Legal documents relating to marriage have always attracted the attention of Assyriologists, and rightly so, since they throw light on the social as well as the legal customs of their time. Although the laws and contracts between them have permitted some detailed studies of marriage customs in Babylonia, the evidence for Assyria is much scarcer, and in his edition of Neo-Assyrian legal documents A. Ungnad was able to transliterate no more than four “marriage texts”, three of which belong to a single archive and are extremely similar in content. However, the excavations at Nimrud have made substantial additions to our documentation, and the time seems ripe to summarize what evidence is now available, and to present some which is new. The subject of marriage in any society is a complex one, and it is hardly necessary for me to point out that no attempt has been made to pursue the legal or anthropological implications of these texts. In the first place, the writer is not qualified to do this in either field, and secondly, it seems very doubtful, given the variety displayed by the texts in question, whether we yet have a body of evidence sufficient to warrant a more penetrating study. Nevertheless, it is clearly desirable that what evidence we do have should be readily accessible, even to the non-cuneiformist, and we hope that this medley will serve a purpose.

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 Diane Gurney prepared drawings of unpublished sealings from Ur in the British Museum for a supplementary volume in the Ur Excavation Series.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.

The Birmingham City Museum's collection of cuneiform documents has been assembled over the years from a variety of sources. Many of the Sumerian royal inscriptions are from Sir Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur (1922–34); most of the Assyrian material is derived from R. Campbell Thompson's excavations at Nineveh (1927–32), and the excavations of Sir Max Mallowan at Nimrud (1949–63). Where known, excavation numbers are given in the catalogue. The rest of the collection has been bought from dealers in antiquities or acquired from private collections.

The twenty-four texts which form the latter part of this article are published by kind permission of Mr. John Ruffle, Keeper of Archaeology at the Birmingham City Museum, whom I wish to thank for the help and encouragement he and the staff of the Department of Archaeology have extended to me. I am deeply indebted to the generosity of Professor W. G. Lambert who has given so liberally of his time, advice and learning. Further thanks are due to Dr. Edmond Sollberger for comments on many of the Sumerian texts, and to Professor F. R. Kraus for his suggestions concerning the Old Babylonian letter (48).

The years 1977 and 1978 witnessed a spectacular increase in the number of archaeological excavations in Iraq, both Iraqi and foreign. The chief reason for this was the intensive rescue operation mounted by the State Antiquities Organization in the Hamrin basin, where many ancient sites are threatened by a dam now nearing completion. The conspicuous success of this operation, in which foreign excavators were able to take advantage of the generous allocation made by the Iraqi government, will be apparent in the following pages. The amount of work did however make it impossible for Mr. Postgate to prepare a separate report for 1977, since he was in the field at the time. Hence we have to offer a biennial report, covering more than 60 sites.

The reports have been collected and edited by Mr. J. N. Postgate and Mr. P. J. Watson, both members of the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq. Our gratitude goes not only to them, but to all the directors and other archaeologists who have generously contributed to the collection. In some cases we have failed to collect a report, and in this case a brief note is included; this, and a certain unevenness in the length of the reports, is an inevitable result of the size of the undertaking, and we wish to apologize to those directors whose sites are not properly covered. The collection is divided into two parts: normal excavations (including three sites in the Haditha dam area), and sites in the Hamrin basin rescue project, each arranged in alphabetical order. We wish to express our gratitude here to Dr. Behnam Abu as-Soof and Sd. Sabah Jasim for their assistance in collecting reports on the Hamrin and Haditha sites respectively, for which they are the overall directors. Information has sometimes been culled from the Organization's journal Al-Athari, and in this case the source is acknowledged at the end of the report. Otherwise the data come from personal visits, written reports submitted by the excavators, and contributions to the Babylon, Assur and Hamrin conference in Baghdad in December 1978.