The work at Tell Abada was a part of the intensive rescue operation conducted by the Iraqi State Antiquities Organization in the Hamrin basin where about seventy archaeological sites are to be flooded by a dam now under construction.

The work at Abada started in the middle of December 1977 and lasted until the end of July 1978 without any interruption. The excavations were conducted by the writer assisted by Mr. Ali Hashim Khairi and Mr. Jurjis Muhammad Fadhil (Archaeologists); Mr. Salih Al-Tu‘ma was the foreman. They all worked with exceptional industry despite the severe climatic conditions, especially in winter and summer, and many thanks are due to them all. I would like also to express my warmest thanks and gratitude to Dr. Muayad Sa‘id, head of the State Antiquities Organization, for his greatest interest in the work and his constant encouragement and invaluable advice. My thanks are due also to Dr. Joan Oates for her sincere help and advice. The photographs were taken by Mr. Yasin Al-Mashhadani.

Tell Abada lies to the east of the Diyala River, 12 km southeast of Al Sadiyah. It is situated in a large agricultural plain along the Zagros foothills. In the vicinity are a number of small villages whose Arab inhabitants rely on cultivation and herding for their subsistence. The most important crops grown are wheat and barley. In general the climate of the area is very cold and stormy in winter and hot with dust storms in summer. Although winter rainfall is marginal for agriculture (235 mm per annum, recorded at Jalaula 1956–1958), the rain can be very heavy so that in winter the wadis flow as rushing torrents.

In view of the fact that so many of the texts from Mesopotamia are concerned with offerings for the various feasts of the Mesopotamian temples it is surprising that we know so little about the actual mechanisms of offering and distribution of the sacrificial remains. For the earlier periods of Mesopotamian history we have virtually no information about offering procedures. We do not know whether the Sumerian priests destroyed the offering animals totally in the manner of a holocaust, whether they were consumed by the priests during the temple feasts or whether only certain pieces were offered to the gods during the sacrificial meal with the remainder being distributed among the temple personnel as a form of income—which we know to have been the practice in the later periods.

For the Old Babylonian period we are almost as ill-informed. We know, however, that certain cuts of meat were received from the temple by nadītu priestesses as “betrothal gifts” and we have lists of recipients of meat cuts, but in neither case do we know if offering animals were the source of the meat.

The earliest texts expressly concerned with the distribution of offering remains date to the Middle Assyrian and early Neo-Babylonian periods. These take the form of royal rescripts or temple ordinances regulating which temple officials are to receive what remains. The most complete and explicit of these is a temple ordinance for the Eanna in Uruk, composed originally during or shortly after the reign of Nabu-apla-iddin, which we possess in the form of a later copy.

During 1981 and 1982 an immense amount of archaeological research has been undertaken in Iraq and reports on some fifty sites are included below. Most of this research has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage either on its own or in co-operation with foreign expeditions on the Salvage Projects. The Hamrin Dam Salvage Project has continued on two sites of exceptional importance, Tell Haddad and Tell Suleimeh. The Haditha Dam Salvage Project has continued at full strength and the Eski Mosul Dam Salvage Project has now started. By the end of 1982 nine sites had been investigated and by June 1983 that number has more than doubled. At the same time sites elsewhere in Iraq have not been neglected, both those threatened by development and those investigated for research and tourism.

In the compilation of these reports we are very grateful to Dr. Mu‘ayyad Sa'id, the President of the State Organization, for permission to publish them in Iraq. We would also like to thank Dr. Behnam Abu as-Soof, Dr. Muhammad Baqir al-Husseini, Dr. Abd-as-Sittar al-‘Azzawi, and Sd. Abd-ul-Qadir Hassan, the Directors-General for the Northern, Western, Southern and Eastern Regions, for the considerable assistance they have given us. As usual our greatest debt is to the excavators of the various sites for freely telling us about their discoveries. We must also apologize to them for any mistakes we have made in summarizing the results from the excavations.