned, the position is otherwise with the site of the main temple associated with it, É.ḪÚL.ḪÚL. Although there is a tradition that the Great Mosque at Harran was built on the site of a pagan temple, it does not necessarily follow that it was built above É.ḪÚL.ḪÚL or its Sabian successor, since classical and Islamic reports indicate that there was more than one moon temple in the neighbourhood of Harran, in addition to other sacred buildings. Equally, there is more than one site in the neighbourhood of Harran for which there is archaeological evidence that the worship of the Moon-God was practised there in antiquity. Whilst Eski Harran may now be disregarded, Aşagi Yarimca and Sultan Tepe both have good claims to the possession of an Assyrian temple.

In the preceding number of this journal we described how in the Spring of 1949 we returned to the site of the famous N.W. Palace of Assur-naṣir-pal and set to work in chamber V where, more than a century ago, Layard had first unearthed the famous collection of Nimrud ivories. There, and in the adjacent chamber W, we found hundreds of mutilated fragments, most of them undecorated, which the workmen had cast aside and thrown back when the chambers were refilled with the soil that had come out of them. None the less our return to these rooms was worth while, for in the debris of V we found two unfinished plaques, Plate VI, 3, 4, which indicated that some of the ivories must actually have been carved at Calah, and in the same room, on an undug patch of soil about one metre above the level of Assur-naṣir-pal's pavement, we found the beautiful figure of the cow suckling its calf, Plate I, 2, 3. These three figures are all that we can illustrate here from Layard's excavations: the remainder was found by us in the newly discovered S.E. wing of the Palace which we began digging in the Spring of 1950. With these three exceptions, the rest of the collection comes from rooms FF, GG north of OO, HH, OO, and QQ, see text Fig. 1, and in every case the pieces were found lying in confusion on a pavement level which can with certainty be attributed to the reign of King Sargon, thanks to the fortunate discovery in room HH of a clay docket bearing the name of a limmu who is known to have held office in the year 715 B.C. Most of the pieces, including the Bull, ND. 762, and the remarkable head, ND. 763, Plates II–V, were found in room HH; see Plate X for a picture of the N.W. corner of that room and the objects as they appeared at the time of discovery.

In May 1942 the Directorate-General of Antiquities decided to make soundings in the ancient site called ‘Aqar Qüf, whose ruined ziggurat is a familiar landmark in the plain about 20 miles to the west of Baghdad. There proved to be very little difficulty in tracing the four buttressed sides of the ziggurat itself, and on the south-east side the remains were found of a triple staircase of kiln-baked brick which had evidently led up to the summit, and corresponded closely to that of the Kassite ziggurat at Ur. Stamped bricks in the fabric of this staircase confirmed the identification of the site with the Kassite city called Dûr Kurigalzu.

Early in the following year the Excavations Committee of the Department, headed by Mr. Seton Lloyd, F.S.A., Technical Adviser, decided on further large-scale excavations at ‘Aqar Qūf. One reason for the selection of the site was an economic one. Owing to war-time transport difficulties it was essential that any excavating work should be in the vicinity of Baghdad. Secondly the work provided an opportunity both for visitors to Baghdad and Iraqis themselves to see an archaeological excavation in progress. Many hundreds of Allied troops visited the site while the work was in progress, and parties of school-teachers and students were frequently escorted round the ruins. Finally, the archaeological importance of the site has long been evident. It represents a period in the history of Iraq concerning which there are few sources of information, and whose chronology is still controversial. Furthermore, it is a period during which the international relations of the various Middle East States are extremely interesting, as witnessed, for example, by the Amarnah Letters'.

Tr. 4001, which forms the subject of this note, was found in 1967 in late Assyrian fill above the north-eastern corner of the earlier temple; it lay above the line of that temple's north façade, just to the north of room II (see the plan in Iraq 30 (1968), Plate XXVIII). The tablet was therefore found fairly close to the neo-Assyrian shrine, but above it, and the late Assyrian terracing of the temple-zigurrat mound suggests that there may have been building on its summit, which would constitute an equally plausible provenance for our tablet.

During the last century of Assyria's existence the urban landscape was characterised by a bipolar structure. The old capital Ashur was still the religious, ceremonial and cultural centre, while Nineveh was the seat of royal power (Maul 1997). Both cities were not only the oldest urban entities of the Assyrian heartland, flourishing at least from the third or even fourth millennium BC onwards; they both also represented two different regions within Assyria with very specific geomorphologic environments and distinctive socio-ecological conditions. While the Ashur region is situated at the southernmost edge of the dry farming belt, the Nineveh area is one of the most fertile regions in northern Mesopotamia (Fig. 1).

