The hitherto unpublished Late Babylonian fragment BM 47806 + adds another example to the group of rituals which counteract witchcraft by banning sorcerers to the netherworld. Šamaš is asked to hand them over, on his journey to the netherworld, to Ḫumuṭ-tabal, the ferryman of the dead. The edition of BM 47806 + is preceded by a brief overview of rituals of this type, including a discussion of the relationship between ritual burial of figurines – symbolising the dismissal of sorcerers to the netherworld – and their ritual burning, the other single most important technique of figurine magic deployed to kill warlock and witch.

In 671 BCE, Esarhaddon advanced south from the Levant and attacked Egypt, sacking Memphis. About seven years later, in response to repeated Kushite uprisings and following an initial campaign into Lower Egypt, Ashurbanipal's army reinvaded Egypt, marching as far as Thebes where, according to Assyrian accounts, the temples and palaces were looted and their treasures brought back to Nineveh. The Assyrians had been in conflict with Egypt for some time, but these clashes had always taken place in Western Asia, where the two states fought for control and influence over the small Levantine kingdoms. Not until Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal did Assyria penetrate into the heart of Egypt, attacking its two traditional capitals of Memphis and Thebes. This period of intensified antagonism, along with its consequence — increasingly direct contact with Egyptian culture — brought into greater focus Assyria's relationship to the Egyptian imperial tradition. I would like to propose here that Assyrian royal ideology, as expressed in art, developed in part out of an awareness of and reaction to the great imperial power of New Kingdom Egypt, in particular that of the Ramesside period of the thirteenth and early twelfth centuries. Indeed, it is more the reaction against Egyptian tradition that seems to have stimulated what we understand as characteristic and distinctive of Assyrian art, but at the same time, even these elements may owe some inspiration to Egypt. In this way, the New Kingdom Egyptian empire served as both precedent and “other” for Assyria, which began to develop its own imperialist ideology during the contemporaneous Middle Assyrian period.

The two sites of Al 'Ubaid and Eridu in southern Iraq are among the most significant historically for our understanding of the 'Ubaid culture. Al 'Ubaid is the type site while Eridu has yielded, not only the best known 'Ubaid occupation sequence, but also evidence of the development of the settlement from its beginnings as a village to its later floruit as a town, complete with a temple and an extensive extra-mural cemetery. Both sites have been partially excavated, Al 'Ubaid on two occasions and Eridu by at least four expeditions. The results of all these various explorations have been published so that we have a good idea of the nature of both sites. I was able, with T. J. Wilkinson, to visit Al 'Ubaid and Eridu in June 1990 (Fig. 1). During our visits we found indications of the firing of 'Ubaid pottery on the surfaces of both sites; this discovery was unexpected since the existence of pottery kilns had not been mentioned in the published accounts. The purpose of this note is to draw the attention of archaeologists to these remains, to describe them briefly and to discuss their significance.

The opportunity to visit Al 'Ubaid and Eridu came during a reconnaissance of prehistoric sites in Iraq carried out with the encouragement of Dr Muayad Said Damerji, then Director General of the State Organization of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq. I wish to thank Dr Damerji and his staff for the welcome they extended on that occasion and the assistance they provided. I also wish to express appreciation and thanks to T. J. Wilkinson, then the Assistant Director of the British Archaeological Expedition in Iraq and an old friend and colleague, who accompanied me on the reconnaissance and gave valuable help throughout.

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.

Fragments of a cuneiform description of Babylon, containing the names of the town, its temples, and gates, have been published by Prof. E. Unger in W.V.D.O.G. XLVIII, pl. 82 and in his book Die Stadt Babylon, 229 ff. Notes on these tablets have been published by B. Landsberger in Z.A. XLI. 287 ff. There are seven fragments: 1. V.A.T. 13101 (Photo W.V.D.O.G. XLVII, pl.82);2. V.A.T.554(Reisner, Hymne No.5, Photo W.V.D.O.G.XLVIII, pl. 82); 3. B.M. 34878 (Photo W.V.D.O.G. XLVIII, pl. 82); 4. V.A.T. 13200 (Matouš, L.T.B.A. 1, No. 72, Photo Z.A. XLI, pl. VIII); 5. K. 3089 (P.S.B.A. XXII (1900), 559); 6. V.A.T. 401 (Photo Z.A. XLI, pl. VII); 7. K. 15122 (King, Suppl.).

