The ancient Semitic poem here presented is inscribed in alphabetical cuneiform on clay tablets unearthed at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) on the north coast of Syria. The tablets themselves date approximately in the fifteenth century B.C., but their contents were, no doubt, traditional and therefore older still.

2. The poem belongs to a cycle, several portions of which have already been published, which deals principally with the contest of two gods, Ba'al and Mōt, for dominion over the earth. Each in turn defeats his rival and assumes the sovereignty.

In reality, this is a nature-myth pure and simple, for Ba'al is none other than the Lord of the Rain (cp. Arabic ba'l) and Mōt that of the Drought (cf. Arabic mawuth). The alternate victory and defeat of each thus symbolizes the regular alternation of the seasons in the Syrian year. The reign of Mōt, or Drought, covers the weary and rainless months of summer, while that of Ba'al, or Rain, begins in late September and ends some time in March or April.

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.

In 1912 Macalister published the 100-foot long line of enormous, rough uninscribed standing stones at Gezer in Palestine. The next year, Andrae published the strange, double row of stelae, some rough, some uninscribed, mostly very large, which he had found at Assur. The similarity between the two installations was immediately noted and for over sixty years the Stelenreihen at Assur have been cited in the many discussions of the maṣṣēbôt of Palestine. The singular importance of the Assur stelae lies in the fact that some of them were inscribed, whereas the Palestinian stones were not. The Assur inscriptions tell us that the stones represented people, and Eduard Meyer and others believed that the Gezer stones probably had the same meaning. Obviously, in order to project the meaning of the Assur stelae on the Gezer stones, one assumption had to be made: that the people in the two areas were practising identical customs. Curiously enough, this basic assumption has yet to be proved. In fact, many later scholars have taken the Assur stones to be merely one example of a wide-spread custom of setting up plain stones. The Assur stelae have been lumped together with the ever increasing number of plain stones, those found singly as well as those discovered in clusters, with Biblical evidence for maṣṣēbôt, with Punic stelae, and even with Greek hero cults. Far from considering the Assur inscriptions as the determining factor in interpreting uninscribed stones elsewhere, meanings drawn from this wide body of comparative material have been imposed on the Stelenreihen.

Moortgat here gives an account of the fourth campaign at Tell Chuēra, an important site situated on the frontier of North Central Syria, between the Ḫabur and the Balikh, about equidistant from Ras el ‘Ain and Tell Abiadh, in steppe country studded with ancient settlements. The work was conducted under the auspices of the Max-Freiherr-von-Oppenheim Institute and the Deutsches Forschungsgemeinschaft, and is a pendant to the campaign instituted at Tell Halaf on the Upper Ḫabur by Oppenheim in 1911–1912. The results obtained at Chuēra also have a significant relation to the discoveries made by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, in 1934–1938, at Chazar Bazar, Brak and elsewhere in the eastern Habur-Jaghjagha District, and are therefore peculiarly appropriate to discussion in this Journal which published accounts of these excavations about thirty years ago. Thus investigations spread over a period of more than 50 years are gradually placing this part of Northern Syria in a perspective which has become more clearly intelligible through the foreground of Babylonia.

The main mound of Chuēra is of large dimensions and spans a distance of over 1,000 metres from north to south. Winter rains are apt to be heavy, and water is available from a wadi of the same name. Buildings have appeared in several sectors of the mound, both of undressed stone, Steinbau I & III, and of mud-brick.