The political fates of the two cities were unconnected for a long time. Ashur became an important trading centre and an independent kingdom at the beginning of the second millennium, whereas for a long time Nineveh stood in the shadow of more powerful neighbours. But in the seventh century it was Nineveh that became the capital of Assyria and the outstanding urban structure of the whole Near East. The refounding and enlargement of the city by Sennacherib was by far the most ambitious town-building programme ever realised in Assyria. Furthermore, it marked the end of a long process of moving the political centre of the country from the Ashur region northwards to the Nineveh region, which coincided with the rise of Assyria from a small kingdom to a world empire. During this development there were several (other) temporary capitals, all of them new foundations like Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta, Kalhu and Dūr-Šarrukēn.

Important developments in wheel construction can be observed in Iraq and other parts of the Near East during the later third and earlier second millennium B.C. One such innovation is the appearance of clamped-on tyres made in bronze or copper segments. Recent, spectacular finds from Turkmenistan in Central Asia extend the already wide distribution of tyres of this distinctive form. They also shed light on the kinds of wheel and vehicle on which such metal tyres were used.

The interest shown by Professor Gadd in all aspects of Babylonian literature is sufficiently well-known to justify the publication in his honour of two pieces from a Šurpu-type litany which now completes one of a series of texts hitherto known only from other fragments (Plates XXXVIII–XL).

Among the tablets found in the Nabû temple at Nimrud in 1958 were two fragments (ND4389; 4405/77 = A) which, though physically touching are regrettably too broken at the juncture to provide a continuous text. This loss is, however, not serious since the intervening text (ll. 11′–30′; 80′–93′) is provided by a Šurpu-type text (AO 6775 = B) already published by Nougayrol. A further small fragment giving the left side of ten lines (K. 7164 = C), published by Reiner, was classified as Type I.2 and identified with that published by Nougayrol. To the 3 8 lines thus previously known can be added a further 56 lines from which it is clear that the deities with their entourages and shrines were first invoked to remove any curse (lipšur). These were followed by the months of the year and by the days of the month. The catchline on the reverse of ND 4405/77 (KUREnlil) indicates that at Kalḫu this text preceded that on which the mountains and rivers were invoked for the same purpose. Since ‘Mt. Sābu, the home of Enlil’ begins the latter tablet (Reiner Type I.1) it is probable that our present text (Reiner Type I.2) should be placed before it and that the Litany type numbers be re-arranged accordingly.

This article consists of a detailed account of the mashhad of Imām Yaḥyā ibn al-Qāsim. The square-plan building, constructed on the cliff edge above the southern bank of the Tigris in the citadel of Mosul in c. 637/1239, was destroyed in an act of cultural terrorism by ISIS on 23 July 2014. This is a study of the work of earlier scholars on the building, a reassessment of the structure and its regional context, and a number of hypotheses regarding the original appearance of the tomb. In addition, the wide-ranging sources of the formal and decorative elements of the building are examined. The mashhad was the most richly ornamented of the medieval tombs in Iraq which had survived into the modern era, yet it had not been comprehensively studied in over a century. The remaining untranslated inscriptions are given in full, adding useful new information to the discussion regarding the important distinction between the ʿAlids versus Shīʿī associations of the building and its patron. Drawing on the limited published and archival images of the building, the internal appearance is reconstructed, and a series of new architectural plans and elevations are provided in order to preserve the memory of this important structure.

Dans un récent fascicule d'Iraq, P. Hulin a publié une très jolie plaquette de Nimrud, ND 5545, qui énumère les interdits, alimentaires ou autres, auxquels il importait de se conformer durant les sept premiers jours du mois de Tešrit, période de pénitence que terminait, le lendemain, une journée de liesse et de purification.

L'intérêt principal de ce texte est de nous confirmer l'importance qu'avait, dans la vie magique et religieuse des Akkadiens, ce prélude au second semestre de l'année.

De cet ensemble de prescriptions rituelles nous possédions en effet déjà trois témoignages. Le premier, KAR 147, fait l'objet, tout comme ND 5545, d'une tablette particulière. Les deux autres ont été insérés par les scribes assyriens dans leur compilation générale des hémérologies. Il y est d'ailleurs précisé que l'une des versions était d'origine assyrienne, et l'autre, la simple copie d'un original d'Akkad.

C'est donc désormais par trois sources différentes que nous est attestée la tradition assyrienne en la matière. La tradition babylonienne au contraire ne nous est connue qu'indirectement, par la copie KAR 177, rev. II, 48, I, 44 dont le modèle ne nous est pas parvenu.

