Many of the scenes on cylinders are evidently renderings of myths, but great uncertainty prevails as to their interpretation. This is partly due to the incompleteness of our knowledge of the contemporary literature and partly to our inability to grasp the allusions which must have been clear to the clients of the seal-cutters. Apart, however, from these inevitable handicaps, attempts at interpretation have suffered from a singular lack of method. For if it is true that our only hope of utilizing the information of the seals lies in a comparison of their scenes with the texts, it should be equally obvious that a haphazard interpretation of isolated scenes remains necessarily guess-work. If, for instance, a vanquished god is called ‘Kingu’ or a two-faced figure ‘Marduk’, such identifications do not carry conviction as long as we do not know precisely in which scenes these figures appear, which versions of each scene are extant, and what bearing the variants of any one scene have upon its interpretation. But, as is so often the case, the archaeological material has been denied the methodical treatment given, as a matter of course, to every text.

It may be laid down as a general rule in regard to the dating of pottery that shape, technique, and fabric must all be taken into account, but the first is much the most important. Fabric or ware is dependent on local materials and consequently remains constant over long periods, and helps therefore very little for dating purposes. Nor is technique or surface-finish always a sure chronological guide, for it is controlled usually by the potters' whim, or by tribal custom, and not by the purchasing public, and is therefore liable to irregular or sudden changes. Shape, on the other hand, though dependent in part on the potters' skill and on the function of the pot, is far more dependent on the public taste, and is consequently more likely to evolve gradually and regularly. Nor do its changes take long in their evolution. It often needs but a few centuries, even in a conservative country like Mesopotamia, for pot-shapes to develop so markedly that the connexion between the first and last of a series would be unrecognizable without the guidance of the intermediate variants. Conversely, if in an extensive array of pottery a close connexion can be shown to exist between specimens from the earliest and latest levels, it is as likely as not that no long period of time need be postulated for the development from one to the other.

It is the purpose of this article to gather from a variety of places and publications the examples (known to me) of a particular form of game-board which was in use, at widely different periods, over a very large area of the ancient East, and to point out one historical fact which seems to have a clear connexion with it.

The game in question is that which has been called, for want of any other name, the Game of Fifty-eight Holes. In all cases but one the only requisites of the game which have survived are the boards upon which it was played, and these show in general a striking resemblance, not only in the arrangement of the holes, but in the shape of the whole object, which is roughly rectangular, but has one of the short sides straight while all of the other sides are curved, the long ones concave, the remaining short one convex. Despite individual variations this general form is common to all but a very few of the examples; it has been aptly compared with an axe-blade. As to the holes, there is always a line of these following the edges of the board and two straight lines down the middle. Occasionally the middle displays some pictorial device, a palm-tree, or a pair of eyes, so contrived that it marks out the end (?), or winning-point, of the game; but this feature is rare. The holes are arranged in groups so that, in all but one particular area, four ordinary holes occur between special holes which are always distinguished either by a mark, an inlay, or the end of certain lines connecting them with other holes of the same kind. In the middle of the curved short side is always a central hole of the special kind, generally marked in the same way as the others, but occasionally made larger, or even signalized by a sign of its own. In the particular area referred to, which is on the middle lines towards the straight end of the board, there is always a pair of groups of three special holes with only one ordinary hole dividing them.

Bei unserem Besuch der Ruinen am I. Jan. 1927 haben wir trotz der Kürze der Zeit versucht, die bisherigen Pläne (bei Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod, S. 407, und Zehnpfund, A.O. XII. 3-4, Plan I, nach Scheil in Mémoires Instit. orient, du Caire, tome I) zu vervollständigen. Das nebenstehende Plänchen, Abb. I, ist das Ergebnis jenes Versuchs. Sie beruhen auf einer rasch ausgeführten Triangulation, deren Hauptpunkt auf dem Zikkurrat-Hügel lag, und einer Abschreitung des Tempel-Plateaus. Von der im N. und O. wohlerhaltenen Stadtmauer haben wir nur ein kurzes Stück, sowie ihre Entfernung vom Tempel-Plateau abgeschritten. Das übrige Stadtgebiet konnten wir nicht besuchen.

The craving for divine protection is so deeply inherent in human nature that a primitive society cannot long exist without creating for itself a god or gods, to whom are attributed the powers necessary for the preservation of mankind. Most of the great divine beings of the Babylonian pantheon were originally gods of the city-states, whose functions were multiplied according to the needs of their worshippers, until they became strongly marked personalities with very definite powers.

Secondary gods were much less clearly envisaged, and were often so nebulous that their characters sometimes changed completely in the course of ages, so that they became totally different from what they were primarily conceived to be. A god who was originally a mere phantom might, for political or other special reasons, acquire a position of some prominence, only to sink back again into the ranks when the particular circumstances which had called him forth ceased to exist.

Nelle rovine delle antiche città della Valle dei Due Fiumi gli strati più recenti sogliono risalire al periodo persiano ossia all'epoca dei Parti e dei Sassanidi, quando la Mesopotamia faceva parte dell'impero partico o del regno sassanidico. In quasi tutti i luoghi dove gli scavatori hanno iniziato delle ricerche archeologiche essi si sono imbattuti anzitutto in rovine più o meno vaste e più o meno importanti di questi due periodi. Già il Loftus a Warkah, poi i Tedeschi a Babele, e più recentemente a Ctesifonte, gli Americani a Nippur e ora a Seleucia, gli Inglesi a Kish, i Tedeschi ad Ashshur, ed ancora in altri luoghi si sono trovate tracce più o meno cospicue della civiltà partica, vale a dire della civiltà mesopotamica del periodo partico.

Nineveh, enclosed within a rampart, representing, for the most part, Sennacherib's work, nearly eight miles in perimeter, consists of the two great mounds, Quyunjiq (more than half a mile long by a quarter broad) and Nebi Yūnus, the mound of the Prophet Jonah, considerably smaller in size, and the flats within the walls at the foot of these mounds, wherein dwelt the bulk of the people. To the east, the more exposed side, there is also another large rampart outside the complete encircling wall, which seems never to have been completed. Whether the Tigris washed the SW. flank in historic times is uncertain, although such a course for that river is possible.

The only description of this mosque that we possess is that given by al-Ḫaṭīb. It runs as follows:

‘Abū Ja'far al-Manṣūr had established the principal mosque of the city of al-Manṣūur, in contact with (mulāṣiq) his palace called Qaṣr adh-Dhahab—it is [what is now known as] the Old Court (aṣ-ṣaḥhn al-‘atīq)—he built it with sun-dried bricks (libn) and clay (ṭīn); its dimensions, according to Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī al-Warrāq and Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Muḥtasib, were as follows: Muḥammad ibn Ḫalaf says: the dimensions of the palace of al-Manṣūr were 400 cubits by 400 cubits and those of the first mosque 200 by 200; and the columns of wood of the mosque—that is to say each column—consisted of two pieces bound (mu‘aqqab) together with sinews (‘aqab), glue and iron clamps, except five or six columns near the minaret. On each column were round composite capitals, of wood like the shaft.