During the summer of 1931, in the interval between the departure of the first and the arrival of the second of the two distinguished scholars who have occupied the post of Director of Antiquities in Iraq since the death of Gertrude Bell, I was privileged to hold for a few months inexpert administrative charge of the Department. It was at this time that my friend Aḥmad Beg-i Taufiq Beg, Mutaṣarrif of Sulaimani, reported that he had discovered in the naḥiya of Surdash a rock carving which he believed to be ancient Persian. The news was surprising. From 1919 to 1922, when the liwa was under direct British administration, many political and military officers had scoured the district on duty or in search of sport; in the last seven years, since the re-establishment of regular administration, visitors, though not particularly numerous, had not been rare; I myself, with many Kurdish friends who know of my interest in these things, had been in the neighbourhood two or three times. Yet I had never heard any whisper of the existence of such a monument. There was, indeed, one cave near Awdalan that was frequently talked about, an immense hollow running deep into the mountain and holding, no doubt, much of interest to the student of primitive man; but it was not that. I made up my mind to visit the place myself as soon as possible. But for the next three years a perverse fate seemed to turn my footsteps consistently in the direction of the Syrian desert, away from the Kurdish hills; and it was not until April 1934 that the fortunate conjunction of the ‘Id-al-’Adhḥa holidays and Easter gave me my opportunity. Aḥmad Beg was kind enough to make all the preliminary arrangements with Shaikh ‘Abdul Karim of the Qadiri-darwish takya of Awdalan, and to accompany me himself.

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.

Babylon has been associated with incantation bowls since the first discoveries in the mid-nineteenth century. The “Rawlinson” collection of eight incantation bowls (seven were written in Aramaic and one in Mandaic) was accessioned on 9 October 1851 by the British Museum and, according to Trustees Minutes, had been “found in a tomb at Babylon”. Austin Henry Layard does not seem to have been privy to this provenance information when three of these incantation bowls were transcribed and translated in his book, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Instead he claimed that the bowls from the “Rawlinson” collection were “obtained at Baghdad, where they are sometimes offered for sale by the Arabs; but it is not known from what sites they were brought.” This misinformation has been perpetuated and no further information has come to light on the unusual findspot.

Amongst the vast collections of the Iraq Museum are numerous incantation bowls from Babylon, to which IM 9726 can now be added (Fig. 1). The entry in the Register of the Iraq Museum, dated 1927/1928, is scant, not even mentioning the script of the bowl: “Bowl with Incantation Text. Baked clay 12.5 × 6.5 [cm]. Presented by Mey Marian”. Thirteen years later, Cyrus Gordon included IM 9726 in his resumé of international collections of incantation bowls that appeared in the 1941 issue of Orientalia. It was one of the eleven incantation bowls Gordon recorded from the Iraq Museum collection, which he noted “has increased considerably since my last visit to Baghdad in 1935” and which he correctly predicted “should eventually become the largest and the best”. However, Gordon, who noted that IM 9726 had nine lines of Aramaic, only presented excerpts of its text. He did not supply any photograph or drawing of this incantation bowl nor any other information.

The cuneiform tablet here edited belongs to the Museum of Natural History at Torquay, and I am greatly indebted to the Curator who has kindly submitted it to me for study and publication. Whence it comes is unfortunately unknown, but it seems to be of the same class as the large number of commercial documents from Nippur in middle Babylonia which now belong to the University of Pennsylvania and have been published in four volumes by the late Professor A. T. Clay. This suggestion is made especially probable by the Aramaic endorsement or summary of the Babylonian text which closely resembles those found on some of the tablets in that collection. It appears to be the only one of its class in England, so far as published collections go, since the tablets in the British Museum which bear Aramaic notes are Assyrian texts of the seventh century B.C.

Le beau cylindre gravé en hématite A 357, trouvé en 1936 pendant la seconde campagne de fouilles à Chagar Bazar (Haute-Syrie), a été publié par Sir Max Mallowan dans son rapport définitif paru dès 1937 dans Iraq 4, 97, 111 et 136 à 137, ainsi que dans un article préliminaire dans Illustrated London News (1937), 521.