The three tablets of the Ashmolean 1924–846, 1924–810, 1924–849 are partly duplicates, but fill large gaps. 1924–849 is a duplicate of V.A.T. 13101, col. I. V.A.T. 13101, col. I, fills the gap in 1924–849, obv. It contains the various names of Babylon, and according to its colophon it is an extract of the first tablet of the series, TIN-TIR(ki). This proves that V.A.T. 13101 is not the fifth tablet of the series TIN-TIR(ki), but that its colophon means— as B. Landsberger has already suggested in Z.A. XLI. 288—that five tablets have been written on a single one. V.A.T. 13101 does not give the whole series, but only extracts of five tablets.

In 1951 the Directorate General of Antiquities in Baghdad acquired a limestone statue of apparently Sumerian date. The dealer from whom the purchase was made claimed that he had found the statue at Tell Aswad, an ancient mound situated on the left bank of the Euphrates some 24 km. to the north-west of Ramadi. Shortly afterwards a team was dispatched by the Directorate to examine the mound and in the course of executing small trial trenches near the surface of the mound encountered structures of plano-convex mud-brickwork. In view of certain peculiarities in the style and proportions of the Tell Aswad statue doubts were voiced among members of the Directorate as to its genuineness, and in consequence approaches were made to various eminent archaeologists and art historians with a view to eliciting their professional opinions concerning it. On the basis of photographs supplied by the Directorate the consensus of opinion among the experts was that the statue showed certain stylistic differences from hitherto known Sumerian statuary which by themselves at least were not sufficient to mark the piece as definitely genuine or definitely false.

We present editions of five cuneiform tablets in the collection of Norwich Castle Museum and two held by Cambridge University Library. The Norwich tablets comprise three tablets from the well-known “Mesag archive” or “Umma C” from the Sargonic period; one small tablet from Ur III Umma; and a fragment of an unprovenanced Old Babylonian account. Those in Cambridge are both from Ur III Girsu: a wool receipt and part of a balanced labour account.

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.

The gate of Nergal in the northern wall of Nineveh has given rise to a curious archaeological puzzle. The best start for an exposition of its elements is to record the statements made by the various archæologists and writers who in the past have made mention of this gateway in Sennacherib's walled city, and then to compare them with each other, and with a recent examination of the actual remaining monuments that, during a residence in Mosul, I have had the opportunity to make, since the chance of a landslide in the spring of 1941, followed by excavation by the Antiquities department of the Iraq Government, has restored them to the light of day.

Henri de Genouillac (1881–1940), one of the leading Assyriologists of his time, owned a collection of cuneiform tablets and inscribed artefacts. On his death, it was divided into two parts. Whereas the majority of these objects were bequeathed to the Musée des Antiquités in Rouen, his native city, a smaller part remained the property of his nephew, Michel de Genouillac. The present paper, which offers the publication of the latter, also aims to reconstruct its history. The Michel de Genouillac collection consists of 20 Ur III tablets (9 from Puzriš-Dagan, 10 from Girsu, 1 of uncertain origin), 1 clay cone with an inscription of Gudea and 5 Sargonic administrative tablets from Girsu.

It has recently been suggested that the Early Dynastic buildings at Tello were so inadequately recorded that they should be excluded from any study of the architecture of the period (Tunca 1984: p. xxi). A re-examination of the published material suggests that this is an unnecessarily defeatist conclusion. A number of possibilities deserve serious consideration, at least insofar as they concern the buildings on Tell K known as the Construction Inférieure and the Maison des Fruits. The evidence presented here is drawn from the summary of the excavations published by Parrot in 1948, and from the earlier work by de Sarzec and Heuzey. The sections and plans are taken from Parrot's plans 13 and 15 and his identifying numbers and letters have been retained for ease of reference (Fig. 1).

The first construction which concerns us here (Fig. 1 (ii)–(iv)), is a pavement of Mosul marble lying 8·48 m above plain level and marked ‘a’ on Parrot's plan 13. This is the first in a series of building operations (de Sarzec 1884–1912: p. 412) of which the second seems to have been the erection of a single room on the platform, marked on the plan as room 1. The section in the centre of plan 13 marked “Deuxième état” (Fig. 1 (iii) ) indicates clearly that room 2, which Parrot thought was contemporary with room 1, was in fact a later addition as its exterior wall rests on the later brick packing ‘f’ and not on pavement ‘a’. It should be noted that the section marked “Premier état” on plan 13 does not appear in the earlier excavation reports and seems to be Parrot's secondary interpretation of the evidence, rather than that of the excavators. It should also be noted that the direction of the North arrow appears to have been reversed on Parrot's plan when compared with the earlier ones. The direction shown on de Sarzec's plans will be used here.

