A Snake goddess accompanied by a winged acrobatic figure is alone shown (Plate I a) in repeated cylinder seal impressions on a tablet dated year 9 of the reign of Warad-Sin of Larsa, 1826 B.C. by the middle chronology, 34 years before the first year of Hammurabi of Babylon.

Though the tablet originated at Larsa it seemed that the seal with its lovely but mysterious couple must be of Syrian origin. So far as can be discerned in the impressions they are rendered with a grace and delicacy that at least equal the best Old Babylonian work. Hair extended behind the head as on both of them finds its closest contemporary comparisons in hair styles common in Syrian work (Plate I b). In the latter, however, the effect is of definite shaping whereas here the hair looks almost wind-blown. Acrobats too occur quite often in Syrian glyptic, but not apparently in the pose of ours. To this we must return.

In 1942 the Ashmolean Museum acquired, by gift of the National Art Collections Fund, the small head of a young bull carved in stone, of which five views are given in Plate III. This object is numbered 1942.167 in the Accession Book of the Department of Antiquities, and it is exhibited in the Near Eastern Gallery. The head has been commonly described as “Sumerian”; but no one, as far as I know, has attempted to refine on that description or even to prove that it is correct. In fact, the more carefully the object has been examined in recent years the more doubts have arisen about its identification. I am grateful, therefore, to the Editor of Iraq for printing a description of this little enigma detailed enough, I hope, to enable some perspicacious reader to suggest its proper interpretation.

Three questions present themselves: where was the head made; when was it made; and what was it made for? Its known history does not take us far. The head was first seen in 1942 in the hands of a Baghdad antiquities dealer, who told the Director of Antiquities1 that it had been found “in a tomb not far from Ur”. This was a stereotyped formula from which nothing could be inferred except that the object probably did come from Iraq, otherwise the owner would gladly have said that it was an import.

Dr. P. R. S. Moorey has recently established the identity of a ridden animal on terracotta relief plaques of early 2nd-millennium B.C. Mesopotamia as a true, if very small, Equus caballus. The presence of this species in this region at so early a date has, until now, often been seriously doubted. Also quite recently, a distinct strain of small-pony-sized horse (of 1.20m or under at the withers) has been identified in Iran. The slenderness index of its metapodials (one of the most commonly used criteria for determining equid species) has been found to fall within that of the hemiones. Hence it seems possible that some remains of harness animals of the late 3rd or early 2nd millennium B.C. hitherto dismissed as those of onager may actually have belonged to a true, if very small, Equus caballus. In the light of these facts a review of the pertinent figured evidence has seemed desirable. This has revealed the later continued use of a categorically small pony alongside that of the large pony or small horse.

Plate VI a shows a boy astride an animal that has long been called “an immense wolfhound”. It has a small head and ears, slender limbs, a full mane, and a long, full tail. This equid and others on similar plaques from this period seem definitely smaller and lighter than the Przewalski horse, whose height of 1.30m or more places him just under or already within the “large pony” class of the modern horse-show ring.

To judge from the reliefs in the palace of Ashurnasirpal at Nimrud, elaborately patterned clothes were very much in vogue in 9th century B.C. Assyria. Even soldiers in battle may wear gaily decorated skirts. The patterns consist mostly of floral or geometric designs on the order of those first seen on royal garments on post-Kassite kudurrus. Since such patterns are brightly coloured in the wall paintings at Til Barsip or on the enamelled bricks at Assur, we are led to believe that the designs carved on the reliefs represent embroideries.

A small number of figures (only some of them royal) on the reliefs from Nimrud wear robes decorated with unusually complex patterns, consisting of figures of animals, monsters, genii, kings and some narrative scenes. This special kind of embroidery caught Layard's attention and he painstakingly recorded the designs in his Monuments of Nineveh, published in London in 1853. From these drawings a picture has been formed of 9th century B.C. Assyrian textiles. The embroidery patterns have been used to date Assyrian motifs, as well as to identify the Assyrian prototypes for elements in Assyrianizing art from other areas. The export of such textiles has been credited with spreading Assyrian motifs abroad. The importance which these special embroideries have in Assyrian studies is, then, out of proportion to the tiny scale, or to their incidental contribution to the aesthetic effect of the sculpture of the palace.

Among the material excavated at Kish by Stephen Langdon and now in the Ashmolean Museum is a small limestone fragment (Field registration number K.1884) bearing parts of six lines of an inscription in Babylonian script. W. G. Lambert has recently recognised in line 4 the name of Aššurnādin-šumi, regent of Babylonia 700–694 B.C. Lambert provided the transliteration here printed, and to him and to Professor O. R. Gurney are due the present writer's thanks for the suggestion that he undertake publication of the piece (see Fig. 1).

Ras Shamra (Ugarit) has been one of the outstanding archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. Its distinguished excavator, Cl. F. A. Schaerffer, in 1968 completed his thirtieth season at the site, and to mark the occasion his friends and colleagues were invited to contribute to a volume in his honour. The contributions proved so numerous that two volumes were necessary to contain them. One, which has not yet appeared, will be devoted to articles relating to Enkomi-Alashia. The remainder have been assembled in a new volume of the honorand's own series, Ugaritica. The circumstances are explained in a short foreword by A. Parrot.

As is usual in a Festschrift, the thirty-eight articles are of very varied content. Most, though not all, are directly related in some way to the discoveries at Ugarit. Those of H. de Contenson, J. C. and L. Courtois and A. Bounni, indeed, are actual reports on the excavation of a particular part of the site. H. de Contenson describes in detail the Early Bronze and Obeid levels grouped together as “Niveau III”, to the south of the acropolis. His contribution— much the longest in the volume—will be of special interest to prehistorians on account of the wide variety of objects from these levels which it illustrates. J. C. Courtois reports on the “House of the Priest” or “Priest's Library” excavated in 1961, where a number of Ugaritic and Hurrian tablets came to light. L. Courtois describes the pottery found in a Late Bronze Age tomb; while A. Bounni gives an account of the discovery of parts of a Roman water installation which came to light in 1959 at the south-west corner of the mound during the construction of a modern road.