Il ressort du rapport dans Iraq, dont on admirera la précision, et l'étendue des comparaisons stylistiques, que le cylindre de Chagar Bazar faisait partie des offrandes funéraires déposées dans un caveau voûté en briques crues, anciennement écroulé, situé sous le sol d'une habitation comprenant au moins quatre pièces, et dont les fondations remontent au XIX e s.av.n.è. (“Grave 153, room 42, level I, early intermediate, section, fig. 6, p. 122”). A la suite de reconstructions, réparations et transformations successives de la maison, le niveau des sols superposés et des pavages dans les courettes a été rehaussé de 3 mètres. L'occupation semble s'être poursuivie jusque vers la fin du XVIIIe s.av.n.è., et aucune trace d'incendie n'a été signalée. Sous le sol de la pièce 42 où fut mis au jour le caveau 153 ont été dégagées trois inhumations: les offrandes qui y furent déposées constituent le contexte archéologique du cylindre A 357. Il se compose de poteries, dont certaines peintes (types fig. 21 (6), 22 (14), 23 (7), 24 (1)), attribuées au “early intermediate level I”, autrement dit à l'Ugarit Moyen 2 de la stratigraphie de Ras Shamra; cf. Stratigraphie Comparée et Chronologie de l'Asie Occidentale, 91, 1900–1750 av.n.è.).

It is appropriate to dedicate this article to Sidney Smith, on the occasion of his seventy-seventh birthday, for like many scholars primarily concerned with the ancient history and archaeology of Western Asia, his interests were frequently drawn to the distant field of South Arabia where so much enigmatic material reminiscent of the northern, urban monuments of Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia has been found.

The boldly carved, large alabaster head here illustrated on Plates XXIV–XXV is as good a specimen of its kind as I have ever seen, and can be confidently authenticated, not only because of its assured style and antique condition, but also on account of the circumstances of discovery.

This head, which is at present privately owned, was found by a young officer, in 1962, when his regiment was stationed in Aden. On a long distance patrol he visited the ancient city of Timna‘ which he noted as situated on the Yemen-Aden Protectorate border, about two days drive by armoured car, west of ‘Ataq. He described the site as ‘ now reduced by nature to cover a square mile of rubble, often covered with high sand-dunes. There is no water now and only a few Beduin live there’. He also observed that this appeared to be the site of an ancient capital city, that broken pillars and other architectural remains were lying around and that walls and gates could still be traced.

In his article “Babylonian Music Again”, O. R. Gumey provides a welcome update on research on the tablets concerning music of the ancient Near East. Gurney's article also has a corrective effect on a rambunctious article by Martin West that appeared shortly before. Gurney seems to me to have the musical system almost right. West, while he seems to understand the system, presents it in ways that I find illogical, and that I fear will be confusing or misleading. Furthermore, while some of West's conclusions exceed the span of even my own irresponsible imagination, some of his other conclusions seem unnecessarily restrictive, conservative, or simply old-fashioned. Here I want to assert limits of the kind and extent of musical conclusions that we can expect to draw from the available data, but also to explore the kinds of ideas that we can entertain without fear of restriction by those same data.

Gurney as well as West report with approval a new reading proposed by Th. J. H. Krispijn. There is more to be said about this reading and about its effect on our understanding of ancient Near Eastern music. Krispijn's new reading is for the text UET VII 74, for which Gurney now gives an updated transliteration (p. 102). I reproduce here Gurney's paradigms for the instructions in Chapters I (ll. 1–12) and II (ll. 13–20) of UET VII 74.

(1–12) If the sammu is (tuned as) X and the (interval) Y is not clear, you tighten the string N and then Y will be clear. Tightening.

(13–20) If the sammu is (tuned as) X and you have played an (unclear) interval Y, you loosen the string N and the sammu will be (in the tuning) Z. [Loosening].

When first interpreting this text twenty-five years ago, it was assumed that Chapter I involved loosening the strings one by one, thus shifting the whole tuning gradually downwards; and in Chapter II, tightening the strings one by one, with the reverse effect. As we then read the text, it did not specify tightening or loosening, and so the choice was arbitrary. Gurney (p. 102) blames the choice on the assumption that the text referred to the harp, whose longest and lowest string was identified as “front”, therefore (according to Nabnītu XXXII) the “first”.