During the 1967 season at Tell al-Rimah directed by Mr. David Oates, 282 tablets and fragments were discovered, all except one dating from the Old Babylonian period. They were cleaned on the site by Mr. David Hawkins and myself; after the season's excavations had finished, they were sent to the Iraq Museum. Owing to unavoidable circumstances, it was not possible to continue studying the tablets there; therefore this report is based on the catalogue made on the site, and on preliminary transliterations and copies. I am most grateful to Mr. Hawkins for his invaluable help in the cleaning, copying and transliterating, and in discussions on the texts; nevertheless, the onus of presenting a report from incomplete study rests on myself. All the readings and conclusions offered here are open to correction when the tablets have been studied fully; but they are of such interest that it seemed advisable to present an immediate, preliminary report. A publication of all the texts that will include copies, transliterations, translations and notes will be prepared.

Situé à l'extrémité sud-est des ruines de l'antique ville de Kish, le tell A reste célèbre dans l'histoire de l'archéologie. Les fouilles anglo-américaines dirigées par Stephen Langdon et Ernest Mackay y mirent au jour, lors des campagnes de 1923 et 1925, cent cinquante sépultures présargoniques creusées dans les ruines d'un palais sumérien. Ces deux découvertes, sans équivalent à l'époque, furent à l'origine de la publication immédiate des travaux sur le tell A. Actuellement, ces données s'intègrent mieux dans nos connaissances sur le troisième millénaire mais la masse d'informations sociologiques que représente le cimetière A n'avait fait l'objet que de rares études.

Or, il est acquis depuis les travaux de Lewis Binford et Arthur Alan Saxe que les pratiques funéraires véhiculent des renseignements “potentiels” sur la société qui les produit. En s'appuyant sur des exemples ethnographiques, ces chercheurs démontrèrent que l'hétérogénéité des rites funéraires d'un groupe précis était liée au degré de complexité de l'organisation sociale, et que chaque traitement contenait implicitement les caractéristiques sociales (âge, sexe, type de décès…) de l'individu défunt auquel il se rapportait. C'est dans cette optique que nous tenterons de réinterpréter le cimetière A de Kish.

Il convient toutefois de s'attarder sur la documentation disponible. Le rapport de fouille d'E. Mackay présente d'importantes lacunes. Les limites exactes de la fouille ne sont pas connues. On ignore la position et l'étendue du cimetière. Mackay notait à plusieurs reprises que des objets semblables à ceux des tombes jonchaient la surface du tell A. Ne disposant d'aucun plan, nous en sommes réduits à supposer que les 150 sépultures découvertes ne constituent qu'une partie représentative de la nécropole et que de nombreuses tombes ont subi l'action de l'érosion (ou du pillage) alors que d'autres n'ont pas encore été fouillées.

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.

Some years ago at the request of Dr. R. D. Barnett, then Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities, Mrs. Diane Gurney prepared drawings of unpublished sealings from Ur in the British Museum for a supplementary volume in the Ur Excavation Series. At the same time she also did revised drawings of a few sealings already published by Legrain in Ur Excavations III: Archaic Seal-Impressions (London, 1936). As the proposed supplementary volume has been cancelled, Mrs. Gurney's careful drawings are published here with a revision of the short catalogue and commentary which I originally wrote to accompany them. The complexity of the task facing Legrain was formidable and must never be forgotten. Criticism of his impressionistic, often idiosyncratic, renderings of these designs is all too easy. The decipherment of details is often hard enough; but it is the restoration of complete designs that is so testing of eye, hand and judgement. Those compositions combining geometric motifs or cuneiform signs, sometimes both, with representations of men, animals and objects are particularly hard to unravel. Sometimes not only the exact frame of a design, but even its orientation, is in doubt. Nor yet have we actual cylinders carved with the most intricate of such designs to guide us.

In preparing her drawings Mrs. Gurney first produced a provisional pencil sketch. After independent study of the sealing, I discussed this initial copy with her, resolving as far as possible any points at issue. Then the drawings were completed in ink, with any details which remained obscure rendered in broken line. Since the drawings best speak for themselves, catalogue descriptions have been reduced to a minimum. As far as possible cross-reference has been made to Legrain's pioneer study. His introductory remarks and his analysis of decorative motifs are as relevant to the sealings here as to his selection. This supplement adds nothing of substance; but it offers an opportunity for students to contrast another hand and eye to Legrain's in one of the most important groups of sealings yet found in Iraq.

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.