The text published as no. 394 (plates CCLXXVIII f.) in U.E.T. VI, (Second Part) is written, as there described, on a complete tablet measuring 14 × 7 cms. This tablet was found during the excavations at Ur, but in circumstances unknown, for it bears no excavation-number nor mark of any kind, and in fact can be identified henceforth (until it receives a museum-number) only by the number it bears in the aforesaid publication. This is the first obscurity of a text which abounds otherwise in that disconcerting quality.

A far more serious defect is the condition of its surface. Upon the ‘body’ of the tablet a thin overlay of finer clay seems to have been spread, and the inscription made upon this, no doubt with the view of obtaining greater clearness. The result has been unfortunate—over irregular spaces the overlay has become detached, carrying away the signs with it. Occasionally it is possible to trace a faint impression on the ‘body’ clay below, where a mark of the stilus has penetrated the overlay, but much has disappeared completely, and much of what remains is very indistinct. It has been peculiarly difficult to reproduce this text; the copy published is the last of several attempts, and is itself, no doubt, capable of improvement through younger and better eyes. A necessity experienced throughout was to adhere as faithfully as possible to what the tablet seems really to carry, i.e. in detachment, where necessary, from many partial duplicate readings which ‘ought’ to exist, and which there is a constant temptation to ‘find’ in the sadly defective lines of no. 394. For the collation of several signs in the K. tablets published in R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish, plates 27–29 I am much beholden to Dr. E. Sollberger.

This note concerns a pair of copper/bronze horse bits from recent excavations at Tell al-Haddad, a site in the region of the Hamrin Dam project in eastern Iraq. The bits were found in 1980 by Iraqi archaeologists in the course of the removal of a grave belonging to a modern cemetery that covered the whole of the mound. Nothing was found with the bits to fix their date, but pottery described by the excavators as Kassite was found over the tell, below the surface, but above Old Babylonian levels. The bits were assigned to the Kassite period.

The nearly identical bits clearly form a pair and show no sign of wear. They have solid bar mouthpieces and circular cheekpieces (Fig. 1; Plate XIIa). The mouthpieces (overall L.: c. 0·227 m, within cheekpieces: c. 0·168 m) are round in section and relatively thick (0·011 m). Their ends pass through the centres of the cheekpieces and are hammered out flat and rolled back on themselves, forming small loops that may have carried rings for the attachment of the reins.

Les fouilles d'Y. Calvet, membre de la mission française à Larsa dirigée par J.-L. Huot, ont mis en évidence entre 1987 et 1989 trois grandes maisons d'un quartier situé dans la partie nord-est du tell, occupé au début du 2e millénaire avant J.-C. Bien que seule la poursuite des fouilles puisse le vérifier, il s'agit d'un quartier qui se différencie des quartiers contemporains d'Ur, de Nippur, de Sippar, de Tell Halawa et de Tell Harmal. L'une des trois maisons fouillées confirme le caractère exceptionnel de ce quartier, en offrant des aspects qui la distinguent de toutes les autres demeures fouillées, non seulement sur ce site, mais également ailleurs. Ces particularités partent du plan et de l'organisation de la maison; l'analyse volumétrique a déjà fait l'objet d'une étude détaillée.

In approaching the problem of Archive keeping at Mari, it might be profitable to inspect, at the outset, the archaeological evidence. On doing so, one is immediately struck firstly by the heterogeneous arrangement of objects in storage and secondly by the apparent lack of a noticeable system in organizing the archives. A spot check of other second millennium palaces which produced appreciable quantities of texts reveals this observation to be generally applicable. In almost every major segment of the Mari palace, a cluster of chambers, really store-rooms, contained a collection of tablets, varying in size. In addition, a text or two would be uncovered here and there at unexpected quarters. For this scattering, Hammurapi's victorious troops were often blamed. This accusation is contradicted, however, by the evidence, documented with archival tags, that after its initial victory, Babylon attempted to preserve Mari's archives under a modicum of order.

In the south-east section of the palace, dubbed by Parrot as the “Eastern” and “Workshops and Store-rooms” Quarters, at least twelve chambers sheltered tablets, many of which dated to the days of Yaḫdun-Lim and his (son (?) and) successor Sūmū-Yamam. On the opposite end, tablets were found in four rooms and in one large chamber of the Administrative Quarters. More to the centre of the palace, and around the vast open courtyard no. 106, the largest proportion of tablets were stored. Rooms 115 to the east, 110 to the north-west, and 108 to the west came the closest to being strictly archival in character.