The text of úru àm-ma-ir-ra-bi, the longest extant Sumerian balaĝ-lament, is in the process of recovery and reconstruction from Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform tablets. This article presents a previously unpublished Babylonian tablet fragment that holds part of the composition's hitherto unknown eleventh tablet. The fragment also contains part of the catchline to the twelfth tablet, also unidentified until now, and is thus an important source for the reconstruction of úru àm-ma-ir-ra-bi.

A 2016 study season and 2017 excavation season at the 95-hectare walled site of Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil plain have generated a variety of new results. Geophysical survey on the lower town revealed details of the Middle Bronze occupation in the southeast part of the site, including the city wall, a large open area, streets, houses, and a monumental temple comparable to examples from Tell al Rimah, Aššur, and Larsa. Excavations confirmed the Middle Bronze date of the temple and explored further Middle Bronze contexts elsewhere on the lower town. On the High Mound North Slope, Middle Bronze occupation included a fortification wall and large-scale architecture inside it. On the High Mound East, Late Bronze architecture of apparent elite character was documented. Archaeobotanical analyses complementing the excavations reveal the existence of naan-style bread in both Middle and Late Bronze contexts. Given radiocarbon and ceramic results, the Middle Bronze occupation at Kurd Qaburstan is datable to c. 1800 B.C., while the Late Bronze phases on the High Mound East belong to an early LB horizon in the 16–15th centuries B.C., perhaps predating the imposition of Mittani political authority in the region.

This article presents detailed illustrations of two rock-reliefs from the neighbouring sites Rabana and Merquly, located on the flanks of Mt. Piramagrun in Iraqi Kurdistan. Both matching sculptures are aligned with perimeter fortifications that enclose substantial architectural remains. Based on numismatic parallels, supported by archaeological evidence, it is proposed that these depictions of near life-size figures represent an anonymous Arsacid King of Kings from the early first millennium (c. a.d. 50-150), who was credited with construction of the mountain fortresses. Rabana and Merquly together form an important landscape of settlement on the north-western frontier of the Parthian Empire.

We present editions of five cuneiform tablets in the collection of Norwich Castle Museum and two held by Cambridge University Library. The Norwich tablets comprise three tablets from the well-known “Mesag archive” or “Umma C” from the Sargonic period; one small tablet from Ur III Umma; and a fragment of an unprovenanced Old Babylonian account. Those in Cambridge are both from Ur III Girsu: a wool receipt and part of a balanced labour account.

As a small contribution to the volume of Iraq in honour of Professor Sidney Smith, I offer for publication a curious cylinder seal in the Kültepe style. This contribution, although inadequate, is at least fitting, because Professor Smith is well known for his contributions in this field.

The seal illustrated on Plate III is in a private collection and was bought in Beirut; it is 1.9 cms in length, and is made of haematite; glistening particles show in some places where the stone is engraved. The central scene depicts a bearded figure seated on a stool, clad in a flounced robe of striped multicoloured stuff, with a round cap or turban. The projecting point seems to me fortuitous, and to be caused by a slip of the engraver's tool rather than with the intention of depicting the horned cap of divinity. Approaching this enthroned figure is a worshipper, beardless, wearing a round cap and a fringed garment which hangs open in the Syrian manner. He holds a staff in front of him like a sceptre. At the knee of the enthroned figure sits a monkey, above his hand is a star, crescent and sun disc. Beside this scene there seems to have been originally a four-line inscription. Two lines of the inscription were subsequently partly defaced; this is demonstrated by the very faint sign in the middle of the third line KI. I am unable to make out any other traces of partly obliterated signs. The cuneiform is to be read directly from the stone, as on the majority of Kültepe seals. The photographic print has been reversed in the illustration for ease of reference.

