A small piedmont country with resources enough to maintain an active population, Susiana is surrounded by less favoured areas. Isolation is thus ensured, but communication remains possible with Iranian highlands and with Mesopotamian lowlands, with coastal plains and with North-Western foothills. Susa stands on a borderline, at a cross-road, influences streaming through, from, and to it: the story is one of fluctuating orientations, which we shall try to trace through correlations between the early local cultures and those of Mesopotamia.

The small group of tablets here published is the first collection of temple economic texts of the late Assyrian period to be discovered. Although therefore, the selection is limited, they are of particular interest. Except for two tablets recording gifts to the temple of land and slaves, they consist of heart-shaped dockets recording debts of grain owed to the temple. They are of the usual late Assyrian form for this kind of document, with holes for string by which they were suspended, or perhaps tied to sacks; remains of the string were still in the holes when they were excavated.

They were found together in a pit on top of a cut down wall between rooms N.T. 14 and 16, on the south side of the inner courtyard to the temple. They are dated between 668 and 652 B.C., except for an isolated tablet (ND. 5457) which is dated 699 B.C. Of the twenty-one dockets, eight are dated in the spring of 661 B.C., five of them on two succeeding days, 27th and 28th of Addaru (ND. 5447, 5452, 5454, 5459).

The god Nabu is named as creditor (lit. the amount of the debt “belongs to Nabu”), and the normal commercial rates of interest are charged, although there is a greater proportion of debts with low interest. There are some debts without interest, or so it appears; on others 20, 30, 40, and 50 per cent. is charged. The rate seems to depend on the security of the debtor in relation to the amount of the debt (we have no evidence from Calah of rates in bad years of scarcity), for of the debts with the highest interest, 5448 involves a large amount of grain, and a pledge is required as security, 5461 and 5465 are cases in which harvesting labour is required as a condition of credit and probably acts as security. In the five dockets of the 27th and 28th of Addaru, 661 B.C., the interest charged varies between 20 and 40 per cent., and in some cases there is no interest at all.

The ostracon ND.6231 described in this article was found at Nimrud (Kalḫu), in April 1957, during the excavation of the building known as Fort Shalmaneser which was a royal depot situated in the S.E. corner of the outer town. This sherd came from room F.S., S.W.1, and lay in rubbish mixed with ash, 20 cm. above a trodden level that represents the latest occupation of the Assyrian building which was destroyed in 612 B.C. It is hoped to publish the plan of this depot, in which many wine jars, metal objects and ivories were found, in a subsequent number of Iraq.

In Iraq XV, Pt. 2 (1953), pp. 123–125, C. J. Gadd published the inscription of a barrel-cylinder which was found, broken in three pieces, during the excavations at Nimrud. This inscription is a foundation document composed by Marduk-apla-iddina II for a shrine which he consecrated to the god Ningiš-zi-da within the E-anna temple at Warka.

At the end of his article, C. J. Gadd sought to identify the temple mentioned in this inscription with one of the many known, but undefined, temples. At the time when this attempt was made, only the two temples proposed by Mr. Gadd were considered, but both of them cannot perfectly be brought into accord with the statement of the text. In the same year in which Mr. Gadd's article was published, a new temple was excavated in E-anna at Warka, and I have the impression that this is the temple to which the statement of the inscription may best be applied. In U.V.B. X (pp. 5 ff.) and U.V.B. XI (pp. 15 ff) it was pointed out that the extension of E-anna was far greater than we had hitherto supposed. In the eastern corner a very large court was added in which the Innin-temple of Karaindaš stood, and on the North-western side of the Zigurrat another court which—as we know from the results of excavations carried out during the last years—contained only large dwelling-houses. This new discovery of two very large courts belonging to the sanctuary entirely alters the situation. By means of the court extending to the north-west that part of the building of the enclosed court called by Jordan “Aussenzingel” (outer precinct) now becomes “Innenzingel“ (inner precinct) (Plate XXXV). The part in question is that group of rooms within the Zingel enclosure which includes the so-called north-western temple. The building, newly excavated, is situated in the court of Eanna farthest to the East (Qc-e XIV4-XV1).

Most persons, if asked what they considered to be the outstanding characteristic of the law of wrongs in ancient Mesopotamia, would probably reply: “The cruel, bloody sanctions, and in particular the ‘talionic’ and ‘sympathetic’ punishments.” This characteristic is too familiar to need examples. Of the 282 clauses of the Code of Hammurabi (C.H.), some 27 impose capital sentences for a wide variety of wrongs, including adultery and theft. Of the ‘talionic’ sanctions (those applying the principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”) one of the best examples is C.H.229, 230: “If a builder has built a house for a man and his work is not strong, and the house he has built collapses and kills the owner, that builder shall be put to death. If the son of the owner is killed, they shall kill the builder's son.” Clauses 196, 197 provide: “If a free man has injured the eye of a patrician, his own eye shall be injured. If he has broken the bone of a patrician, his bone shall be broken.” Of the ‘sympathetic’ sanctions, examples are more familiar in the Middle Assyrian Laws (M.A.L.), e.g. cutting off a man's lower lip for kissing a married woman (§ 9).

But in recent years earlier laws than these have become available from the same field, and they paint quite a different picture.

First, we may mention the laws now attributed to Lipit-Ishtar, King of Isin, though found sixty years ago—a Sumerian Code of an Akkadian King, dating from perhaps 164–175 years before the C.H. They contain over 100 laws of which very few are legible, and these are hardly relevant to the present purpose, save that one (§ 12) at least raises a doubt whether theft was capital in Isin as it was later in the C.H.