In Plates II and III of this study three new pieces of the Etana legend are presented, and the beginning of Tablet II is described on the basis of a fragment published in another collection. The new texts are Sm 1839, 83–1–18, 489, and Sm 157 + 1134; the last-mentioned piece results from a recent join, Sm 157 by itself having been first published in R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish, pl. 54. The texts are discussed in four sections, and are concluded with some general remarks on the composition. Attention may particularly be directed to the fourth section which significantly enlarges the Etana story.

This note on three unpublished glass inlay plaques from a badly burned and fragmentary alabaster pedestal cup (Fig. 1) found in the period IVB (late 9th c. BC) level at Hasanlu is offered as an addendum to John Curtis's article “Glass Inlays and Nimrud Ivories” in a recent issue of Iraq. The pieces are of interest because their method of manufacture appears to differ greatly from those published in the Iraq article.

The Nimrud plaques and two of the three Hasanlu plaques, Plaques A and B (Fig. 2a), show rosettes or flowers. While the use of a flower motif, and perhaps its significance, is similar, the similarity ends there. The third Hasanlu plaque, Plaque C (Fig. 2a), is unlike the other two. It had no identifiable decorative design and was inlaid with a circular piece (now missing) near the center.

The Nimrud plaques are many in number and were purposefully made for their function as inlay pieces. However, the three found at Hasanlu were cut from two or more larger objects for reuse as inlays in the alabaster cup along with carnelian and Egyptian Blue beads and a broken glass bead (Fig. 3a, b). The decorated obverse surfaces of Hasanlu Plaques A and B appear to have been made by the mosaic technique. Unlike the petals on the Nimrud plaques, which are now a uniform opaque white glass, the petals on Plaques A and B have a central section of glass of one color outlined by glass of the same consistency but of another color. The round center of the flower is yet another color.

The introductory formulae of Neo-Assyrian letters sent to the king or a superior official during the eighth century B.C. attest to a highly standardised form of letter writing (especially in the address), proving scribal sensitivity to an established letter writing etiquette. The introductory formula reflects the office of the sender; exactly the same formula (including the greeting) may be used by successive officeholders. Yet these formulae are by no means entirely uniform. In particular, the presence or absence of a blessing may tell us about the sender's relationship with the Assyrian king.

The excavation of a large administrative building at the city of Tell Brak in northern Syria saw the recovery of a considerable quantity of charred cereals dated to the mid-third millennium B.C.E. This remarkable discovery provides a rare snapshot into the nature of agriculture in Upper Mesopotamia during the Early Bronze Age. The material has been studied using a combination of primary archaeobotanical analysis, crop stable isotope determinations, and functional weed ecology to deliver new insights into cultivation strategies at Tell Brak as well as to contribute to the wider debate regarding trade and crop importation in this region. Specific crop regime choices also reveal how the farmers of Tell Brak were able to reduce the overall risk of crop failure by careful water management, a vitally important factor in this semi-arid region, with potential implications for the analysis of other large-scale urban agro-economies in the Middle East and beyond.

The Era Epic is the expression of frustrated patriotism. Babylonia had been reduced to ruins and impotence by a people called the Sutû, and the author is trying to explain the reason and to give promises of a glorious future. The reason given is that the god Era, a god of pestilence, had been angry. No grounds, ultimately, for this anger are suggested: it was the god's nature. His commander-in-chief, the god Išum, finally persuaded him to relent. The last of the five tablets, in which the text is written, begins at the point in the narrative where Era has been appeased.

One distinctive feature is a long epilogue. The Epic of Creation is the only other Babylonian epic with a similar ending, but this is less detailed. The Era Epic names its author, and specifies the particular blessings that would come upon gods, kings, nobles, rhapsodists, scribes, and houses that heed this ‘song’. These promised blessings account for many of the copies which have come down to us. The whole epic inscribed in minute writing on a single tablet, single tablets of the five, or short extracts, were used as amulets. Miss E. Reiner has written on this use of the Epic in J.N.E.S. 19 (1960), pp. 148–155. Often the tablets have two corners cut away and a horizontal hole through the remaining tab, as though to fit the tablet into a frame. Such a tablet forms the basis of the present publication. It is a Neo-Late-Babylonian tablet from Ur, U.18122, which contained the whole of Tablet Five written in a minute hand. Unfortunately only illegible traces of the obverse remain, but most of the reverse is preserved, if legible with difficulty. In addition to the copy (Plate XXXVI), we give a full edition of the Fifth Tablet based on collations of all the London fragments. A copy is also given of Bu. 91–5–9, 69+177+225, which has previously been read from inadequate photographs. In view of the useful list of MSS. of the Epic given, with full bibliography, by B. Kienast in Z.A. 54, pp. 244–249, we leave readers to refer to that for details.