The study of Assyrian history involves problems of a unique character within the ancient Near East. The quantity of relevant material is greater than that for any other kingdom of comparable duration and influence, yet it is so one-sided in content and purpose that it creates as many problems as it solves. While Assyria flourished as an international power, from c. 1350–1100 B.C. and from c. 850–600 B.C., documents rich in historical information were regularly compiled, of which a fair selection have come down to us. No other nation has left so detailed a report of a single military campaign as that of the Eighth Campaign of Sargon II, nor such extensive records of a reign as those for Aššurbanipal. This kind of material is supported by chronological lists both of the līmu-officers (high officials who functioned for one year and gave their name to that year) and of the kings of Assyria with lengths of reign (probably derived from the līmu-lists, since the kings shared in this office). These provide the only solid basis for the whole of Near Eastern chronology from the middle of the second millennium and downwards. In addition archives of administrative documents and official correspondence give valuable insights for some periods. However, the conversion of these sources into history, in any realistic sense of the term, depends on the addition of a good measure of interpretation, and this the texts do not provide. They are the official records of a centralized military state, and, save for the chronological lists and day-to-day documents, they are intended to glorify the king.

The hitherto unpublished Late Babylonian fragment BM 47806 + adds another example to the group of rituals which counteract witchcraft by banning sorcerers to the netherworld. Šamaš is asked to hand them over, on his journey to the netherworld, to Ḫumuṭ-tabal, the ferryman of the dead. The edition of BM 47806 + is preceded by a brief overview of rituals of this type, including a discussion of the relationship between ritual burial of figurines – symbolising the dismissal of sorcerers to the netherworld – and their ritual burning, the other single most important technique of figurine magic deployed to kill warlock and witch.

Trotz der zahlreichen, bisher durchgeführten Untersuchungen über den Streitwagen im Altertum möchte ich mich hier noch einmal in einem kurzen Referat mit dem Typ des assyrischen Streitwagens und mit seinem Aussehen zu den verschiedenen Zeiten beschäftigen, denn wie im folgenden gezeigt wird, haben sich einige neue Gesichtspunkte ergeben.

Von den bedeutendsten Arbeiten sind in erster Linie zu nennen die Abhandlungen von E. Unger, Der Rennwagen in Vorderasien, U. Popplow, Pferd und Wagen im Alten Orient, J. Wiesner, Fahren und Reiten in Alteuropa und im Alten Orient aus den Jahren 1929, 1934 und 1939, sowie die ausgezeichneten lexigraphisch-kulturgeschichtlichen Untersuchungen A. Salonens über die Landfahrzeuge, die 1951 erschienen sind.

Fragments of a cuneiform description of Babylon, containing the names of the town, its temples, and gates, have been published by Prof. E. Unger in W.V.D.O.G. XLVIII, pl. 82 and in his book Die Stadt Babylon, 229 ff. Notes on these tablets have been published by B. Landsberger in Z.A. XLI. 287 ff. There are seven fragments: 1. V.A.T. 13101 (Photo W.V.D.O.G. XLVII, pl.82);2. V.A.T.554(Reisner, Hymne No.5, Photo W.V.D.O.G.XLVIII, pl. 82); 3. B.M. 34878 (Photo W.V.D.O.G. XLVIII, pl. 82); 4. V.A.T. 13200 (Matouš, L.T.B.A. 1, No. 72, Photo Z.A. XLI, pl. VIII); 5. K. 3089 (P.S.B.A. XXII (1900), 559); 6. V.A.T. 401 (Photo Z.A. XLI, pl. VII); 7. K. 15122 (King, Suppl.).

The three tablets of the Ashmolean 1924–846, 1924–810, 1924–849 are partly duplicates, but fill large gaps. 1924–849 is a duplicate of V.A.T. 13101, col. I. V.A.T. 13101, col. I, fills the gap in 1924–849, obv. It contains the various names of Babylon, and according to its colophon it is an extract of the first tablet of the series, TIN-TIR(ki). This proves that V.A.T. 13101 is not the fifth tablet of the series TIN-TIR(ki), but that its colophon means— as B. Landsberger has already suggested in Z.A. XLI. 288—that five tablets have been written on a single one. V.A.T. 13101 does not give the whole series, but only extracts of five tablets.